Science-Fiction

To call Watchmen a graphic novel is to not understand the complexities of its story. Watchmen is a dark, brooding novel, full of unrelenting characters, a bitter sense of humor, and a cynical worldview It's just a coincidence that it is a novel about superheroes so Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and Barry Marx decided to draw it instead of just putting the text on paper.

Alan Moore is one of the most talented people to ever work in comics, the dark, brooding genius who has given us The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell. In Watchmen he gives us a dark group of superheroes that perhaps cause more problems for the world than they solve. When one of them is murdered, it begins a chain of events that will lead to the deaths of over three million people and, perhaps, a new world order. A "superhero" graphic novel that changed the way the genre is looked at long before Neil Gaiman came along, this is one not to be missed.

To call Watchmen a graphic novel is to not understand the complexities of its story. Watchmen is a dark, brooding novel, full of unrelenting characters, a bitter sense of humor, and a cynical worldview It's just a coincidence that it is a novel about superheroes so Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and Barry Marx decided to draw it instead of just putting the text on paper.

Alan Moore is one of the most talented people to ever work in comics, the dark, brooding genius who has given us The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell. In Watchmen he gives us a dark group of superheroes that perhaps cause more problems for the world than they solve. When one of them is murdered, it begins a chain of events that will lead to the deaths of over three million people and, perhaps, a new world order. A "superhero" graphic novel that changed the way the genre is looked at long before Neil Gaiman came along, this is one not to be missed.

Hanks created pulpy characters like Stardust the Super Wizard, the scientific marvel whose vast knowledge of all planets has made him the most remarkable person ever known and the jungle heroine Fantomah, whose face becomes a snarling skull when she uses her magic powers.

The artist's manic obsessions turn up again and again: global-scale atrocities, miraculous rays and, most of all, poetically apt punishments.

In a typical story, Master-Mind De Structo tries to suffocate America's heads of state with an oxygen-destroying ray, so Stardust turns him into a giant head, then hurls him into a space pocket of living death occupied by a headless headhunter.

Hanks's artwork is crude and technically limited (each of his characters has exactly one, wildly caricatured, facial expression), but nearly every page has some image that sings out with deep, primal power. In an afterword, editor Paul Karasik explains how he tracked down Hanks's son and learned a bit more about the artist's sad life and death.

Gerard Way, of My Chemical Romance, makes his comics writing debut in this outrageous superhero epic that Grant Morrison called "An ultraviolet psychedelic sherbet bomb of wit and ideas. The superheroes of the 21st century are here at last..."

In an inexplicable, worldwide event, forty-seven extraordinary children were spontaneously born by women who'd previously shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children; when asked why, his only explanation was, "To save the world." These seven children form The Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic and deadly Eiffel Tower, piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel.

Nearly a decade later, the team disbands, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again

When Coraline steps through a door in her family's new house, she finds another house, strangely similar to her own (only better). At first, things seem marvelous. The food is better than at home, and the toy box is filled with fluttering wind-up angels and dinosaur skulls that crawl and rattle their teeth.

But there's another mother there and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and all the tools she can find if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.

This beloved tale has now become a visual feast. Acclaimed artist P. Craig Russell brings Neil Gaiman's enchanting nationally bestselling children's book Coraline to new life in this gorgeously illustrated graphic novel adaptation.

This comics adaptation (including prequel) of King's Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born follows the early days of the Gunslinger, Roland Deschain. For the first hundred pages or so, you think you're in the old American West, until we come across a landscape littered with rusted oil rigs and vintage WW2 Panzer tanks. This sort of future-past otherworldliness typifies Roland's experience as he begins his quest as a teenage cross between Malory's Lancelot and Sergio Leone's Man with No Name. He and his young friends, high-born sons of the landowning political cadre called the Affiliation, are student-apprentices in a sect of knights bearing an arcane code of ethics, who must undergo strict training in order to bear the title Gunslinger. Early on, Roland earns the title Gunslinger by overcoming his teacher in a masterful fight sequence. Eventually, Roland and a group of fellow Gunslingers are sent to spy on the evil John Farson. Pretty soon, things get medieval. Maidens in distress appear, as do sadistic bad guys, witches and a weird monster called the Thinny. The Gunslinger's world is a weird hodge-podge of 1066 Hastings, 1865 Appomattoxand 1941 Warsaw — and in places the mlange is quite exciting. Still, a lot of The Gunslinger Born's plot is unclear and the prose purplish. Characters walk on and walk off, communicating in monotonous speeches wedged between scenes of murder and torture. The requisite love affair between Roland and young Susan Delgado is a bit passionless, and there's very little mirth; emotional ranges stretch from grimacing endurance to abject misery. Writer/adapter Peter David turns some nice phrases in a sort of sub-Faulknerian style, but the wordiness slows the action. At times, artist Jae Lee and colorist Richard Isanove are left with little to do other than create static pinup pages to accompany the prose. Nevertheless, there is a palpable charisma embedded in The Gunslinger Born — you can tell everyone involved is having a blast. Lee's drawings are smoothly rendered and realistic, yet sensually illustrative, and his art has never seemed so warm. And there's a touch of legendary underground comics artists Richard Corbin and Frank Frazetta in Isanove's palettes. The Gunslinger Born is the perfect starting point for those who think comics contain nothing but men in spandex costumes and masks. If it hooks new readers, that's good enough for me. Paul Pope is the artist/writer of the Eisner Award-winning graphic novel Batman Year 100 (DC Comics) and PulpHope: The Art of Paul Pope, recently published by AdHouse Books." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living. This volume follows our band of survivors on their tragic journey in search of shelter. Characters live and die as they brave a treacherous landscape littered with packs of the walking dead.

An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.