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Controversy! The title of "First Great Comic of 2016" is hotly contested this year!

Storage: the secret shame of the comics world. Like many in the comics industry I’m a bit of a packrat (to put it mildly) and getting free books all the time doesn’t help. (Tough life, I know.) I was recently reminded of this by a couple of stories. In one, Brooklyn cartoonist Julia Wertz’s tiny […]

2015 isn’t even cold in its rocking chair and 20126 is coming on like gangbusters. Here’s what D&Q has coming in February, the long awaited collection of Brian Chippendale’s Puke Force, new Michael DeForge (does he EVER sleep?) and Leanne Shapton.  Puke Force collects the sui generis webcomic that Chippendale serialized for a long time. Kid […]

Although most of these books have been announced, here’s all of Drawn & Quarterly’s fall schedule in all it’s glory. You can read the complete catalog here — commentary below is my own.

STEP ASIDE, POPS: A HARK! A VAGRANT COLLECTION

Kate Beaton

9781770462083 6c2d3

In stores September 15, 2015! $19.95 / 5.5″ x 8.75″ / 160 pages / b+w / hardcover / 9781770462083

Surely one of the biggest books of the fall —collecting Beaton’s strips over the last four years—a hilarious mosaic o Canadian history, strong female protagonists and people who take themselves a leeeeeetle too seriously—perfect for gifting!

KILLING AND DYING

Adrian Tomine

9781770462090 fbf67-1

In stores October 6, 2015! $22.95 / 6.25″ x 9.25″ / 128 pages / full color / hardcover / 9781770462090

Collecting the last few OPtic Nerve’s — Tomine’s cartooning has never been more insightful.

SHIGERU MIZUKI’S HITLER

Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson

In stores November 2015! $24.95 / 6.5″ x 8.75″ / 296 pages / b+w / paperback / 9781770462106

HIstorian/cartoonist Mizuki is known for SHOWA! his history of wartime and post-war Japan. I’m not familiar with this work but this should be “compelling” to coin a phrase.

PUKE FORCE

Brian Chippendale

In stores October 2015! $22.95 / 10.875″ x 8.025″ / 120 pages / b+w / hardcover / 9781770462199

D&Q’s first book by Fort Thunder ally Chippendale—these strips were originally serialized on the PictureBox website, I believe. Here’s the catalog blurb:

A bomb explodes in a coffee shop: the incident is played out over and over again from the perspective of each table in the shop, revisiting moments from ten and twenty years before. We see the inevitable as the characters bicker or celebrate, unaware of what awaits them. Throughout this dystopic graphic novel, Chippendale uses humor and a frantic drawing style to show how the insidious nature of corporate greed and the commodification of everything have warped society into a killing machine. Sardonic and self-aware, Puke Force asks all the right questions, providing a startling and on-point take on contemporary social issues. Chippendale’s artwork makes each panel a masterpiece of thrumming linework and lo-fi magic, as his storytelling wends and winds its way to a fascinating conclusion.

 

RED COLORED ELEGY

Seiichi Hayashi, translated by Taro Nettleton

9781770462120 3ac17-1

In stores August 2015! $19.95 / 6.875″ x 8.25″ / 240 pages / b+w / paperback / 9781770462120

New paperback edition of a manga that reads like the best literary fiction.

THE NATIVE TREES OF CANADA: A POSTCARD SET

Leanne Shapton

9781770462137 bff04

In stores August 2015! $14.95 / 4″ x 5.75″ / 30 postcards / full color / 9781770462137

Postcard set for the horticulturally minded.

PIPPI LONGSTOCKING: THE STRONGEST IN THE WORLD!

Astrid Lindgren & Ingrid Vang Nyman

translated by Tiina Nunnally

In stores October 2015! $22.95 / 7.5″ x 9.5″ / 160 pages / full color / paperback / 9781770462151

Is there a better role model for anyone than Pippi?

THE OWNER’S MANUAL TO TERRIBLE PARENTING

Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher

TERRIBLE.cover

In stores August 2015! $12.95 / 5″ x 7″ / 204 pages / b+w / paperback / 9781770462144

The third book in Delisle’s witty series of short cartoons on crappy parenting.

MOOMINMAMMA’S MAID

Tove Jansson

In stores November 2015! $9.95 / 8.5″ x 6″ / 64 pages / full color / flexicover / 9781770462168

This small, back-pack sized Moomin reprint books are perfect for the kids in your life.

This wide-ranging interview with noise cartoonist Brian Chippendale covers his old classic Maggots and Ninja and his new classic If ‘n’ Off, and also
the Fort Thunder alumnus’ reading tastes:

Moreso than Stephen King, who I haven’t read that much of, Gene Wolfe is one of my favorite authors. He wrote this one series called The Book of the New Sun or something — a four-book series he wrote in the ’80s about a torturer who gets banished from his guild because he showed someone mercy, so he walks the earth and gains more power as he goes. Anyway, he’s written a shitload of stuff, and his newer books I don’t love — his newest one is called The Sorcerer’s House — but he just always introduces all this shit and it doesn’t ever quite do anything. There’s one series of three books he wrote with this character who can’t remember anything, so every chapter is a letter to himself, and you sometimes get the idea that Gene Wolfe can’t remember what’s in his books. [Laughs] Like, they kind of don’t correspond, you think it’s going to do this and it does that, and there’s literally no payoff. It’s almost like…if you read the thing at the end that tells you the background, it’s the most interesting stuff. There’s little bits of this really rich world, but there’ll be this weird mundane story in it. I think that was a big influence: suggesting something grand but telling something mundane. On one level, I could have gotten a little more grand with the actual story. I think that was part of my learning curve. But I like the idea that there’s all this stuff out there but you’re getting one little corner of it.