Graphic Novels and Non-fiction

Taking a much-needed break after the events of A Silent Hell, Blacksad lands a side job driving a rich Texan's prized yellow Cadillac Eldorado across 1950s America, hitting the back roads from New Orleans to Tulsa. But before long, the car is stolen and Blacksad finds himself mixed up in another murder, with roughneck bikers, a shifty lawyer, one down-and-out Beat generation writer, and some sinister circus folk! When John Blacksad goes on the road, trouble is dead ahead!

WINNER - 2019 North Street Book Prize (Graphic Narrative)

WINNER - 2019 National Indie Excellence Awards (Comics & Graphic Novels)

Blackwax Boulevard is the weirdest, grimiest, most obscure record store in all comics. Thus, by hipster-definition, also the coolest! This anthology collects the first five years of the Glyph-nominated webcomic that follows nerds, metalheads, manic pixies, bohos, hobos and every music lover in between as they explore life, pop culture and the eternally dusty record bin. Anything goes when the needle drops at Blackwax! Contains over 200 high-def pages from the original minicomics, plus a new introduction comic. Ages 15 and up.

The sins of the father are coming home. Ex-Blade Runner Ash and her charge, Cleo, have returned from the Off-World colonies to the rain-soaked dystopic future of Los Angeles, for a confrontation that will expose shocking secrets and reveal a terrifying conspiracy that could bring down an empire.

Blade Runner Ash becomes the hunted when the Replicant cult leader Yotun orders his death cult to hunt her down and kill her. Now, to protect those she loves, Ash must take to the rain-soaked streets of Los Angeles and do battle with a fanatical and relentless army of super-human Replicants.

"Quaint, meditative and sometimes dreamy, blankets will take you straight back to your first kiss." --The Guardian

Blankets

Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again.

This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts.

Set primarily in Los Angeles in 1971, Blood of the Virgin is the story of twenty-seven-year-old Seymour, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant film editor who works for an exploitation film production company. Sammy Harkham brings us into the underbelly of Los Angeles during a crucial evolutionary moment in the industry from the last wheeze of the studio system to the rise of independent filmmaking.

Seymour, his wife, and their new baby struggle as he tries to make it in the movie business, writing screenplays on spec and pining for the chance to direct. When his boss buys one of his scripts for a project called Blood of the Virgin and gives Seymour the chance to direct it, what follows is a surreal, tragicomic making-of journey. As Seymour's blind ambition propels the movie, his home life grows increasingly fraught. The film's production becomes a means to spiral out into time and space, resulting in an epic graphic novel that explores the intersection of twentieth-century America, parenthood, sex, the immigrant experience, the dawn of early Hollywood, and, shockingly, the Holocaust.

Like a cosmic kaleidoscope, Blood of the Virgin shifts and evolves with each panel, widening its context as the story unfolds, building an intricate web of dreams and heartbreak, allowing the reader to zoom in to the novel's core: the bittersweet cost of coming into one's own.

The story of Mary Tudor -- oldest child and daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, sister to the famous Elizabeth I -- as never told before.

A chronological telling of Mary's life as "told" by her spans her magnificent life, starting from her "first memory" at the age of two to becoming the first queen to inherit the throne of an England in disarray. Once rejected at birth, Mary was certain the cause of suffering was her subjects' rejection of the one true faith: Catholicism. Her zealous campaign to re-Catholicize England was unrelenting in its brutality, re-christening her, "Mary, the Bloody."
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The Tudors famously used fine art to define their reign. Using expressive line work and lush watercolor, German graphic novelist fittingly teases the painterly allure of royalty as she reveals the stark loneliness of the crown. Gehrmann pulls from real quotes from historical documents and letters along with dramatizations of known historic events. These details immerse us in Mary I's epic life from her volatile childhood to her tragic demise, rendering a stunning portrait of a "bastard queen" losing her grip on power.

How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark. . . . How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of 1917 explode to become today's global multibillion-dollar art world? Blow Up! answers these questions by following the lives of seminal contemporary artists and the stories behind their groundbreaking works.

Against a backdrop of armed conflict (two World Wars, Japanese militarization, US troops in Vietnam, the Yugoslav Wars) and rapid societal change (democratization, successive waves of feminism, globalization), Blow Up! tells the story of contemporary art from Marcel Duchamp's repurposed urinal to Maurizio Cattelan's taped banana. Literal bombs explode and conventions go up in flames as a series of art objects shock and electrify society: a pickled shark, a stuffed hare, human blood.

Chapters follow a series of chain reactions as artists meet and inspire each other across continents, generations, and decades. Over a period of one hundred years everything changes--and yet the cry of "It's not art!" never goes away. No matter how long people have had to get used to it, contemporary art continues to upset expectations and disrupt conventions--and inspire anew.

The original graphic novel adapted into the film Blue Is the Warmest Color, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival; released in the US this fall by IFC Films/Sundance Selects

In this tender, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel, a young woman named Clementine discovers herself and the elusive magic of love when she meets a confident blue-haired girl named Emma: a lesbian love story for the ages that bristles with the energy of youth and rebellion and the eternal light of desire.

First published in France by Glénat, the book has won several awards, including the Audience Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, Europe's largest.

The live-action, French-language film version of the book, entitled Blue Is the Warmest Color, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2013. Directed by director Abdellatif Kechiche and starring Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, the film generated both wide praise and controversy. It will be released in the US through Sundance Selects/IFC Films.

Julie Maroh is an author and illustrator originally from northern France.