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In this sensitive and affecting manga debut, this story follows the lives of two Japanese war brides following WWII, and the simmering tensions around identity, sexuality, and cultural change as their country rebuilds from the devastation.
After Japan lost the War, the country was thrown into devastation. No one felt this devastation as much as Japanese women, who, left with few paths to choose from, took low-wage jobs, fell into sex work, and wed American G.I.s. In their affecting graphic novel debut, Marina Lisa Komiya follows the lives of two Japanese women and the American soldiers they marry in this tumultuous time period.
Best friends (and possibly more) before the War, Haru and Yoriko are separated in the evacuation of their town during the air raids. As they search for each other afterward, Haru gets by as a waitress, while Yoriko sells her body at a brothel. Their fortunes change when they each meet respectful American soldiers, who take their hand. Arthur, a Japanese American, grapples with the inner conflict of his dual identity, while Scott is at once fascinated by Japanese culture and wracked with guilt over the destruction American forces have wrought.
Amidst the postwar desolation, love finds a way, in this powerful work of manga that explores sexuality, identity, and unlikely cross-cultural connection.
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These erotic comics stories, spanning 1968–1991, chronicle the surreal adventures of Bianca. Introduced in the aptly named “An Expansive Story,” the first two-thirds of this volume, Bianca appears to be trapped in (or haunted by?) a gothic boarding school, whose administrators and pupils have untoward and sinister designs. Bianca will bounce back and forth between this school and dreamscape after dreamscape—she becomes a plant, talks to fish while diving under the sea, is served up on a silver platter, thrown out with the garbage, witnesses a double homicide, and much more—unfazed as she contorts into ever-more-absurd scenarios. Then, Bianca faces the trials and tribulations of Gulliver before she hands the baton to Valentina, Crepax’s most famous heroine. Who, feeling introspective, “speaks” to both Bianca and Crepax before modeling in a spectacular, full-color “fashion dream.”
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Barbara "Willy" Mendes' masterpiece of hallucinogenic storytelling, Queen of Cosmos Comix Trilogy, collected for the first time in a single volume.
In Queen of Cosmos Comix Trilogy, underground cartoonist, fine artist, and muralist Barbara "Willy" Mendes chronicles women creators' psychedelic journey through Biblical tableaux, modern life, and into a fantastical, interstellar future, weaving in her own intimate stories of being an artist, mother, and grandmother, especially in the never-before-published third volume. Inspired by Jewish mysticism, Mendes presents a creation myth shaped by feminine cosmic consciousness, with new, immersive worlds — and a radical reimagining of this one.
Includes an illuminating and entertaining interview with Mendes, as well as the 3rd never-before-published chapter of the trilogy.
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Roberta Gregory launched Naughty Bits in 1991. It became the longest-running solo alternative comic book series by a female cartoonist, coming to an end in 2004 after an influential and pioneering 14-year, 40-issue run. The series largely focused on her signature character Bitchy Bitch (aka Midge), whose stories remain the pinnacle of a historic career, and a highwater mark in comics and graphic novels over the past 40 years, and this summer sees the release of Bitchy! The Exasperating Existence of Midge McCracken, a 500-page compilation of Gregory's "Bitchy Bitch" stories, presenting a life from childhood into middle age, following the character through multiple decades. To celebrate its release, as well as the 50th anniversary of Fantagraphics, we are proud to release this "facsimile edition" of where it all began!
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Two identical twins—one genetically engineered and one not—take center stage in this sci-fi mashup of motherhood, identity, and artificial intelligence.
Identical is the story of two twin girls born in the not-so-distant future, where fertility treatments have begun to use new, AI “technology.” Their mother, desperate to have a baby, has sought out this new technology to get pregnant. After they are born, she slowly begins to suspect that one twin is human... while the other is not. Narrated by one of the twins themselves, Identical takes the reader down an uncanny odyssey of self-discovery... one where you are never sure which “self” you really are.
Hayes uses her own experience as an identical twin to explore the realms of sameness and difference, separation and unity. After many years of illustrating books about others (Not Funny Ha-Ha: A Handbook for Something Hard), Identical marks Hayes’s first time turning the pen inward — bravely exploring the powerful bond that has defined her entire life. Hayes’s engaging and aesthetically avant garde contemporary storytelling, combining elements of science fiction and magic realism, make for one of the most unique graphic novels of 2026.
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A sensitive masterpiece from Japan’s most prominent creator of LGBTQ+ manga — the acclaimed series in a newly designed paperback edition.
Middle School. The threshold to puberty, and the beginning of the end of childhood innocence. Shuichi Nitori and his new friend Yoshino Takatsuki have happy homes, loving families, and are well-liked by their classmates. But they share a secret that further complicates a time of life that is awkward for anyone: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy. Written and drawn by one of today’s most critically acclaimed creators of manga, Shimura Takako (Even Though We’re Adults), Wandering Son portrays Shuishi and Yoshino’s journey with affection, sensitivity, and gentle humor as they are figuring out their respective genders and take tentative, age-appropriate steps toward transitioning.
This new paperback edition collects the first two volumes of Wandering Son (which has been adapted into an anime of the same name available on Crunchyroll). Volume One introduces our two protagonists and the friends and family whose lives intersect with their own. Yoshino is rudely reminded of her sex by immature boys whose budding interest in girls takes clumsily cruel forms. Shuichi’s secret is discovered by Saori, a perceptive and eccentric classmate. In Volume Two, Shuichi and Yoshino have entered the sixth grade and the kids go on a class trip that is a rite of passage Shuichi would rather pass up.
A superb coming-of-age story, Wandering Son is a sophisticated work of literary manga translated with rare skill and sensitivity by veteran translator and comics scholar Rachel Thorn.
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The first new edition in 30 years, I Want to Be Your Dog is the story where Ho Che Anderson announced himself as a creative force to be reckoned with.
Mary Greenberg, a Jewish Guyanese woman living in Toronto, is recovering from a bad breakup. One that makes her want to be bad all by herself. Mary’s ex, Xal, is a sadomasochistic abuser and petty thief, lying low in New York City with his brother Baron. Mary was Xal’s collared “dog” but this time around, she wants to be the one holding the leash. That’s when she meets Damian—sweet, soft, and woefully insecure about sex. What starts as a genuine connection becomes an ugly web of moral corruption, domination, and submission. To make matters worse, Mary wants to know what it’s like to kill someone. And that’s before Xal washes up back in Toronto.
This new omnibus edition includes, for the first time ever in print, the digital-only short story “Miles From Home”, a gently heartbreaking side sequel focusing on Mary’s sister, Mo, and a brand-new chapter focusing on Mary decades later which is a bittersweet coda to the main story. Plus, bonus material featuring promotional sketches, deleted scenes, and the author’s reflections on the work three decades later. Visually daring and thematically fearless, Anderson’s opus remains as real and raw today.
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In the summer of 1949, Marvel decided to bring its successful sports pulps to the Atlas comic-book line, launching Sport Stars #1, which became Sports Action with its second issue, the same name as one of his most successful sports pulps of the 1930s.
Across fourteen tumultuous issues, the artistic cream of the Timely/Atlas crop (Syd Shores, Joe Maneely, Bill Everett, Bob Powell, Gene Colan, George Tuska, Bernard Krigstein, and others) told biographical stories about sports heroes of the 1930s and 1940s in all the major sports: Knute Rockne (football), Hack Wilson (baseball), Man O’War (horse racing), Herman Sandow (physical culture), Bronco Nagurski (football), Ralph Kiner (baseball), Phil Rizzuto (baseball), Warren Spahn (baseball), Sugar Ray Robinson (boxing), Jackie Robinson (baseball), and Niles Kinnick, the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner of the Iowa Hawkeyes, among a score of others!
These never before collected stories add to the historical Timely/Atlas tapestry, providing another window into the variety and breadth of Marvel’s early history.
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A secret history of comics, unearthed within the moving biography of legendary comic artist Bernard Krigstein. Take a walk with The Outsider.
Comics in the 1950s is a nowhere medium for journeymen and artistically frustrated illustrators. Certainly that’s what Bernie Krigstein —a comics artist and out-of-step painter slumming in the sleazy comics industry to make ends meet— thinks. What starts as an escape attempt from the rut of cranking out comics takes successive leaps into tales of labor organizing and fighting tenaciously to realize the artistic potential of the medium.
The Outsider is both a bird’s-eye view of the comic book industry in the 1950s and an intimate portrait of one of its most militant artists. Joseph D’Esposito explores the Jewish roots of comics and its lineage of Black, women, and other unsung participants (such as Matt Baker, a Black pioneer of the graphic novel). In the political hotbed of postwar America, the personal and the political weave vertiginously, culminating in “Master Race,” written by Al Feldstein and elevated into one of the few serious early comics works by Krigstein’s formal innovations.
The beating heart of Krigstein’s journey is his wife, Natalie, a multifaceted character who grapples with competing roles as steadfast partner, postpartum mother, and ambitious writer. Other friends and foils include Stan Lee, Harvey Kurtzman, and Robert Kanigher. The Outsider is a story about dedication, frustration, ambition, anger, integrity —the 1950s comic book industry— all told in vivid, painterly strokes of melancholic blue.
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Presenting the complete collection of Joe Matt’s legendary autobiographical comic book series — a masterpiece of modern humor.
Few comic book series can claim to have influenced a generation of cartoonists, comics fans, and comedians the way Joe Matt’s Peepshow did during its fourteen issues from 1992 to 2006. With an often alarming and always hilarious compulsion to confess, Matt found no aspect of his life that wasn’t more grist for the humor mill: his dysfunctional (and sometimes abusive) relationships, his Catholic repression, his horrible social skills, his addiction to pornography, his masturbation habits, etc. Yes, the character Joe Matt was usually an insufferable outsider, but in the hands of Joe Matt the writer/artist, his life was depicted with an eye and ear for human folly that rivaled R. Crumb, as well as an entertainer’s instinct and sense of comedic timing to rival Larry David, and it made Peepshow one of the most essential reads of its era.
This book collects for the first time the entire original fourteen-issue series in one hardcover volume, as well as the posthumously-published fifteenth issue from 2024 (detailing Matt’s move to Los Angeles in 2003 to pursue an ill-fated HBO adaptation of his work), each presented as painstakingly-restored facsimiles of the original issues. This definitive Joe Matt collection also includes other art and ephemera from the artist’s personal archives, including a hand-written introduction to a complete Peepshow collection that at the time was purely hypothetical and was only discovered after his death in 2023. Peepshow is rounded out with an insightful afterword by Diana Schutz, the Will Eisner Hall of Fame comics writer and editor, and longtime friend of Matt’s (and sister of Trish, Matt’s ex-girlfriend and key player in Peepshow’s cast).
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A family death and a missing Picasso send a mother and son on an unexpected spring break that threatens to permanently damage their relationship — if they survive the trip!
When her semi-estranged and penniless hoarder father dies, Erin Messina is tasked with cleaning out his house before the bank forecloses on it. This otherwise thankless task is given a purpose, however, when she remembers the original Picasso drawing her father was gifted in 1964. She enlists her teenage son, Jackson, to spend spring break looking for their possible ticket to long-term financial stability. Jackson, resentful and eager to shirk responsibility, befriends twin skateboarders who live in the hood, and tell him about the violent murder that happened directly across the street from his grandfather’s home — and the murderer who still lives there. Emotional baggage, paranoia, and frayed nerves stretch the Messina’s relationship to the brink, as The Mess careens to a thrilling final act that includes… two-way radio communication with the dead?
Over the past decade, Noah Van Sciver has established himself as the most versatile graphic novelist working today. Whether it be in the service of straight-up satire (Fante Bukowski, Beat It, Rufus!), serious historical nonfiction (Joseph Smith and the Mormons, The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln), autobiography (As a Cartoonist, One Dirty Tree), or books for younger readers (Calamity Before Jane, Johnny Appleseed), Van Sciver’s singular voice and style has proven remarkably malleable to the needs of each project. With The Mess, Van Sciver stakes yet new creative ground as a fiction writer, crafting the most magnetic and literary work of his career. The Mess is a brilliant, original graphic novel infused with drama, laughs, pathos, and suspense, beautifully drawn and colored in Van Sciver’s immersive and intimate style.
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Don Schlitten was working as a photographer and commercial artist in New York City when he co-founded Signal Records in 1955. When Signal was folded into Prestige Records shortly thereafter, Bob Weinstock, head of Prestige, enlisted Don to produce music, photograph musicians, and design album covers. His name graces the album covers of over 400 records produced between the 1950’s and 1980’s, either as producer, photographer, or album designer, often all three.
This book features over 100 photos, personally selected by Don Schlitten as his personal best, many unseen, others familiar as album covers but given new context in their original format. Featuring icons of jazz like Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, and Frank Sinatra, it also includes candid photos of such unsung giants of jazz as Booker Ervin, Eric Dolphy, Mal Waldron, Don Patterson, Etta Jones, and Sonny Criss and more.
The book includes a biographical essay written by jazz scribe Ted Panken with an introduction by the “Jazz Detective” himself, Zev Feldman. As an extra bonus, this book features an American Splendor comic strip that features Don educating Harvey Pekar, as well as a gallery of Don’s personal favorite top 30 album covers.
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Milo Manara’s famously inept adventurer returns in two engagingly absurdist adventures that absolutely attest to the existence of free will — or do they?
Is life a stage, and do we just follow a script? Can we rewrite our roles, or must we play along according to the instructions of others? The two stories in this volume, An Author in Search of Six Characters and Days of Wrath, take place in Africa, which author/artist Milo Manara views as the bearer of insight and hope for the rest of the world.
Turning Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” on its head, Manara sets our favorite inept, globe-trotting hero-naif, Giuseppe Bergman (Manara’s comics alter ego), off on another quest for adventure. An off-panel director hands out scripts and then disappears. (Are we watching a play or are we in it?) Dedicated to playing his role, Giuseppe is confused when others assert themselves and send the entire scenario spinning out of control. His sexy co-star, Lulu, cast as a bimbo, rewrites herself as the hero, leading us to ponder deeper matters, such as whether we possess true free will or we just think we do. (But watch out! Just when you think the answer is in sight, Manara flips the script once again.)
Giuseppe Bergman’s second African adventure begins with Chloe, a winsome nymphet who asks many questions — about the facts of life (and the fictions, too). Is she really that innocent? Or is she just drawn that way? Manara allows his characters to break the “fourth wall” as Chloe beckons us into an erotic, exotic Fellini-esque romp revolving around young Giuseppe’s determination to return a kidnapped child to her tribe. His real motive? To break free and become the hero of his own story, rather than remain the hapless plaything of an omniscient narrator. Part tongue in cheek, part philosophical exploration, Manara lets Chloe wink in and out like a mischievous Tinker Bell, pushing events forward only to then pull them back — as Giuseppe Bergman struggles to make sense of it all and become the hero he needs to be.
Artist/writer/creator Milo Manara skewers adventure comics and narrative convention itself in this absurdist, sophisticated satire. The Magnificent African Adventure, two complete stories in one volume.
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