Search Results: Graphic Novels from The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery

The ACME Novelty Library Volume 20 is part of Ware's epic graphic novel experiment, "Rusty Brown". Jordan Lint was the school bully in previous volumes of Ware's examination of the life of a geek named Rusty Brown. But, as we learn in Volume 20, Lint is not a simple thug or a goon. There are reasons for his behavior, as there are reasons for everything humans do. Some kids are the geeks and some are the bullies.

These casually drawn, perfectly on-point comics by the hugely popular young artist Sarah Andersen are for the rest of us. They document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, and dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas. In other words, the horrors and awkwardnesses of young modern life. Oh and they are totally not autobiographical. At all.

Back in 1998, internet humor consisted of Hamsterdance.com and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. In 2003, you could watch Homestar Runner, or you could read McSweeney's Internet Tendency. In 2008, it was LOLcatz or McSweeney's Internet Tendency. For 15 years McSweeney's has been the choice for web-based humorous distraction. Lives have been saved through the power of laughter, and McSweeney's accounts for at least 2.5 million of them. These collected classics the site's funniest and most-read pieces are available for the first time without a dial-up modem or pirated Wi-Fi:

Vamp is three hundred years old but in all that time, she has never met her match. This all changes one night in a bar when she meets a charming werewolf. FANGS chronicles the humor, sweetness, and awkwardness of meeting someone perfectly suited to you but also vastly different.

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift...graphic...and redemptive.

David Sedaris has always has a special affinity for Christmas. His celebrated National Public Radio debut, "The Santaland Diaries", later appeared as a story in his critically-acclaimed "Barrel Fever", and became a popular play in 1996.

In a four-color, illustrated collection of stories and essays, Allie Brosh's debut Hyperbole and a Half chronicles the many "learning experiences" Brosh has endured as a result of her own character flaws, and the horrible experiences that other people have had to endure because she was such a terrible child.

Animal lovers will laugh out loud at the quirkiness of their feline friends with these insightful and curious poems from the singular minds of funny cats. In this hilarious, bestselling book of tongue-in-cheek poetry.

Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Referencing a classic Haida oral narrative, this stunning full-color graphic novel documents the tragic story of a leader so blinded by revenge that he takes his community to the brink of war and destruction. Consisting of 108 pages of hand-painted illustrations, Red is a groundbreaking mix of imagery from the indigenous Haida culture and Japanese manga. Red is the prideful leader of a small village in the islands off the northwest coast of British Columbia. His sister was abducted years ago by a band of raiders, and when news comes that she has been spotted in a nearby village, Red sets out to rescue his sister and exact revenge on her captors. Tragic and timeless, it is reminiscent of such classic stories as Oedipus Rex and Macbeth. An action-packed and dazzling graphic novel, Red is also a cautionary tale about the devastating effects of rage and retribution.

Over the course of a much-anticipated trip to New York, an unexpected fling blossoms between casual acquaintances and throws a long-term friendship off-balance. Emotional tensions vibrate wildly against the resplendently illustrated backdrop of the city, capturing a spontaneous queer romance in all of its fledgling glory. Slick attention to the details of a bustling, intimidating metropolis are softened with a palette of muted pastels, as though seen through the eyes of first-time travelers. The awe, wonder, and occasional stumble along the way come to life with stunning accuracy.

Step inside Michael Bell's antiquarian bookshop, stocked with rare and fine collectibles of infinite variety, from Book of Blank Maps, With Instructions, to Autobiography of the Best Abused Man in the World. By perusing these curious works from bygone times, inquiring readers will be rewarded with instruction on such rarely understood pursuits as Single-Handed Cruising and Girls' Interests. A treasure trove of the best of bookmaking, here is a library of laughs.

omics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit Cantaloupe-sized guns ") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author's own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent… Read More

Has Wonder Woman hit the comic book glass ceiling? Is that the one opposition that even her Amazonian strength can t defeat? Entertaining and informative, The Supergirls explores iconic superheroines and what it means for the culture when they do everything the superhero does, only in thongs and high heels.This much-needed alternative history of American comic book icons from Wonder Woman to Supergirl and beyond delves into where these crime-fighting females fit in popular culture and why, and what their stories say about the role of women in society from their creation to now, and into the future.

With harpoons strapped to their backs, the proud whales of Bathsheba's pod live for the hunt, fighting in the ongoing war against the world of men. When they attack a ship bobbing on the surface of the Abyss, they expect to find easy prey. Instead, they find the trail of a myth, a monster, perhaps the devil himself... As their relentless Captain leads the chase, they embark on a final, vengeful hunt, one that will forever change the worlds of both whales and men.