Comic Book Resources

Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: D&Q/Hill and Wang’s early 2010 schedule

Hey, we’re still in the midst of summer, but that’s no reason not to start thinking about what comics will be coming out next year! That seems to be the case with book publisher Farrar Straus Giroux, who decided to send out their winter 2010 catalog out to press and retailers the other week.

Now, as you may know, FSG distributes Drawn & Quarterly’s titles, and owns the Hill and Wang imprint, which releases a couple of comic-related nonfiction books every year, so this gives me the oppportunity to find out what’s coming down the pike from these two publishers and share my findings with you.

Are you ready? Let’s begin.

We’ll start off with D&Q, who has quite the eclectic line-up planned. All of these books are scheduled to arrive in March, except for Dirty Dishes, which comes out in January.

The Wild Kingdom by Kevin Huizenga. A new Glenn Ganges adventure. Well, actually I think it’s an expanded version of  a story that ran in the fourth issue of his now-cancelled Or Else comic series. Here’s the summation:

In The Wild Kingdom, Glenn Ganges blindly interacts with the nature of his suburban neighborhood: dead houseplants, a recipe for graysquirrel brain, and pigeons eating discarded french fries in the parking lot of a fast-food joint. Huizenga juxtaposes Glenn’s ignorance of his surroundings with television commercials highlighting society’s needs for cure-all pharmaceuticals and “hot new things” like teeth whiteners. Starting off wordless, The Wild Kingdom grows more complex page by page, ending with encyclopedic entries, biographical excerpts, anthropologic flowcharts, and a cataclysmic encounter of nature and technology.

108 pages, $19.95.

The Wrong Place

The Wrong Place by Brecht Evens. This is the first graphic novel by the Belgian artist Evens to be published in English. Painted in watercolor, it tells of a charismatic lothario who has his run of the city around him, and how those in the social circles around him react to his presence. Broken Frontier has a review of the book here. 184 pages, $24.95.

Hicksville

Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks. Speak of the devil. Just the other day I was wondering when someone was going to get around to reprinting this masterpiece and here we are.  An imaginary, remote town in New Zealand where everyone is obsessed with comics. I mean really obsessed. Enter a cocky journalist, who wants to talk to the populace about their former local boy made good, superhero artist Dick Burger. Strangely enough though. no one seems to want to talk about him. An engrossing mystery that turns into a complex meditation on the art form. If you haven’t read this yet, you will want to get this next year. 264 pages, $19.95. (Note: That’s not the new cover at right.)

Melvin Monster Vol. 2 by John Stanley. Huzzah! More John Stanley is always a good thing, especially when it involves the little green terror that just wants to do good. I reviewed the first volume here, if you need background. It’s great stuff though, I swear. 112 pages, $19.95.

Stooge Pile by Seth Scriver. A “Petit Livres” book collecting the drawings and paintings of this Canadian artist who ” exemplifies a modern cartoon-painting aesthetic.”  80 pages, $14.95.

Dirty Dishes by Amy Lockhart. Another Petit Livres book, featuring drawings, sculptures and even animation stills created by Lockhart. 96 pages, $14.95.

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Moving on to Hill and Wang, they’ve only got one graphic novel planned for early 2010 …

The Cartoon Introduction to Economics  Vol. One: Microeconomics by Grady Klein and Yoram Bauman. The author of the Lost Colony series joines forces with a “stand-up economist” to provide a relevent, 101 guide to economics. FSG included a 12-page, glossy preview with the catalog, so I have the feeling they’re going to be trumpeting this book pretty loudly upon its release. The fact that they actually use the phrase “puts the comics in economics” doesn’t encourage me too much however. 224 pages, $17.95. Look for it in February.