DECEMBER 2016

KLAUS

GRANT MORRISON/DAN MORA

Comics legend Grant Morrison introduces us to an old friend, Santa Claus, as we've never seen him before.

He’s a myth. He’s a legend. He’s loved worldwide by children and adults alike . . . but does anyone truly know the origins of Santa Claus? Set in a dark fantastic past of myth and magic, Klaus tells the origin story of Santa Claus. It’s the tale of one man and his wolf against a totalitarian state and the ancient evil that sustains it.

Award-winning author Grant Morrison (All-Star Superman, The Multiversity) and artist Dan Mora (Hexed) revamp, reinvent, and re-imagine a classic superhero for the 21st century, drawing on Santa’s roots in Viking lore and Siberian shamanism, and taking in the creepier side of Christmas with characters like the sinister Krampus. Klaus finally answers the burning question: what does Santa Claus do on the other 364 days a year?

November 2016

Chainmail Bikini

Hazel Newlevant / Sophie Yanow / Jane Mai / Molly Ostertag / MORE

A knockout of an anthology collecting the stories of women who game. Table top role-playing, video games, board and card games; while none of these hobbies make much of an effort (or any effort, often) to market or appeal to anyone other than men, that hasn't stopped women from all over the world from making their mark on the culture and industry of gaming. Chainmail Bikini is a brilliant reminder of that fact.

The stories in Chainmail Bikini come from over two dozen creators, expressing across a wide spectrum of themes and emotional impact. Some are hilarious, some are heartbreaking, some are fun, some are small and focused, some pull the camera way, way back. Chainmail Bikini works as anthology, as a timely piece of cultural commentary, as kick ass collection of short comics. We are super excited to present it as our November Book of the Month selection and hope that you enjoy it as much as we have.

October 2016

Afterlife with Archie Volume 1

ROBERTO AQUIERRE SACASA/ FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA

When Jughead's beloved pet Hot Dog is killed in a hit and run, Jughead turns to the only person he knows who can help bring back his canine companion - Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Using dark, forbidden magic, Sabrina is successful and Hot Dog returns to the land of the living. But he's not the same - and soon, the darkness he brings back with him from beyond the grave begins to spread, forcing Archie and the gang to try to escape Riverdale!

September 2016

GIANT DAYS Vol.1

JOHN ALLISON/LISSA TREIMAN

How old are you? Sorry, that's none of my business. But how old are you? No kidding? Wow, you look great. I only ask because I have a rhetorical point: I think September will always make us think of school. No matter how old you are. It just FEELS like back-to-school-time, in a bunch of different ways.

Authors and artists have tackled themes revolving around school and being a student since there was such a thing as "school." Some are cute, some are trite; some have wizards and many do not. And some creators have approached these stories with grace, wit, insight, and a sense of urgency and weight that speaks directly to the heart of what is an almost universally shared experience. John Allison and Lissa Treiman have made us one of those stories in Giant Days. 

Susan, Esther, and Daisy are at their first year of university and they are figuring stuff out. From that simple premise we get three fully realized and engrossing characters that pretty much constantly defy what you are expecting from a book about college kids. You'll care more about these three girls in the first five pages of Giant Days than characters you've spent hundreds of pages and hours with in other books and comics. 

So drink in the encroaching fall; stare at leaves that are a different color than leaves usually are, feel the increasingly bracing breeze, and, go ahead, spend some time thinking about what this time of the year used to mean to you. And if you're heading back to school yourself, Susan, Esther, and Daisy for sure have your back.

August 2016

THE VISION VOLUME 1:  LITTLE WORSE THAN A MAN

TOM KING / GABRIEL HERNANDEZ WALTA

The Vision wants to be human, and what's more human than family? So he heads back to the beginning, to the laboratory where Ultron created him and molded him into a weapon. The place where he first rebelled against his given destiny and imagined that he could be more -that he could be a man.

There, he builds them. A wife, Virginia. Two teenage twins, Viv and Vin. They look like him. They have his powers. They share his grandest ambition -or is that obsession? -the unrelenting need to be ordinary. Behold:   The Visions!