HEROES HOTLINE :: The Weekly Newsletter of HEROESONLINE.COM JUNE 19, 2013!

WEDNESDAY :: JUNE 19, 2013

STAFF PICKS :: JUNE 19, 2013

NEW RELEASES FOR JUNE 19, 2013

JUSTIN’S PICK :: SERGIO ARAGONÉS FUNNIES #8: Sergio fans REJOICE! The Mad One has returned with his wonderful variety title! Every issue of Funnies is a huge bargain, with multiple stories comprising a gamut of subject matter, rendered in Aragonés’ charming signature style. Plus games and puzzles! This one’s always great for readers young and young-at-heart, look for it in the all ages section! VIVA FUNNIES!

RICO’S PICK :: PRIMATES: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas: Jim Ottaviani has been making entertaining non-fiction comics for years now and when I heard he had Maris Wicks on art duty for his latest I was very excited! Ottaviani and Wicks have put together an informative book that never gets dry and is always entertaining. This is the kind of book you can give to someone who hasn’t fallen in love with comics yet to turn them on to the wonderful world of sequential art. I give this book 5 bananas way up!

SETH’S PICK :: BARNABY VOL. 1 HC: With the behemoth of HeroesCon taking all our time and energy in recent weeks, we understandably put our weekly Staff Picks on temporary hold. That said, it’s good to be back writing about new releases. Regular readers of the Heroes Blog know well that Andy Mansell, stalwart blogger and HeroesCon panel coordinator, is something of an expert when it comes to comic strip history. You might think he’d be the one to talk about Barnaby, a long forgotten, under appreciated gem of a strip, but no, it’s me this time.

Barnaby started in the early forties, and ran for over a decade. It was produced by cartoonist Crockett Johnson, who is best known for his timeless masterpiece Harold and the Purple Crayon. Though Harold is considered the classic, Barnaby received lots of critical acclaim in its day. One look at it and you’ll see why. To begin with, there’s the simple, fluid line work in Johnson’s art. Then you see the intricate typeset letters, which Johnson produced with a kind of mathematical clarity – he knew exactly how many letters would fit on each line of a word balloon. Then you have the subject matter. Though the stories revolve around five year old Barnaby and his fairy godfather (along with a ghost, lion, and more), the seemingly whimsical strip dealt with important issues in a way that didn’t talk down to children. Thus it’s one of those great strips that provided entertainment for young readers and their parents.

I had the pleasure of seeing a Barnaby panel at last year’s Small Press Expo. Panelists included editors Eric Reynolds and Philip Nel, and cartoonists Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes, who helped contribute to the book’s design. That panel got me excited about seeing this strip find its way to a new audience. I’m not a huge reader of comic strips, but this one has numerous seemingly disparate elements in it that tie together nicely. I hope some of you pick this one up and give it a try. For a video tour of the book, check out this page on the Fantagraphics site: http://www.flickr.com//photos/fantagraphics/sets/72157633285033568/show/

ALSO NEW IN THE STORE: Every year during HeroesCon, we try to find time to run through Indie Island and pick up a few things we think should be in our store. This year we managed to obtain a few excellent new items that we hope you’ll consider picking up during your next visit. First up is an assortment of Michael Deforge books from our friends atKoyama Press. Among them are Lose #2-4 and his newest collection,Very Casual. Deforge’s art is interesting, trippy, and somehow still capable of appealing to all ages readers, as evidenced by his contributions to Adventure Time. Speaking of Adventure Time, we stopped by Boom Studios‘ booth and picked up 43 – that’s right – 43 different covers from various Adventure Time comics. More accurately, we picked up copies of Fiona and Cake #1-5, and Adventure Time (Finn and Jake) #1 – 16 plus copies of this year’s annual. And, as I mentioned, there are multiple covers for many of these issues, including sought after ones by artists like Scott C.,Maris Wicks, Joe Quinones, Stephanie Buscema, the aforementioned Michael Deforge, Jeffrey Brown, James Kochalkaand more!

It wouldn’t be a HeroesCon if we didn’t stumble on a new small press book, and this year we found two from Galactic Press, a small Georgia-based company that introduced us to their books Galaxy Manand Hero Cats of Stellar City. These are both fun all ages titles, withGalaxy Man offering up a twist on the Father/Daughter super hero team, and Hero Cats being…well…kind of self explanatory in its title. We picked these up for our young customers, so if you’ve got young readers at home who are bored with the same old kinds of all ages stories, let them take a look at these during your next trip to Heroes.

As with every year, we had to stop by Adhouse Books. Not only have they been a longtime anchor of Indie Island, and not only are they really great people, but they always have fascinating books on their tables. This year we picked up another copy of the dense, epic masterpieceDuncan the Wonder Dog. We’ve had this book in the past, but I couldn’t resist. It’s really something to see and read, if you haven’t yet taken the plunge. We also picked up copies of Pulpatoon Pilgrimage by Joel Priddy(outstanding cartooning), Bumperboy and the Loud, Loud Mountain byDebbie Huey(a fine all ages book), Ace Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms by Mike Dawson (another book with an aptly descriptive title), and Nobrow’s The Wolf’s Whistle by Bjorn Rune Lie and Co. (Think a European take on nursery rhymes filtered through the lens of Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox). Also at the Adhouse booth I saw recent works from the guys behind Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, one of our favorite comics podcasts. We picked up signed and sketched copies of Jim Rugg’s Drawings 030413. If you liked last year’s Notebook Drawings, you’ll love this new sketchbook. Jim continues to impress us with the virtuosity of his work, and his latest offering Supermag only solidifies the fact that he’s one of the most diverse cartoonists working today. His podcast-mate Jasen Lex also had some books on display, and we picked up copies ofHenchman, Washington Unbound #1, and The Bottom Feeders #1. He’s another creator with a seemingly natural sense of design. While I didn’t pick up any new books from their podcast-mate Ed Piskor, I did see even more of his pages from his upcoming Hip Hop Family Tree. You might remember my interview with him about it HERE. Trust me when I say that this is not only the visual history of a revolutionary genre of music, but one of the finest examples of cartooning I’ve seen of late. If you haven’t pre-ordered it yet, let us know and we’ll make sure you get a copy. Finally, as Sunday was winding down, the talented Maris Wicks stopped by the Heroes booth and we made sure to pick up a few copies of her (and Jim Ottaviani‘s) excellent new graphic novel Primates. This book focuses on the work of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas, how they changed the science of Primate study, and brought an increased awareness to these astounding animals.

You can find all of these books and more in our store right now. Thanks to all these companies and creators, and be sure to pick up some of these titles the next time you visit Heroes.

BOOKS SHIPPING THE WEEK OF: JUNE 19, 2013

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