Two of Canada’s most famous visual artists take on the book medium in their own hilarious way Library is a collection of paintings by two of Canada’s most influential contemporary artists, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber. From the simple premise of the book title comes a series of images that are laugh-out-loud funny. A collection of book covers adorned with titles painted in simple handwritten fonts are displayed on brightly colored hardboard. Each book forms part of an ongoing series Dumontier and Farber started in 2009. In Dumontier and Farber’s Library, titles like I Lost the Human Race, Change Your Relationship to Your Unchangeable Past, and I Have a Medical Condition That Makes It So I Don’t Have to Talk to You offer surprising and astute observations, all in the duo’s characteristic deadpan style. The simplicity of the shapes and text evokes an immediate but lasting profundity, with each piece causing one to wonder about the thoughts that roam their consciousness, and the books that take up residence on their—and our—shelves. Dumontier and Farber are founding members of the influential art collective the Royal Art Lodge, and have been collaborating on art projects for more than fifteen years, exhibiting internationally. Library is playful and insightful as it pokes and prods at the human condition.

Killing and Dying is a stunning showcase of the possibilities of the graphic novel medium and a wry exploration of loss, creative ambition, identity, and family dynamics. With this work, Adrian Tomine (Shortcomings, Scenes from an Impending Marriage) reaffirms his place not only as one of the most significant creators of contemporary comics but as one of the great voices of modern American literature. His gift for capturing emotion and intellect resonates here: the weight of love and its absence, the pride and disappointment of family, the anxiety and hopefulness of being alive in the twenty-first century. "Amber Sweet" shows the disastrous impact of mistaken identity in a hyper-connected world; "A Brief History of the Art Form Known as Hortisculpture" details the invention and destruction of a vital new art form in short comic strips; "Translated, from the Japanese" is a lush, full-color display of storytelling through still images; the title story, "Killing and Dying", centers on parenthood, mortality, and stand-up comedy. In six interconnected, darkly funny stories, Tomine forms a quietly moving portrait of contemporary life. Tomine is a master of the small gesture, equally deft at signaling emotion via a subtle change of expression or writ large across landscapes illustrated in full color. Killing and Dying is a fraught, realist masterpiece.

Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of the most influential and acclaimed practitioners of literary comics in Japan. The Swamp collects work from his early years, showing a major talent coming into his own. Bucking the tradition of mystery and adventure stories, Tsuge’s fiction focused on the lives of the citizens of Japan. These mesmerizing comics, like those of his contemporary Yoshihiro Tatsumi, reveal a gritty, at times desperate postwar Japan, while displaying Tsuge’s unique sense of humor and point of view. “Chirpy” is a simple domestic drama about expectations, fidelity, and escape. A couple purchase a beautiful white bird with a red beak. It is said that the bird will grow attached to its owners and never fly away. While the girlfriend is working as a hostess, flirting with men for money, the boyfriend decides to draw a portrait of the new family member, and disaster strikes. In “The Swamp,” a simple rural encounter is charged with sexual tension that is alluring but also fraught with danger. When a young woman happens upon a wing-shot goose, she tries to calm it then suddenly snaps its neck. Later, she befriends a young hunter and offers him shelter, but her motivations remain unclear, especially when the hunter notices a snake in the room where they’ll both be sleeping. The Swamp is a landmark in English manga-publishing history and the first in a series of Tsuge books Drawn & Quarterly will be publishing.

A dark, bizarre comedy where teachers push boundaries into preposterous places The Follies of Richard Wadsworth showcases Nick Maandag’s signature blend of deadpan satire and exceedingly unexpected plot twists. In “Night School,” a Modern Managerial Business Administration and Operational Leadership class goes awry when a fire alarm brings the Chief to school and he decides to stick around to teach the students a thing or two about leadership—and discipline. “The Follies of Richard Wadsworth” follows the title character, a professor of philosophy, as he begins work as a contract instructor at yet another university. When Wadsworth finds himself smoking reefer at his student’s party and discovers she works at a rub ’n’ tug, an off-kilter plan is hatched. And in “The Disciple,” a yarn about a coed Buddhist monastery, Brother Bananas, the resident gorilla, isn’t the only one having difficulty keeping his lust tucked safely under his robe. In Maandag’s hands—hands that love to toy with morally ambiguous characters and flirt with absurdity—troubled men make poor decisions, unlikable characters gain our sympathies through their very haplessness, and riotous laughs ensue. Maandag has achieved cult acclaim through his self-published and micro-published comics, and The Follies of Richard Wadsworth is his debut book. His mechanical, affectless characters and economical artwork efficiently deliver cringes, heightening the awkward silence and stillness of his hilarious comics.

Compiled by comic artist ILYA, whose stories are published in the US (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse), Japan (Kodansha) and Europe, The Mammoth Book of Cult Comics brings together for the first time in a single volume lost classics from recent decades of underground and independent British and American comic strip art. It includes the miraculous-in-the-mundane diary comics of John Welding (Goathland), and Paul O’Connell’s chilling yet darkly funny cut-ups, The Sound of Drowning. Also Through the Habitrails, the little-known masterpiece by Jeff Nicholson. A chance to catch up on previously unseen hidden gems.

"The filthy, funny early work from the Tuca & Bertie creator, and Bojack Horseman production designer Before the critically acclaimed animated shows, the bestselling graphic novel Coyote Doggirl, or the humor collections Hot Dog Taste Test and My Dirty Dumb Eyes, cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt was a comic-book-industry sensation with her Ignatz Award-winning minicomic series I Want You. Hanawalt’s outlandish humor and ingenious formalism are evident in the comics collected here. Her love of anthropomorphism and scatology are on full display, all lovingly and grotesquely drawn by Hanawalt in obsessive, unnerving detail. The stars here are She-Moose, who we join sex-toy shopping, and He-Horse, who we learn mid-flight suffers from ornithophobia. The true star of I Want You may just be Hanawalt’s hilarious command of the graphic listicle. “Top Causes of Freeway Accidents” is a prescient pre-BoJack display of Hanawalt’s love for all things equine. “Things We Are Sorry We Did Last Night” includes the murder of all Hanawalt's Google doppelgängers. Whether she’s discussing the daily commute or masturbation, she packs each comic in I Want You with punchy cultural observations and sharp-witted reflections on typically taboo subjects. A master humorist, Hanawalt strikes the perfect balance between drawing the gorgeous and the repugnant, the fantastical and the lifelike, the bizarre and the hilarious—creating a deeply human experience that everyone can relate to."

Short stories, including the adapted-to-film original Cecil and Jordan in New York Gabrielle Bell splits her cartooning time between creating wry sketchbook autobiographical comics, such as those included in her 2006 graphic novel, Lucky, and working on more detailed fictional short stories. This collection represents her short comics work that has been published in various anthologies over the past five years, including Kramer's Ergot, Mome, and The D+Q Showcase Book Four. The surrealist title story, in which a young woman turns herself into a chair so as not to be too much of a bother to those around her, is being adapted into a short film, Interior Design, by director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep) as part of the forthcoming Tôkyô! trilogy set for fall 2008 release.

In the two decades since Curses first hit the shelves, River at Night cartoonist Kevin Huizenga has taken his rightful place on a short A-list of comics experimentalists. Deep research and loopy cartooning serve up philosophical musings while maintaining a classic comic-strip devotion to “the gag.” Huizenga remains one of the funniest and smartest cartoonists working today, and now, the very book that heralded his arrival as a talent to watch is available once more in deluxe paperback as the early work of a now true genius. The short stories collected herewith confront the textures of mortality in unique and peculiar ways. Central character Glenn Ganges is a seemingly middle-class, suburbanite whose blank-eyed wonderment at the everyday brings together diverse aspects of our world—like golf, theology, late-night diners, parenthood, politics, Sudanese refugees, and hallucinatory vision—into a complete experience as multifaceted as each of our own lives.

When a group of outcasts have to leave the valley, how will they survive the toxicity of the big city? Richard is a benevolent but tough leader. He oversees everything that happens in the valley, and everyone loves him for it. When Lyle the Raccoon becomes sick, his friends—Omar the Spider, Neville the Dog, and Ellie Squirrel—take matters into their own hands, breaking Richard’s strict rules. Caroline Frog rats them out to Richard and they are immediately exiled from the only world they’ve ever known. Michael DeForge’s Leaving Richard’s Valley expands from a bizarre hero’s quest into something more. As this ragtag group makes their way out of the valley, and then out of the park and into the big city, we see them coming to terms with different kinds of community: noise-rockers, gentrification protesters, squatters, and more. DeForge is idiosyncratically funny but also deeply insightful about community, cults of personality, and the condo-ization of cities. These eye-catching and sometimes absurd comics coalesce into a book that questions who our cities are for and how we make community in a capitalist society.