Okinawa

by Susumu Higa

A peaceful, independent kingdom until its annexation by the Japanese Empire in the 19th century, Okinawa was the site of the most destructive land battle of the Pacific War. Today, the archipelago is Japan’s poorest prefecture and unwilling host to 75% of all US military bases in Japan.

Okinawa is a harrowing document of war, but it is also a work which addresses the dreams and the needs of a people as they go forward into an uncertain future, making it essential reading for anyone interested in World War II and its effects on our lives today, as well as anyone with an interest in the people and culture of this fascinating, complicated place. Though the work is thoroughly about one specific locale, the complex relations between Okinawan and Japanese identities and loyalties, between place and history, and between humanity and violence speak beyond borders and across shores.

Eden II

by K. Wroten

A blistering critique of digital media and a kaleidoscopic depiction of consumer culture, Eden II is both fanciful and satirical, a combination of deft cartooning and virtuosic storytelling.

Reminiscent of the stylized angst of Gregg Araki and Jamie Babbit’s works, Wroten’s imagery in Eden II reflects the blighted pastiche of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker—and they have suffused that pastiche with a dark sense of humor and technologically enhanced moral ambiguity.

Proof That the Devil Loves You

by Gilbert Hernandez

Proof That the Devil Loves You is the latest in a series of graphic novels featuring Gilbert Hernandez’s character Fritz, a B-movie actress (and half-sister to his iconic Love and Rockets character, Luba) whose hourglass figure has earned her a cult following. This book presents three Fritz B-movies: one all-new, two revised and expanded from their initial comic book run. The titular story is a fable set in a world very reminiscent of Palomar. Then, Fritz plays an “astronette” on an existential mission through space.

A Book to Make Friends With

by Lukas Verstraete

A Book to Make Friends With marks the explosive English language debut of Flemish cartoonist Lukas Verstraete. What begins as a Pulp Fiction-inspired heist, in which two masked gangsters rob a passerby of his mysterious briefcase, soon snowballs into a psychedelic journey full of chase scenes, shapeshifting, soul possession, spiritual hallucinations, and unrequited romance. It all culminates in an epic, breathtakingly rendered battle between good and evil. At turns playful, philosophical, and kinetically riotous, you’ve never seen a graphic novel quite like this. Printed as an oversized hardcover edition encased in a luxurious slipcase, this book is as much a gorgeous aesthetic object as an engrossing work of fiction.

Memoirs of a Man in Pajamas

by Paco Roca

At 40, cartoonist Paco Roca has finally achieved his childhood dream — to spend all day at home in his pajamas! However, his blissful, loungewear-clad reverie is beset with a host of mundane problems: He dreads small talk with “the world’s biggest bore,” but his excuses and white lies are finally catching up with him. When a good friend breaks up, taking either side could lead to social disaster. The simple mission to change his train ticket descends into an impossibly complicated, Kafka-esque affair. And worst of all, his partner keeps hanging the toilet paper roll the wrong way! In the vein of sitcoms like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Roca’s comic vignettes brilliantly satirize the pesky pitfalls of modern-day life.

The Cloven: Book Two

by Garth Stein and Matthew Southworth

Moody and mysterious and atmospheric as a fever dream, The Cloven is a raucous, funny, and dynamic sci-fi graphic novel series about James “Tuck” Tucker, a genetically modified human organism known as a Cloven, written by Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain) and drawn by Matthew Southworth (co-creator of the graphic novel series Stumptown), two of today’s bestselling and critically acclaimed storytellers.

Starseeds 3

by Charles Glaubitz

The past of all consciousness crescendos in Starseeds 3, as the Prophecy of the Starseeds is realized! Charles Glaubitz’s Starseeds series is an epic work of pictorial and cosmological brilliance, combining elements of metaphysics, mythology, archetypes, religion, and spirituality with comics, conspiracy, hermetic ideas, alchemy, and science. A visually arresting marvel of psychedelia art and ideas, via a story of epic conflict in tune with the works of Jack Kirby and Gary Panter, with a heavy dose of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy mixed in.

All One Life

by Jon Strongbow

In stunning 3D imagery, All One Life is an imaginative collection of postcolonial, spiritually inflected images portraying the city of Seattle’s past and present.

Inspired by a 3-page comic by the French cartoonist Jean Giraud (Moebius) illustrating a speech by Chief Seattle, Seattle-based cartoonist Jon Strongbow went on a spiritual journey. He studied at the Red Cedar Circle, a community dedicated to the ancient teachings of the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast, attended a local Tibetan monastery, and was mentored by local native healers and medicine people. Deeply moved by these teachings, he sought to honor the culture of the original inhabitants and refute the devastation wrought upon them by depicting today’s Seattle imbued with ghosts of the original inhabitants of Northwest Coastal natives.

All One Life is a series of 29 stunningly imaginative images — meticulously rendered and expertly transformed into 3D (glasses required and included) — that juxtapose the city’s past and present, indicating what we have lost by destroying the tribal nations.

Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck in Les Misérables and War and Peace

by Giovan Battista Carpi

It’s Victor Hugo… duckified! In the tradition of Mickey’s Christmas Carol and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, master Disney comics writer/artists tackle wild retellings of great literature!