The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books & Art on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009. All Prices listed in U.S. Funds, variant prices may not be accurate (but probably are).

Click here for the complete list: /090520shipping.txt

THE BEGUILING RECOMMENDS:

MAR094261 The Photographer: Into War Torn Afghanistan GN 29.95
This beautiful from Toronto Comic Arts Festival Guest of Honour Emmanuel Guibert ships this week from First Second. I think that people are going to be surprised first by how big the book is; it feels twice as large (and thick) as a regular release from the publisher. They'll be surprised secondly by how effortlessly the photography is inserted into the narrative, how the art and photos compliment and feed into one another. It really is a wonderful, important book, and we were honoured to have M. Guibert to Toronto. If you missed it at TCAF, make sure to pick it up now.

FEB094281 You'll Never Know Vol 01: A Good And Decent Man HC 24.99
I have seen this one yet, but I feel that like Lynda Barry's recent What It Is, this one will blur the edges of the definition of a graphic novel. It's a graphic narrative, a biography, a scrapbook. It sounds incredibly interesting to me, perhaps moreso than any of creator Carol Tyler's previous work. Looking forward to it.

OCT084161 Brinkley Girls Best Of 1913-1940 HC GN 29.99
A few years ago I had the pleasure of working with Trina Robbins on her series Go Girl!, first from Image and then at Dark Horse. In the course of working with Trina, she sent me a copy of one of her earliest books, The Great Women Cartoonists, which featured an extensive section on Nell Brinkley. I'd never heard of Brinkley but was instantly captivated by her lovely work. Elegant, beautifully dressed women; flappers having fun; Joy. It's just great, energetic, incredibly accomplished cartooning, and beautiful. I don't think at the time (almost 10 years ago?) either Trina or I thought that a time would come in the industry when a giant, full-colour retrospective of Brinkley's work would be feasible. But comics' current fascination with its own history and the great work almost-lost to the ages has made this a book that Fantagraphics is willing to take a chance on, and I'm grateful. If my aesthetic recommendation carries any weight with you, might I humbly suggest you pick up a copy of this for yourself? I think it's unlikely that you'll regret it.

NOV080012 Clover Omnibus Tp Vol 01 19.95
...and speaking of beautiful books, I never really got into the 'story' of Japanese cartooning collective CLAMP's dreamlike steampunk-esque series CLOVER when it was being released by Tokyopop. I'm actually not convinced it has a real story. But my god is it gorgeous. Now the whole thing is coming in one gorgeous book for $20. So, you know, buy it.

FEB094482 Oishinbo Gn Vol 03 Ramen & Gyoza 12.99
FEB094481 Pluto Urasawa X Tezuka Gn Vol 03 12.99
JAN094527 Real Gn Vol 04 12.99
FEB094483 Vagabond Tp Vol 29 (Mr) 9.95
JAN094528 Vagabond Vizbig Ed Gn Vol 03 (Mr) 19.99
Alright, I'm cheating here, I normally only pick about five titles for the "Beguiling Recommends" section at the top of these posts... But come on! Look at this! It's an amazing week for manga. We've already got Oishinbo, Pluto, and Vagabond 29 here in stock at the store, and they're all f'ing amazing. Three cheers for manga!

ALSO OF NOTE:

MAR094165 Boys Herogasm #1 (Mr) 2.99
MAR090130 Final Crisis Aftermath Dance #1 (Of 6) 2.99
MAR090215 Killapalooza #1 (Of 6) 2.99
Heh, these three books just have fantastic names. Just going over the invoice this week, and each one gave me a smile, so what the hell, let's make a note of that right? It's even better when Diamond has stripped the punctuation out too. Hehe.

JAN090225 Batman Mad Love And Other Stories Hc 19.99
I know this is maybe the fourth or fifth incarnation of this story, but the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm team-up is still fantastically popular here at the store, particularly amongst animation nerds. So if you haven't picked it up yet, or have read it so many times that it's fallen apart, it's now available in a sturdy hardcover format.

MAR092625 Hulk World War Hulk Hc 34.99
I know we had a number of folks coming in looking for this last week, must have been on Marvel's site or something. Anyway, it's actually shipping this week and we seem to have a few copies at least.

FEB090264 Transmetropolitan Tp Vol 02 Lust For Life New Ed 14.99
The second volume of re-formatted Transmet trades by Ellis and Robertson arrives this week. This really is the strongest material in the series;dense with ideas and beautiful art. I don't think Ellis has densely packed as many interesting ideas into anything he's done since these first 12 issues of Transmet, they're absolutely essential for anyone with any interest in genre comics.

FEB094408 Big Book Of Barry Ween Boy Genius Tp (Res) 19.95
I don't know what to say about this that won't make me sound like I'm being a jerk to Judd Winnick, so I'm just going to go for it: This book is worth more and is better than anything he's done since, by a factor of 10. It has more humour, more heart, and more to say about humanity than every shitty superhero book he's written. It didn't pay the bills; fine, I get it. But man, there was some truly creative stuff in here that just got completely lost in... what followed. So, yeah. Judd Winnick may be box-office-poison for many of you at this point, but this is some pretty funny, fucked-up, and downright-enjoyable stuff.

DEC080026 Dawn: Worlds Of Final Fantasy Hc 29.95
And here's Dark Horse's inexpensive Final Fantasy artbook. To those of you that will enjoy it, enjoy!

- Chris @ The Beguiling