This issue features an in-depth, personal conversation between Kate Beaton and Sarah Glidden about depicting history, humor, and social issues in comics form; a profile of Gilbert Shelton; an interview with musician and cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis and much more. Featured in this issue: An in-depth, personal conversation between Kate Beaton (Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Hark! A Vagrant) and Sarah Glidden (Rolling Blackouts), from the Pizza Island comics collective, about depicting history, humor, and social issues in comics form; a profile of Gilbert Shelton (Zap, Fabulous Furry Freak Bros.), which includes a never-before-published-in-English "Shelton Hagiography" by French cartoonist Pic; and an interview with musician and cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis (12 Crass Songs, Fuff). Plus: "An Imaginary Publication Cover Gallery" by Marc Bell (Hot Potatoe); a new manga column that puts classic and contemporary manga (Kamen Rider and Hunter X Hunter) in concert; a publishing roundtable on how to grow the adult audience for comics; a deep dive into an underdiscussed Charlton cartoonist, Enrique Nieto; a case for fine artist Dorothy Iannone's work as comics, and much more.

Utopia comes with a price in this new 10th anniversary paperback edition of the acclaimed comedic graphic novel inspired by the author's mid-century colonialist grandfather. In 1947, the author's grandfather, Arsène Schrauwen, traveled across the ocean to a mysterious, dangerous jungle colony at the behest of his cousin. Together they would build something deemed impossible: a modern utopia in the wilderness - but not before Arsène falls in love with his cousin's wife, Marieke. Whether delirious from love or a fever-inducing jungle virus, Arsène's loosening grip on reality is mirrored by the graphic novel reader's uncertainty of what is imagined or real by Arsène. This first full-length graphic novel from the critically acclaimed Olivier Schrauwen is an engrossing, sometimes funny, slightly surreal and often beautiful narrative. Originally released in 2014, Arsène Schrauwen heralded the then largely-unknown-to-English readers Olivier Schrauwen as a major voice in international comics - a reputation that has only gained momentum over the ensuing decade with releases like 2024's Sunday.

In this imaginatively conceived historical graphic novel, Guy Colwell explores the story behind Hieronymus Bosch and his most famous work. In Guy Colwell's first full graphic novel in over 30 years, we see one painter, Colwell himself, consider another, Hieronymus Bosch, and the story behind the latter's most notable work told in sequential panels. The known details of Bosch's life, and the commissioning of his enormous triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," are scant. Colwell takes the facts of Bosch's time and setting and constructs a tale of a man and artist torn equally among piety, creativity, and commerce. In Colwell's version of Jheronimus van Aken (Bosch's real name), he is an artist paid well by local dukes to paint a vision of the world before the fall, but will the religious leaders of his village see it as celebrating God's creation, or fatally corrupted by sensuality? And what of the increasing numbers of young models needed to depict pre-apple innocence? This imaginatively conceived graphic biography is Colwell's crowning achievement in a cartooning career, begun in the underground comix movement of the 1970s, and marked by risk-taking and political engagement. His drawing, rendering, and storytelling has never been as self-assured as in Delights . GUY COLWELL is a painter and comics artist best known for his bestselling underground comix series Inner City Romance (collected into a volume published by Fantagraphics in 2015). He worked extensively as an illustrator, cartoonist and color artist for underground newspapers and publishers from the 1970s into the 1990s, between sabbaticals for environmental research travel and social action. His other books include Street Scenes (2015), In Fox's Forest (2016), and Doll (2019).

Yes, it's Buz Sawyer, who, when he isn't pushing experimental aircraft to the limit, is daring to - is that a flying saucer? Ripped from the headlines of the day, these eleven stories propel ace troubleshooter Buz Sawyer from Africa to South America to the Arctic Circle, from the heart of a hurricane to a plague of ravenous locusts. Meanwhile, back home, a femme fatale seduces Buz's C.O. to steal military secrets. Then, it's every parent's worst nightmare - Buz and Christy's new baby is kidnapped right in the hospital! Roy Crane, dean of the golden age of adventure comic strips, peppers these rollicking tales with rapid-fire action, suspense, intrigue, humor, unforgettable characters, and brilliant art. Now, at last, you can enjoy these stories, unseen since the 1950s. Look inside - and brace yourself for a wild ride!

An intricate monograph for a major retrospective of fine artist and cartoonist Guy Colwell's figurative paintings, each teeming with life, sparkling with color, rich in observational and sharp social commentary. Go Figure collects 44 "social surrealist" figurative paintings, spanning 1987-2023. All are in eye-popping color: many depict a crowd in observational tableaux, each figure a character by virtue of dress, body language, and interactions with each other, animals, and their setting. Other paintings reflect Colwell's wide travels, and still others are surreal - such as "Junior and the Legs" (2023), which shows a young man strumming a guitar on stage, accompanied by disembodied women's limbs. Each image has a narrative and a moral purpose-often, one figure bravely moves forward, despite a hostile crowd. In Guy Colwell's world, no individual could ever be an island, just another part of a rich ecosystem. Thematically, then, it is fitting that this book was made possible by a group of his collectors, who are sponsoring the show/Guy Colwell retrospective "Imaginary Reality," from which this book is created, in an independent space. Go Figure is in an 11" X 11" format, to best feature the high-quality reproductions of these numerous critically praised works.

This extremely rare, long out-of-print comic book of macabre and mysterious short stories launched the career of one of the medium's most distinctive stylists. Originally self-published in 1984 and never reprinted, this expanded hardcover represents the original Night Drive with rare art and other bonus material. When Richard Sala passed away in 2020, he left behind a uniquely eldritch body of graphic novels and illustrations, fueled by macabre whimsy and a love of dark mysteries and vintage monsters. Like David Lynch, Sala was a painter who turned to a storytelling medium that allowed him to create inventive narratives inspired by such disparate influences as French crime fiction, the grim humor of Charles Addams, the surreal poetry of Jorge Luis Borges, and his own penchant for all things gleefully ghoulish and sinister. Originally self-published in an edition of 500 copies in 1984, Night Drive collects several short stories inspired directly by pulp magazines, film noir, and Andre Breton - sinister and creepy pieces heavy on the atmosphere and signaling the creative emergence of a singular talent finding his footing with the surety of an artist equipped with the innate mastery of his craft and vision. Night Drive directly led to Sala contributing to Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly's Raw and the adaptation of Night Drive's "Invisible Hands" for MTV's Liquid Television, sparking an almost 40-year career as one of comics' finest creators and idiosyncratic creators. Edited by longtime Sala friend Dana Marie Andra (Web of Horror) and designed by Sala's friend and fellow cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Monica, Ghost World), who also contributes the Afterword, this graphic novella is rounded out with rare artwork, interviews with Sala about the book, and an essay by Andra.

In this period drama set in the 16th-century Netherlands, the unlikely pair of a proper Dutchwoman and her husband's slave mistress collaborate on a scientific discovery that could free them from the bounds of patriarchal society. The print debut of Korean manga artist Yudori is a richly imagined, erotic, feminist graphic novel. Amélie is a brilliant woman trapped in the restricting social mores of high Dutch society in the mid-16th century. Her marriage to Hans, a swashbuckling merchant, is a terrible match. While he charms the townsfolk, at home he is her intellectual inferior and treats her with cruelty and sexual violence. Expected to be a devoted housewife, Amélie can only be her true, free-spirited self when Hans travels away on business - when she can explore the town alone, lose herself in literature, and study winged animals to learn about the mechanics of flight. She looks to the skies and dreams of flying far away. Her life changes when Hans returns from his journey with Sahara, a slave mistress from a distant land. The two women are drawn to each other - each recognizing their confinement in a world dominated by men - and work together to seek their freedom. Told as a fiercely feminist story and spectacularly illustrated, Raging Clouds is the dazzling graphic novel debut of Korean comic book artist Yudori. In her lush manga style, Yudori imagines the period in rich detail with careful attention to settings and costumes, while evoking the cultural and societal standards of the time. She creates complex women characters who grapple with indignity over their social position, engage in lustful fantasies, and ultimately relish in seizing agency in their lives. Raging Clouds is a powerful story about the role of women in society, the reality of existing within a non-consensual relationship, and the struggle to push back against the boundaries these women have been boxed into.

Internationally acclaimed graphic novelist Olivier Schrauwen returns with a masterfully funny and profound day in the life narrative. Sunday follows, over the course of one day, the stream of consciousness of a fictionalized version of the author's cousin, Thibault. On the day of his girlfriend's return from an extended trip, Thibault wakes up, does nothing, gets James Brown stuck in his head, drinks and smokes, grows paranoid about his relationship, struggles to compose text messages, and watches The DaVinci Code, all the while avoiding anyone and everyone, descending deeper into his own thoughts and fears. Meanwhile, a former crush and another cousin of Thibault's plan a surprise birthday for him, sending the external and internal on a collision course. Schrauwen's brilliant comic timing and formal mastery transcends the quotidian nature of the plot. Through use of color, flashback and the dissonance between text and image, the ways in which Schrauwen layers a depiction of human consciousness as lines on paper are infused heavily with slapstick and white-knuckle tension and make for an exhilarating read and breathtaking use of the comics medium.