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Please Someone Buy Me This For Christmas – Ronald Searle's America – And Other Fantagraphics Offerings For December

Published Fri, 18 Sep 2015 09:30:09 -0500

Coming from Fantagraphics in December is something I really, really want. Ronald Searle's America.

RONALD SEARLE'S AMERICA
by Ronald Searle;
Edited by Matt Jones
$85.00 / HC / 368 pgs, / FC / 10.75 x 13.75
During the early 60's, British illustrator Ronald Searle spent several years in the U.S. covering everything from sports to politics, capturing the essence of the American experience through the eyes of a caustic Englishman. Lushly produced and virtually unseen since originally being published in the 1960's, this deluxe coffee-table book will be the most lavish treatment of Searle's work that U.S. audiences have ever seen.

Ronald Searle also created the St Trinian's cartoons and the Molesworth illustrations that peppered my childhood thanks to a grandmother who kept the copies that my mother read as a child. Searle's work has been compared to Charles Addams, especially sense of placing the vicious and bloodthirsty into the mundane. Searle's work was also recently revived in League Of Exraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969.

So, yes, Christmas please. Not long.

Also coming out from Fantagraphics in December…

VIOLENZIA AND OTHER DEADLY AMUSEMENTS
by Richard Sala
$16.99 / SC / 144 pgs / FC / 7 x 9.8
Violenzia is a blast of pulpy fun, told in scenes of audacious action and splashes of rich watercolors. With elements of golden age comics and old movies mixed with Sala's trademark humor and sense of the absurd, Violenzia is a bloody enigma masked as eye candy, a puzzle box riddled with bullet holes from comics' master of the macabre.

LOVE AND ROCKETS: NEW STORIES NO. 8
by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
$14.99 / SC / 100 pgs / BW / 7.25 x 10.5
Jaime takes us to the punk reunion that Maggie & Hopey were road tripping to in the last issue where lots of old friends and enemies make appearances. Meanwhile, Gilbert serves up the second and concluding part of "The Magic Voyage of Aladdin," which establishes the rivalry of its two stars, Fritz and Mila. Who's Mila, you ask? You'll have to read Love and Rockets: New Stories No. 8 to find out!

THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF WALLACE WOOD
Edited by Bhob Stewart
$39.99 / SC / 304 pgs / PC / 10 x 12
A penetrating biographical portrait of pioneering cartooning legend Wallace Wood, generously illustrated with art as well as rare personal photos and childhood ephemera. This biographical and critical portrait explores the humorous spirit, dark detours, and psychological twists of a gifted pop culture maverick. Contributions by Bill Gaines, Grant Geissman, Larry Hama, Paul Kirchner, Trina Robbins, John Severin, Tom Sutton, Al Williamson and more!

PRINCE VALIANT VOL. 12: 1959-1960
by Hal Foster
$34.99 / HC / 124 pgs / FC / 10.25 x 14
Volume twelve begins with Prince Valiant attempting to rescue Sir Gawain from prison. Val then sets out on a quest to find the legendary Holy Grail with the foundation of the Fellowship of the Table Round at stake. Bonus features include an introduction by legendary comics artist Neal Adams and a gallery of Foster's rare advertising art. Directly scanned from the engraver's proofs, this is the finest reproduction of one of the greatest and most influential adventure strips of all time. Full color throughout.

HIP HOP FAMILY TREE #5
by Ed Piskor
$3.99 / Comic / 32 pgs /
FC / 6.5 x 10
The uptown Hip Hop world collides with the downtown Manhattan art world in this issue which introduces Hip Hop luminaries like The Beastie Boys, Doug E Fresh, Ice T and KRS-One into the ever expanding world of Rap music in 1981. Eisner Winner & NY Times best seller!

MARIA M. BOOK 2
by Gilbert Hernandez
$22.99 / HC / 140 pgs / BW / 5.75 x 8.5
In the concluding half of this brutal crime-noir graphic novel series from Love & Rockets cocreator Gilbert Henrandez, dark secrets force Maria M. to leave her drug-kingpin husband and return to her old life as a stripper and her eventual discovery sparks a gangland bloodbath. In a metatwist, Maria M. the graphic novel is also the B-grade biopic of the mother of Hernandez's most beloved character, Luba!

CROSSING EDEN
by Monte Schulz
$34.99 / HC / Prose / 1,088 pgs / 6 x 9
Monte Schulz's omnibus prose novel Crossing Eden chronicles the Pendergast family, cast apart by circumstance into the early 20th century landscape of big business, tent shows, speakeasies, séances, bank robberies, lynchings, murder, romance, circuses, and skyscrapers. It's a grand tapestry of the American experience in an age of transition from rural to urban, with our nation perched on the precipice of the Great Depression. It is also the story of us, as we once were, as we hoped to be.

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