A collection of Zippy the Pinhead strips from the early '80s. An excellent introduction Bill Griffith's popular comic strip. From his first appearance in Tales of the Toad, Zippy has lived a true American Success Story.

A graphic biography of the real-life sideshow performer who inspired Zippy the Pinhead: “An uplifting, wonderfully humane book.” —The New York Times From Coney Island and the Ringling Bros. Circus to small-town carnivals and big-city sideshows, Nobody’s Fool follows the long, legendary career of Schlitzie, today best known for his appearance in the cult classic film Freaks, the making of which is a centerpiece of the story. In researching Schlitzie’s life, Griffith has tracked down primary sources and archives throughout the country, conducting interviews with those who worked with him and had intimate knowledge of his personality, his likes and dislikes, how he responded to being a sideshow “freak,” and much more. This graphic biography provides never-before-revealed details of his life, offering a unique look into his world and contributions to popular culture, including the immortal phrase “Are we having fun yet?” “Virtuoso comic-strip artist Bill Griffith gives voice to a true outcast—the sideshow attraction born Simon Metz (probably) in the Bronx (probably) in 1901.” —The New York Times “The underlying message of Nobody’s Fool? I get it—underneath our grandiose opinions of ourselves we’re all pinheads and freaks . . . The best graphic novel of the year.” —R. Crumb “A captivating labor of love that integrates American sideshow history and autobiographical segments . . . an astonishing life, beautifully told. Or, as Schlitzie would say, it’s boffo!” —Booklist (starred review) “A masterpiece of absurdity and humanity. After all these years Schlitzie still triggers laughter and tears.” —Steve Heller, Print

In our latest collection of the Zippy the Pinhead daily comic strip, Zippy is visits his home town, Dingburg: the only city in the US inhabited entirely by pinheads (well, aside from Washington, DC. And some sections of Newark). Reader response to this new Dingburg "story thread" has been loud and approving, with many asking for directions to the fabled enclave, somewhere "17 miles west of Baltimore". Detailed maps will be provided on the new book's endpapers.Also in this issue: the revealing "Little Zippy" series, in which Zippy's magical and very weird childhood is laid bare. And, finally, Zippy and J. Edgar Hoover (remember him?) cavort in tutus and play with loaded guns.

Comprising a full two and a half years’ worth of dailies and full-color Sundays, The Dingburg Diaries is the third Zippy book featuring tales of “Dingburg, the City Inhabited Entirely by Pinheads”―Zippy’s home town. There’s even a long series of “Historical Dingburg” strips, chronicling the pinhead population through the years, from 1840, when Dingburg’s “Town Fool” accidentally invented disco, to 1958 when Dingburg Beatniks flourished in the town’s Bohemian neighborhood. Like, Yowl, man. God also has his own chapter (and verse). In the guise of a clip art “author ity figure,” he dispenses unwanted advice and conditional love upon the citizens of Dingburg. His tendency to cross-dress reaches new heights when he appears in a performance of “Swine Lake,” wearing a tutu. Sacrilegious, yet sensitive. There are large chunks of Mr. The Toad, Zerbina, Little Zippy and the rest of Griffith’s cast of characters throughout this expanded collection.

Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead is a pop culture icon. The surrealist-leaning character is one of the most recognizable figures on the newspaper pages, seen by tens of millions of people a day. Syndicated by King Features since 1986, Zippy is read in hundreds of daily newspapers across the country, while the Pinhead's trademark non-sequitur, "Are we having fun yet?," has become so often repeated it's inBartlett's Familiar Quotations. His likeness has been grafittied on the Berlin Wall and aped for Saturday Night Live's classic "Conehead" sketches. This new Zippy collection features approximately a year's worth of strips, from November 2003 through November 2004, including full-color Sundays. Follow Zippy as he weaves in and out of "Bushmiller Country" (the land formerly inhabited by Ernie Bushmiller's classic Nancy comic strip) and as if things weren't strange enough he suddenly begins spouting Japanese, French, Russian, Farsi, Hungarian, Greek, Finnish and Latin! Zippy meets aliens, revisits Levittown (his birthplace) with Griffy, confronts the evil "Ziggy" and frolics with advertising icons like Reddy Kilowatt, Mr. Bubble, Colonel Sanders and the long-forgotten Unifax Astroboy. Oh, yeah, and he takes a long, hot bath (without Mr. Bubble).

Cartoons offer a satiric look at art, modern music, carnivals, politics, work, public scandals, comic strips, and modern life

In Type "Z" Personality, Zippy's new collection of daily and Sunday strips, Zippy dabbles in haiku, visits the malls of Australia, talks to Albert Einstein, lampoons "Manga" and goes into a deep trance while bowling. And if all that wasn't enough, Zippy insults Dick Cheney while imagining he's the hood ornament on a 1931 Studebaker.

Glitz-2-Go finally collects nearly 40 years of comics stories by Diane Noomin, best-known for her work as cartoonist and editor of the women comics anthology Twisted Sisters. Noomin’s career in underground comix began in 1972 and included appearances in Wimmen’s Comix, Young Lust, Short Order, Arcade, Real Girl, Lemme Outta Here, El Perfecto, True Glitz, Aftershock, Mind Riot, Titters, and Weirdo. Glitz-2-Go stars Noomin’s signature character, DiDi Glitz, the frustrated middle-aged glamour-puss and anxiety-ridden suburban Sisyphus. All of her stories, beginning with her debut “Restless Reverie” in 1974’s Family Fun Comics, are finally back in print for the first time in over 30 years.

Carved from eight square miles of Bucks County farmland northeast of Philadelphia, Levittown, Pennsylvania, is a symbol of postwar suburbia and the fulfillment of the American Dream. Begun in 1952, after the completion of an identically named community on Long Island, the second Levittown soon eclipsed its New York counterpart in scale and ambition, yet it continues to live in the shadow of its better-known sister and has received limited scholarly attention. Second Suburb uncovers the unique story of Levittown, Pennsylvania, and its significance to American social, architectural, environmental, and political history. The volume offers a fascinating profile of this planned community in two parts. The first examines Levittown from the inside, including oral histories of residents recalling how Levittown shaped their lives. One such reminiscence is by Daisy Myers, part of the first African American family to move to the community, only to become the targets of a race riot that would receive international publicity. The book also includes selections from the syndicated comic strip Zippy the Pinhead, in which Bill Griffith reflects on the angst-ridden trials of growing up in a Levittown, and an extensive photo essay of neighborhood homes, schools, churches, parks, and swimming pools, collected by Dianne Harris. The second part of the book views Levittown from the outside. Contributors consider the community's place in planning and architectural history and the Levitts' strategies for the mass production of housing. Other chapters address the class stratification of neighborhood sections through price structuring; individual attempts to personalize a home's form and space as a representation of class and identity; the builders' focus on the kitchen as the centerpiece of the home and its greatest selling point; the community's environmental and ecological legacy; racist and exclusionary sales policies; resident activism during the gas riots of 1979; and "America's lost Eden." Bringing together some of the top scholars in architectural history, American studies, and landscape studies, Second Suburb explores the surprisingly rich interplay of design, technology, and social response that marks the emergence and maturation of an exceptionally potent rendition of the American Dream.

Underground and Zippy the Pinhead cartoonist Bill Griffith uncovers his mother’s hidden past in his first graphic memoir. This is the renowned cartoonist's first long-form graphic work ― a 200-page memoir that poignantly recounts his mother’s secret life, which included an affair with a cartoonist and crime novelist in the 1950s and ’60s. Invisible Ink unfolds like a detective story, alternating between past and present, as Griffith recreates the quotidian habits of suburban Levittown and the professional and cultural life of mid-century Manhattan in the 1950s and ’60s as seen through his mother’s and his own then-teenage eyes. Griffith puts the pieces together and reveals a mother he never knew.