Graphic Novels
L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist (Graphic Novel/Comics) 2014
Cartoonist Studio Prize Shortlist 2014
Can a children's cartoon cause riots?
One of Mana Neyestani's cartoons sparked riots, shuttered the newspaper he worked for, and landed the cartoonist and his editor in solitary confinement inside of Iran's notorious prison system. But that's not the whole story. Neyestani exposes the complex interplay between art, law, politics, ethnic sensitivities, and authoritarian elements inside of Iran's Islamic Republic. In his journey to escape imprisonment, the artist travels from Iran to Dubai, Turkey, Malaysia, all the way to China. Along the way he shines a light on the dangerous and convoluted measures taken by refugees in their attempts to find safety and freedom. Mana Neystani's story is at once unique, universal, and truly Kafkaesque.
"There is always that risk, that possibility, that the authorities will find a political dimension to your drawings."--Mana Neyestani for Le Monde.
Jack just got a new toy, and it's full of surprises. Each time the box pops open, there's a new and bigger surprise. Is it a silly toy, a scary toy... or something else entirely?
From Derf Backderf, the bestselling author of My Friend Dahmer, comes the Eisner and ALA/YALSA Alex Award-winning tragic and unforgettable story of the Kent State shootings, told in graphic novel form. Named a Best Book of the Year by New York Times, Forbes, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and NPR, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent--as relevant today as it was in 1970. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, four students were killed and nine shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children--a shocking event burned into our national memory. The fatal shootings triggered immediate and massive outrage on campuses around the country. More than four million students participated in organized walkouts at hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools, the largest student strike in the history of the United States at that time. It was a day that shocked the nation and helped turn the tide of public opinion against America's war in Vietnam. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. In this award-winning and powerful graphic novel, Derf Backderf takes us back to the age of the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, Woodstock, and the Cold War and explores, in words and images, a scene of tragedy: the campus of Kent State University, where National Guard Troops attacked unarmed protestors and killed four students (Allison Beth Krause, age 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, age 20, Sandra Lee Scheuer, age 20, and William Knox Schroeder, age 19).
Planet Earth, engaged in an intergalactic conflict, entrusts its salvation to the clone of Leonardo da Vinci and to the rebirth of his genius. Author Stéphane Levallois has created the fantastic universes of many of the big Hollywood blockbusters (Alien, King Kong (Skull Island), Harry Potter and many others). In this tribute on the occasion of the massive retrospective of Leonardo da Vinci at the Louvre, he builds his story and composes his boards selecting a large number of drawings and paintings by the maestro to represent the characters, vessels or even the architectures in his story. The grand scale result is stupefying as Leonardo's everlasting visions are successfully projected into a stunning futuristic setting. A visual experience not to be missed in an oversized hardcover.
Alik is a former Soviet soldier who has relocated to Coney Island only to become a gangland enforcer. He's haunted by memories of his past, and the only thing that soothes his angst is booze, heroin and his lover, the prostitute Marina. But as much as Alik encourages her to break away from the ganglord who owns her, Marina can't because of her daughter, who never leads the ganglord's side. So Alik comes up with a desperate plan to save all three of them, and in doing so, he'll find he's destined to repeat the past over and over again, including a past or two he might not even be aware he has, in a story that flashes from present- day run down Coney Island to the Russia of 10 years ago during the Second Chechen War to turn of the 20th century Coney Island, when the area was at its peak amusement park glory and wonder.
In the ongoing hilarities of Godai, a college student struggling to win over Kyoko, his beautiful apartment manager, a pesky high school student tries to "tutor" her way into the lad's heart. Meanwhile, Coach Mitaka makes his move on Kyoko, and the meddling of rumored pervert Mr. Yotsuya and the other residents of Maison Ikkoku just make matters worse.
While Godai searches for a way to propose to Kyoko, his rival Mitaka courts Kyoko ever more aggressively. But shy Asuna hasn't given up trying to win Mitaka for herself. Then Godai's old girlfriend shows up. For whom do the wedding bells toll?
Maison Ikkoku is a shabby apartment building populated with deadbeats and pranksters, bashful college student Yusaku, and his paramour Kyoko, the building manager. With everyone meddling and Yusaku's shyness, will they ever get together?
The Maison Ikkoku has a new resident who was expecting a fancy new apartment--not a dilapidated building; Kyoko's boyfriend starts to worry about a ring; and Godai begins a job teaching at Kyoko's old high school.