40. Copra Compendium
It’s finally here, courtesy of Bergen St. Comics. With a voice all his own Fiffe swipes liberally from Miller & Kirby, then high-tails it for the border.
39. Electric Light Orchestra
If there’s a better album to make comics to than ELO’s NEW WORLD RECORD, please tell me about it.
38. This Commencement Speech by Joss Whedon
Because YOU HAVE ALREADY BEGUN TO DIE.
37. Poutine
When this stuff finally breaks in the states, dozens of organic locally-sourced poutineries will start popping up all over Williamsburg & Silverlake.
36. Inky
We got a new cat. He’s a little monster, but also a kitten so we are legally and morally obligated to love him.
35. Infinite Vacation #5
It came out a few months ago, but we just caught up — some of the most eye-popping storytelling and pure on-the-page visual majesty we’ve seen this year.
34. Eddie Hazel’s “I Want You/She’s So Heavy”
Exuberant & searching. Thick as a brick & lighter than air.
33. Superior Spider-man
Alright you stupid, disposable stunt of a superhero book. I surrender. You have won me over. I enjoy you immensely.
32. Film Crit Hulk
Because HULK HAVE DEEP AND ABIDING LOVE OF CINEMA. HULK RECOGNIZE INHERENT VALUES OF POP, NARRATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL STYLES.
31. Irma Kniivila
This Toronto-based illustrator was our neighbor at TCAF, and her sweet, lush, cat-heavy work soothed us through an exhausting weekend.
30. Theo Ellsworth
The mind’s-eye cartoonist journeys ever further inward with RELAX, WE HAVE ALIEN VEHICLES, his record of training sessions at the Imaginary Learning Center.
29. Quarter Moon Logo
We’re still going over various iterations with the great Jasen Lex, but we’re thinking something like this.
28. Bob Dylan’s 72nd Birthday
We celebrate with unearthed footage of his secret secondary career as the house flautist for a public television synagogue.
27. Karen Berger Leaves Vertigo
The exodus of everyone and everything that once made DC great continues with the departure of legendary editor Karen Berger. Karen has been behind some of the greatest books of all time; we can’t wait to see what she’ll do next, or what will become of the once-mighty, ever-diminishing Vertigo imprint.
26. Three New Stories
Dash Shaw’s viciously funny, frightfully truthful new book is an end-of-empire kind of thing — laughing while the gates come crashing down.
25. Freddie Stories
These mercilessly funny, achingly human comic strips trace a year in the life a young, damaged boy. Lynda Barry knows the truth about the cruelty & vulnerability of children.
24. Tiny Kitten Teeth
Webcomic auteurs Frank & Becky collect their gorgeously painted story TINY KITTEN TEETH in an elegant cloth-bound edition befitting its rich & beautiful artwork.
23. The Wake #1
Sean Murphy and Scott Snyder unite with a first issue that baffles as much as it thrills. Cave-men, caged aliens, nano-augmented dolphin sidekicks in post-apocalyptic flooded cities; no idea where this one’s going, but I’m up for the ride.
22. Liberace: Behind the Candelabra
The man who twinkled the ivories as one of the last great old time showmen had a famously flamboyant lifestyle and a fabulously healthy appetite for fame & sex. Michael Douglas plays him as part sugar daddy, part lizard. Matt Damon steps way out of type as his young lover, and a cat-eyed Rob Lowe’s turn as a plastic surgeon nearly steals the show. Viva Liberace.
21. Miami Connection
Ian Herring reminded us at TCAF just how eternal friendship can be. And how to fight the ninja.
20. Make Good Art
Our friend Kyle interviewed Neil during a photo shoot for Philly Weekly a few weeks back. They talked about obstacles and hurdles and how to live in the world. Two wonderfully wise and warm people laying out a guideline for a better existence.
19. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
Jim Rugg and Jeff Smith are the latest cartoonists to sit down for wonderfully relaxed and honest chats with the Tell Me Something I Don’t Know crew (Jasen Lex, Ed Piskor, and… Jim Rugg).
18. TCAF
This was, no holds barred, the best convention we have ever been to, and we needed to mention it one more time. Endless thanks to the Beguiling, and to Anthony Del Col for helping us get a table.
17. Attack on Titan
First a brutal manga, now killer anime. An ongoing story that doesn’t know the meaning of “status quo.”
16. Batman 1972
Because you keep getting older, and he stays the same age. Fine work by Francesco Francavilla.
15. Covers Covered
In which we cover the Covers Covered album cover cover show. No cover.
14. Rarebit Fiend
Little Nemo’s funhouse mirror refracted through sophisticated, depressingly adult spectacles — money, mental illness & marital woes form the basis of a more existential sort of adventure.
13. Life & Times of Jack Kirby Kickstarter
Funded three times over — the only question left is who’s going to produce Kirby’s play?
12. James Jean
Our very favorite modern artist seems to have run his ship aground. James is a giant, and his work is a gift to human-kind. We believe he’s much bigger than any of the adversity he’s facing.
11. The Raw Edge
Devin Clark’s brutal, hard-boiled, bizarrely hilarious sci-fi noir tap-dances brilliantly on that thin line between clever & stupid.
10. We Will Remain
The best book yet from Retrofit Comics. At 22 years old Andrew White has a vivid and fully developed voice. We Will Remain already feels like a minor opus — we can’t wait to see where he goes from here.
9. Sub
Daryl Seitchik’s lyrical book starts with eleven pages of a girl drinking a glass of water, then tumbles gloriously into a dreamy ink-drenched ether.
8. Delusional
Between his new art book from AdHouse, IT WILL ALL HURT, and THE WRENCHIES inching ever closer, 2013 feels like the start of something big for Farel. Don’t call it a comeback…
7. Battling Boy
We have seen the advance copy, and holy hell, is comic book nation in for a treat.
6. This Conversation
POPE: I don’t feel like a rat in a cage. Do you feel like a rat in a cage? DAVE: No. POPE: What do you feel like? DAVE: I feel like a tiger.
5. Zodiac & Friends
This minimalist, subtly hilarious comic sings in a key all its own. Creator Kate Farquhar will be featured in issue two of QUARTER MOON.
4. Under Pressure by David Bowie & Annie Lennox
A gender-bent circus mirror centrifuge of desire. All you need to know about the rock & roll fantasy is in the last minute.
3. Supermag
An absolutely impossible display of versatile virtuosity from the one and only Jim Rugg. A one-man magazine more varied & adventurous than most anthology collections. Jim knows how to play all the notes.
2. Waga’s Big Scare
Sam Hiti turns the swoop & slither of his unique brushwork to an adorable & creepy children’s story, the sort that lodges somewhere in the back of your brain and camps out through adulthood.
1. Ray Harryhausen
Goodbye to one of the true masters and great souls. Ray made the world a more frightening, vivid, gorgeous and magical place. The fires he lit will burn forever.
