Graphic novel news

If you're stuck for something to buy the comics fan with everything this Christmas, Titan Books has launched a selection of titles that would make ideal last-minute presents. Creatures of the Night is a comic adaptation of two Neil Gaiman short stories, originally published in his anthology Smoke and Mirrors (Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk) and illustrated by Michael Zulli, who has previously collaborated with Gaiman on the Sandman series. Alan Moore fans needn't feel left out - in Smax he takes two characters from Top Ten on an adventure to a world where Tolkien-esque fantasy is reality (check out our review for more information). Buffy fans won't want to be without Tales of the Vampires, which examines the history of some of Buffy's famous adversaries and features writers from the TV series alongside some great comic artists. Super-spies of the Sixties more your thing? Then try James Bond: Goldfinger and Modesty Blaise: The Black Pearl, both reprinted from classic British newspaper strips. Y: The Last Man also hits volume 4 with Safeword and JLA gets to volume 15 with The Tenth Circle by John Byrne and Chris Claremont.

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Order from Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk

Order from Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk

Order from Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk

Order from Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk

Order from Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk


Order from Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk

Burlyman Entertainment has released a preview of The Matrix Comics Volume 2 through its website. Available as a pop-up or a download, the preview features artwork from each of the creators involved, including the Wachowski brothers, Peter Bagge, Paul Chadwick, Ted McKeever and Bill Sienkiewicz.

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From the official press release:

In My Darkest Hour by Wilfred Santiago
The Age of Anxiety has never been better depicted in comics form than in In My Darkest Hour, a modernist, mainstream graphic novel that explores the inner life of its protagonist, Omar Guerrero, a 28 year-old Latin American transient, who confronts his pervasive feelings of inadequacy, anger, guilt, and escalating alienation. This is the first full-length graphic novel for Fantagraphics from Chicago cartoonist Wilfred Santiago. He previously collaborated with Ho Che Anderson (King) on the comic book series Pop Life.

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If you like your comics to be like action movies, why not sample the second volume in the Raider series, out now? A Cold Day in Heaven takes the eponymous secret agent on a mission to destroy a deadly virus before it's created, with a few personal demons thrown in for good measure. Click on the following links to visit the official Raider website to download a preview, read an interview with creator Thom Zahler or visit Thom's own website.

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In the shops now, look out for Killer Princesses by Gail Simone and Lea Hernandez, published by Oni Press. The 96 page book collects the latest "hilarious tale of killer smiles and empty heads," features an introduction by Mark Waid and also contains a brand new illustrated prose story.

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From the official press release:

WHAT'RE YOU LOOKIN' AT?!?
By Johnny Ryan - 176 pages - $16.95 - ISBN 1-56097-621-7
Collecting the first five Fantagraphics issues of Angry Youth Comix, and more! Featuring Johnny Ryan's signature creation, Loady McGee (and straight-man Synus O'Gynus), a misanthropic, acne-scarred hustler who finds himself in scams that would make Wimpy proud, and responds to almost everything with an endless stream of wisecracks, puns, and X-rated double entendres. Loady's ridiculous crackpot schemes serve as perfect comic set-ups, and Ryan's art is crammed with visual gags and existential asides that brings to mind the great Will Elder (MAD magazine). Needless to say, this is not politically-correct stuff, nor is it for children. Ryan's in-your-face humor spares no prisoners, as these stories indicate: "Hipler," a riotous satire of our "extreme makeover" era and celebrity culture; "Ku Klux Kuties," which tests just how far the usual doe-eyed visual tropes can be taken and still make you go, "Aww."; and Ryan's most infamous strip to-date, "The Gaytriot," which caused a p.c.-stir when it was included in The Comics Journal's otherwise-sincere and serious "Cartoonists on Patriotism" volume in 2002. It also features an all-new Gaytriot epilogue! Plus, 16 pages in color!

IN MY DARKEST HOUR
By Wilfred Santiago - 128 pages - $14.95 - ISBN 1-56097-591-1
The Age of Anxiety has never been better depicted in comics form than in In My Darkest Hour, a modernist, mainstream graphic novel that explores the inner life of its protagonist, Omar Guerrero, a 28 year-old Latin American transient, who confronts his pervasive feelings of inadequacy, anger, guilt, and escalating alienation. The first full-length graphic novel from Pop Life collaborator Wilfred Santiago, told in a lovely two-color format.

ZIPPY: FROM HERE TO ABSURDITY
By Bill Griffith - 128 page - $19.95 - ISBN 1-56097-618-7
This new Zippy collection features approximately a year's worth of strips, from November 2003 through November 2004, including full-color Sundays. Follow Zippy as he weaves in and out of "Bushmiller Country" (the land formerly inhabited by Ernie Bushmiller's classic Nancy comic strip) and - as if things weren't strange enough - he suddenly begins spouting Japanese, French, Russian, Farsi, Hungarian, Greek, Finnish and Latin! Zippy meets aliens, revisits Levittown (his birthplace) with Griffy, confronts the evil "Ziggy" and frolics with advertising icons like Reddy Kilowatt, Mr. Bubble, Colonel Sanders and the long-forgotten Unifax Astroboy. Oh, yeah, and he takes a long, hot bath (without Mr. Bubble). Also featured, a 3 page series of Zippyesque "art history lessons". Each strip shows the work of different well-known fine artistes of the recent past depicted on banners in a circus sideshow. Various customers contemplate the displays, a little unsure about whether or not to enter the tent. See the "Crying Picasso Girl"! The Rene Magritte "Apple-Face Man"! Edward Hopper's "Haunted Housewife"! Alberto Giacometti's "Dead Man Walking"! The series ends with Zippy & Griffy finally going in to "expose the con game", only to confront a guy who convices them he's psychic healer Gary Spivey!! New Sunday strips include visits to other comics genres, including '50s sci-fi, Romance Comics ("Young Lust" redux!) and Irving Tripp's "Little Lulu".

Pat Mills's epic World War I story Charley's War is being reprinted by Titan Books in a beautiful hardback edition. This first volume, on sale now, charts the first few months of Charley Bourne's experiences, from fibbing about his age to enlist, through to the savage trenches of the Somme. These stories were originally published in weekly comic Battle in 1979.

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