New Book Alerts - Comics & Graphic Novels

Renowned worldwide for his playful, innovative storytelling and humorous, distinctive art style, Akira Toriyama burst onto the manga scene in 1980 with the wildly popular Dr. Slump. His hit series Dragon Ball (published in the U.S. as Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z) ran from 1984 to 1995 in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. He is also known for his design work on video games such as Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Tobal No. 1 and, most recently, Blue Dragon. His recent manga works include COWA!, Kajika, Sand Land, Neko Majin, and a children's book, Toccio the Angel. He lives with his family in Japan. More Info  

With so many Jedi Generals occupied with the Clone Wars, assignments that would usually go to Knights or Masters are falling to Jedi in training in this case, masterless Padawan Nuru Kungurama. Accompanied by his squad of clone troopers and a hulking swoop biker named Gizz, Nuru''s job begins as a routine protection detail, but soon evolves to include a mystery massacre, the hijacking of a space freighter, and the kidnapping of a group of orphaned younglings! The characters from The Clone Wars: Secret Missions novels for young readers make the leap to comics pages in this full-length, standalone tale! More Info  

Mon-El, a superpowered refugee from the planet Daxam who has become Metropolis’ protector in Superman’s absence (he left earth to join survivors of his destroyed planet on a new home world), is thought to have been murdered as this story arc begins. But he has actually been imprisoned by General Sam Lane, head of a military unit devoted to ridding the world of all Kryptonians. This volume, which also includes a detailed retelling of Mon-El’s rather convoluted origin, assembles stories that originally appeared in various Superman-related comic books as part of the yearlong “New Krypton” story line, illustrated by a tag team of artists who share a basic competency but no particular distinction. Grades 9-12. --Gordon Flagg --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. More Info  

An all new epic bridging the gap between the hit game BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM and its exciting, upcoming sequel BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY. Paul Dini (HARLEY QUINN, BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM) is the game's writer and now tells this essential story that both gamers and Batman fans will want to read. Artist CARLOS D'ANDA provided visual concepts for the game and now brings his insider's expertise to this dark thriller. More Info  

An adaptation of the Paramount Pictures film classic, "The Warriors". It chronicles one night in the lives of the New York City street gang, the Warriors, and their harrowing journey for survival and redemption.  Read more... More Info  

Starred Review. Between the opening note of perverse sexuality and the touching tribute to the permanence of true love at the end, murder, time travel and alternate futures fill in the second act of this astonishing graphic novel. Such a tale could only be penned by Jason, the Norwegian cartoonist who mixes outré fantasy with deadpan romanticism. As in all his books, this one is populated exclusively by a cast of lanky anthropomorphic animals. The setting is a world where hit man is just another job; the hero has a dissatisfied girlfriend and a boring job knocking off people who are merely annoying—a too loud neighbor, an overbearing boss. But as usual in Jason's work, the story soon veers off in an unexpected direction when the protagonist is hired to go back in time to kill Adolf Hitler via a time machine that takes 50 years to fully charge. More Info  

Have you ever had one of those moments? You know—you're trying to find a stolen diamond pencil box for your beautiful butterfly customer, your mosquito witness won't give you any information, and your clumsy scorpion assistant has just tampered with your only bit of evidence? Joey Fly has those moments a lot. In fact, he's probably having one right now. But that won't stop him from solving the mystery in Creepy Crawly Crime, his fantastic first graphic novel! More Info  

Amazon Significant Seven, March 2008: I may be alone here, but when I read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a whole strata of American artists came to life for me. Ever since then I've been waiting for a book like David Hajdu's The Ten-Cent Plague to come along and show me the contours of this world. Anyone who remembers Positively 4th Street will recognize in this new book Hajdu's peerless ability to weave first-person recollections with an acute perspective of America at a pivotal moment in its cultural timeline. The rise of comics as a mode of expression, an outlet for entertainment, and, rather tragi-comically, as a target for censorship, couldn't be more compelling in anyone else's hands. In deft narrative strokes Hajdu creates a colorful, character-driven story of our first real--and lasting--counterculture (if the burgeoning popularity of graphic novels is any indication) and shows why we embrace it still. More Info  

Cartoonist Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) is the single most important figure in Japanese post-World War II comics. During his four-decade career, Tezuka published more than 150,000 pages of comics, produced animation films, wrote essays and short fiction, and earned a Ph.D. in medicine. Along with creating the character Astro Boy (Mighty Atom in Japan), he is best known for establishing story comics as the mainstream genre in the Japanese comic book industry, creating narratives with cinematic flow and complex characters. This style influenced all subsequent Japanese output. God of Comics chronicles Tezuka's life and works, placing his creations both in the cultural climate and in the history of Japanese comics.The book emphasizes Tezuka's use of intertextuality. More Info  

Patrick Spaziante, or "Spaz" as he is commonly known, is a comic book artist who has worked primarily for Archie Comics. Spaz is currently a penciler and cover artist at Archie Comics on the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series, and the Sonic X and Sonic Universe comics. But while Spaz is best known for his work with Archie, he has also created illustrations and comic books for such companies as Marvel Comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender. More Info