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The Salon by Nick Bertozzi also uses a visual medium to comment on visual arts, and it does so in a similarly bizarre fashion. The young painter Georges Braque seeks the patronage of the famous Leo and Gertrude Stein; quickly invited to join their salon, he learns that the Steins are terrified. A mysterious blue demon-lady has been prowling the streets of Paris at night, murdering artists and gallery owners. Then comes the weird part: To hunt down this killer, the salon’s members (including Picasso, Apollinaire and others) drink blue absinthe, which allows them to enter any painting they choose. They’ve deduced that the killer is Paul Gauguin’s mistress, and she’s hiding out in his paintings. The book is vivid and dynamic, all strong lines, intense blues and greens and punchy dialogue. His take on Picasso as a volatile, childlike savant is priceless. Best of all are the Frenchified sound effects: instead of bang! or kapow! you have clonque! and kique!

The Salon by Nick Bertozzi also uses a visual medium to comment on visual arts, and it does so in a similarly bizarre fashion. The young painter Georges Braque seeks the patronage of the famous Leo and Gertrude Stein; quickly invited to join their salon,…
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In the far-future world of Glacial Period, by Nicolas de Crecy, the European continent has iced over and everyone’s moved south. A band of intrepid explorers has set out to find architectural and anthropological clues about the frozen continent’s vanished culture. Guided by genetically enhanced talking dogs that look an awful lot like pigs, the explorers stumble onto the ruins of the Louvre. Using famous paintings as evidence, they try to piece together a narrative describing the people of Europe. The works of art themselves eventually speak up, correcting and augmenting human interpretation of their significance. Author/artist de Crecy worked in collaboration with the Louvre to create this beautifully painted book an appendix lists each of the works re-created within the comic’s panels. Doubling as an analysis of the way images store and transmit knowledge, it’s about as high art as you can get in a graphic novel.

In the far-future world of Glacial Period, by Nicolas de Crecy, the European continent has iced over and everyone's moved south. A band of intrepid explorers has set out to find architectural and anthropological clues about the frozen continent's vanished culture. Guided by genetically…
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Tired of being embarrassed every time you take your less-savvy friends or clueless parents out to see the latest action-hero blockbuster adapted from a comic book? Hide your face no more now you can school those newbies in the nicest way possible. The gorgeous new Comic Book Encyclopedia has the lowdown on just about every comic book ever created, as well as the folks who created them. From Archie to X-Men, from R. Crumb to Art Spiegelman, you’ll find long-lost histories and little-known details about all the important heroes, villains, artists and writers in the comics world. Open the book to any page, and KAPOW!, you’ll find glossy, gorgeously reproduced artwork and a spirited mini-essay on some aspect of comics. The book covers everything from early progenitors like Ned Pines’ Thrilling Comics to more recent milestones like DC’s infamous Superman #75, containing the much-publicized and of course temporary death of the Man of Steel. There are sections on underground comics (with nods to Mad’s Harvey Kurtzman and Basil Wolverton and Zap’s Robert Crumb) and graphic novels (including Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal Watchmen and Frank Miller’s unparalleled Batman epic The Dark Knight Returns) that whet the reader’s appetite and provide a roadmap for further exploration. Goulart’s affection for the medium is obvious. A lifelong aficionado and acknowledged expert, he writes with exactly the right combination of authority and irreverence, never looking down at his subject but making it clear that sometimes, certain plot developments cross the perilously thin line between innovative and just plain silly. The book makes an excellent reference work, but most of all, it will make you want more. You’ll be tempted to rush to your local comics shop and dig through the back-issue boxes for hours, searching happily for the sources of the magic preserved in its pages. Becky Ohlsen taught the rest of us at BookPage everything we need to know about comics.

Tired of being embarrassed every time you take your less-savvy friends or clueless parents out to see the latest action-hero blockbuster adapted from a comic book? Hide your face no more now you can school those newbies in the nicest way possible. The gorgeous new…
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Dilbert creator Scott Adams receives hundreds of e-mails every day from disgruntled workers want-ing to share their office horror stories. These tales of corporate cluelessness are sprinkled throughout Adams’ hilarious new book, Dilbert and The Way of the Weasel, which exposes the selfish, greedy, “weasel” ways of office workers and managers in all their undisguised glory. But don’t worry, Adams assured us in a recent interview, “Everyone is a weasel except you and me.” Whew.

Adams had plenty of opportunities to observe weasel tendencies during his own stint in corporate America. After earning an M.B.

A. from the University of California at Berkley in 1986, he worked at a San Francisco bank and later “in a number of jobs that defy description” at Pacific Bell. Using his doodles of co-workers as a starting point, he launched the Dilbert comic strip in 1989 and finally quit his day job in 1995 to be a full-time cartoonist. We asked Adams to tell BookPage readers about the ways of the weasel and the special joys of the holidays in Dilbert’s world: Explain the Weasel Zone. Where did the idea come from? It was this growing realization that everybody in authority seemed to be a weasel. So everybody who had an opportunity to steal money was in fact stealing it or rigging something or cheating in some way. Every few years my personal respect for humanity goes to a new low, and I know it’s time to write another Dilbert book.

Do you consider yourself to be a weasel? No one considers themselves to be a weasel. I don’t think there would be as much weaselness if people didn’t think that they had some God-given right to get a little extra.

Does Dilbert decorate his cube for Christmas? Decorate might be overstating it. He might put on a holiday screen saver, but even that would be banned by the company, so it wouldn’t last long.

What’s the best thing to wear to the office Christmas party? I can’t imagine Dilbert’s office having a Christmas party. The concept of a Christmas party is, first of all, you can’t have any alcohol in the office. And second, you’re forced to be with the people you would least like to be with, eating food that is not your first choice of food. I would think that the only way you could make that better would be wearing uncomfortable underwear. Just to bring up the average.

What’s the ideal present for your boss? The ideal present for the boss would be something you pilfered from the office itself. Maybe matching salt and pepper shakers from the company cafeteria or a stapler from Wally’s desk. That sort of thing.

What should you tell your boss if he wants you to work late on Christmas Eve? Tell him that you’ll be at the office for many hours after he leaves, as far as he knows.

Does Dilbert take time off during the holidays? Dilbert tries to. He lives in dread that the last five minutes of work before his vacation starts, his boss will come into his office with a new impossible assignment. He tries to take vacations, but he’s a little like me in the sense that he goes to the Grand Canyon and he looks at it and says, “That’s a big hole. That looks nice. Now what do we do?” So he’s not easily impressed.

In your days as a corporate drone, what kind of boss were you? I probably was a bad boss, even though I thought I was a good boss. My theory is that everyone thinks they’re a good boss, but most people aren’t, so there must be some sort of weird blindness built into the job that you think you’re doing a better job than you are. My guess is that I was a bad boss.

Why? I am insufficiently evil. All leadership is a form of evil because the point of leading is to get people to do things they don’t want to do. You want people to work a little extra for the same amount of pay, that sort of thing. I couldn’t get past the fact that if I didn’t understand why they would want to do it, I couldn’t figure out how I could make them do it. I ended up being a fairly lenient boss just so they would like me at least I would get something out of the deal.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams receives hundreds of e-mails every day from disgruntled workers want-ing to share their office horror stories. These tales of corporate cluelessness are sprinkled throughout Adams' hilarious new book, Dilbert and The Way of the Weasel, which exposes the selfish, greedy,…

Anyone who likes to read comics knows that the characters, both good and evil, are numerous. Often the backstory of each superhero or villain is unknown or has changed dramatically since they first appeared in print. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a handy guide that gave a quick synopsis? Something you could flip through easily and find just what you were looking for?

Brandon T. Snider has put together just such a guide. Each page of DC Comics: The Ultimate Character Guide has an alphabetically listed character (over 200 of them) with a brief history, their nickname, a list of their vital statistics, a description of their powers, and, of course, a full-color picture and trivia. The “Vital Stats” include Real Name, Occupation, Height, Weight, Base, Allies, and Foes. There are even separate entries for the various teams like the Justice League of America and the Secret Six. The consistent layout aids in finding just the piece of information you need.

While each entry is short and lacks the depth that a more detailed guide might have, this book is a quick and handy must-have for any avid reader of the DC Comics universe.

Anyone who likes to read comics knows that the characters, both good and evil, are numerous. Often the backstory of each superhero or villain is unknown or has changed dramatically since they first appeared in print. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a handy guide…

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Outta the park

The baseball books lead off with Harvey Frommer's timely Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of the House That Ruth Built. Frommer provides a nostalgic, factually keen description of the formidable ball yard through its many baseball seasons, 1923 through 2008 (set to be replaced in 2009 by a new facility). He also interpolates hundreds of quotable quotes from dozens of ballplayers and managers (Yankees and otherwise), front – office executives, broadcasters, newspaper writers, team employees and even garden – variety fans, all of whom share their unique perspectives on the great games they witnessed and the specialness of the Yankee Stadium baseball experience. The photographs are even more gratifying: black – and – white and color stills stirringly evoke the Yankee legacy, from Ruth and Gehrig through Rodriguez and Rivera. The foreword is by longtime stadium PA announcer Bob Sheppard, a legend in his own right, who observed the Bronx Bombers firsthand for some 50 years, through good times and bad.

In a similar vein, but loaded with fan – friendly extras, comes Babe Ruth: Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos & Memorabilia. Co – authored by Julia Ruth Stevens (Ruth's adopted daughter) and versatile journalist Bill Gilbert, this volume basically avoids the Bambino's legendary excesses, instead focusing on his humble Baltimore youth, his meteoric rise as home – run king, his iconic Yankee status, his role as baseball ombudsman, his life as a family man, and his eventual decline and widely mourned death. The archival photos, some rarely seen, are fabulous, dramatically capturing Ruth the ballplayer at various career stages but just as often portraying his lovable self with loved ones, friends and fans (especially the kids). The book includes captivating reproductions of Ruth memorabilia, including his birth certificate, player contracts, game tickets and programs, and a signed team photo of the famed 1927 Yankees ballclub.

When World War II broke out, FDR made it a point to keep major league baseball going for morale purposes, never mind the hostilities' eventual impact on the game's talent pool. When Baseball Went to War, edited by Bill Nowlin and Todd Anton, serves as a tribute to those who traded the playing fields of America's pastime for the killing fields of Europe and Asia. The text primarily pulls together individual player profiles – Yogi Berra, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, etc. – detailing their war service and pre – and postwar careers. Even more interesting are the stories of lesser – known individuals such as Lou Brissie, who rebounded from war – related injuries to make the grade as a pro. Ancillary essays focus on the home front during wartime, including Merrie A. Fidler's piece on the All – American Girls Base Ball League, which sheds some factual light on an era immortalized in the film A League of Their Own. The book concludes with lists of major –

Pass the ball

Two seasons ago, Tom Callahan's excellent biography Johnny U included an exciting blow – by – blow account of the historic 1958 NFL sudden – death title game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. In The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever, Hall of Famer and former sportscaster Frank Gifford, with an assist from Peter Richmond, attempts the same idea but with an elaborate twist. Gifford, a Giants receiver and running back and member of the '58 squad, uses the game itself more as a jumping – off point to interview surviving members of the two teams and to reminisce about his own career and those of players who have passed on. The narrative toggles between personal reflections and game specifics, and Gifford brings in the memories of reporters, wives and other onlookers to help create a detailed and contextual overview of the contest itself. Recommended for "old school" football fans.

With the advent of the Web has come outr

Pop culture heroes

Devotees of the TV show "How I Met Your Mother" may best appreciate the humor of The Bro Code, compiled by sitcom screenwriter Matt Kuhn under the guise of the character Barney Stinson (as portrayed by actor Neil Patrick Harris). Yet it's definitely funny stuff, with Kuhn laying out all the do's and don'ts of contemporary brotherhood – with much of it having to do with the opposite sex. For example: "A Bro will drop whatever he's doing and rush to help his Bro dump a chick." Or, "A Bro shall never rack jack his wingman." (Translation: Steal a buddy's girl.) Much of this – etiquette on grooming, clothes, sports, channel – surfing, pizza – ordering, drinking and so on – will read like common sense to most regular stand – up guys, but it's codified here with hip style and features some humorous graphics. Bottom line? It's all about supporting one another, however best and most realistically possible. Article #1: "Bros before ho's."

Finally, for that guy who just may not want to grow up, there's The DC Vault: A Museum-in-a-Book Featuring Rare Collectibles from the DC Universe. Author Martin Pasko has fashioned an interesting, nuanced history of the comic – book giant, founded during the Great Depression and the eventual purveyor of beloved American superheroes – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. – as well as a long string of Westerns, Army adventures ("Sgt. Rock"), sci – fi tales and pop – culture – inspired ephemera. The main draw in this sturdy, ring – bound showcase are the marvelous photos – of cover art, story pages, early pencil sketches, company correspondence, internal memos, etc. – plus production stills from spinoff movies and TV shows. Hardcore fans will particularly relish the plastic – wrapped inserts containing reproduced memorabilia from the company's long history, including public service comics, promotional items, greetings cards, posters, bookmarks, stickers, etc. Pasko's final chapter tells of DC's corporate repositioning in 1989 as a part of the Warner Bros. movie studio, with a discussion of the marketing and new – media development that has gone on since. Paul Levitz, DC's current president and publisher, provides the foreword.

 

Outta the park

The baseball books lead off with Harvey Frommer's timely Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of the House That Ruth Built. Frommer provides a nostalgic, factually keen description of the formidable ball yard through its many baseball seasons, 1923 through 2008…

Interview by

Eisner Award-winning author and illustrator Isabel Greenberg takes readers back into the magical medieval world of her acclaimed 2013 graphic, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, with her new book, The One Hundred Nights of Hero. A bold and poignant play on the traditional story of Scheherazade in The Arabian Nights, Greenberg's tale follows Cherry and her quick-witted maid, Hero (a star-crossed couple secretly in love) through their 100-day ploy to distract a diabolical man by regaling him with with stories so compelling that he loses track of time altogether. The story of Cherry and Hero's brave fight against oppressive men who don't believe in women's literacy or rights is artfully entwined with Hero's empowering folk tales, which Greenberg brings to vivid life with her unique and playful line work.

We asked Greenberg a few questions about her fantastical world, female-focused stories, the challenges of working in the comics industry and more.

Describe One Hundred Nights of Hero in one sentence.
Feminist folk tales for a modern age.

This book builds on the magical world you created in your previous graphic. What drew you back in?
I felt there were still stories to be told in Early Earth. I think there probably still are, although I will probably be taking a break and trying a new setting for my next project! I love books that build imaginary worlds; I’ve always been a fan of authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkein and Philip Pullman, and I always wanted to build my own. The difficulty of doing that is you become rather stuck in it! I felt a bit like it was going on even without me writing it!

The One Hundred Nights of Hero is very steeped in fairy tales and myth—what is it about these ancient forms of storytelling that inspires you?
I like the universality of the stories . . . the fact that there is a Cinderella story from virtually every culture. It's amazing to me how many times these stories have been told, and that’s why I like to use them and retell them. It seems very natural to me. The stories are extremely easy to adapt and to place your own characters on top of what is often a trope rather than a well drawn personality, meaning you have a lot of freedom to work within them. And finally, they are about such universal themes; love, jealousy, family etc. Who could not find something in there to relate to?

What do you love most about Hero and Cherry?
I love that they are there for each other. Cherry is more spontaneous, maybe a little spoiled. Hero is cautious, but also the one who spins the tales. They compliment each other, I hope. And I think they have a lot to say to each other!

In this novel, women are punished for reading, storytelling and sassiness. Why was it important for you to focus on strong, intelligent women in these stories?
I find this question interesting as when I wrote this book, I didn’t actually intend to make a statement about "strong intelligent women," I was just writing what I felt. I know lots of strong and intelligent women, and doesn’t seem remarkable to me. The fact that it has been so remarked upon in response to the book, as being something unusual, tells me that these stories do still need to be told. And that there is a need for characters like this. It doesn’t seem exceptional for books to feature "strong intelligent" men.

Have you come across many challenges as a woman, both as a writer and a reader, in this historically male-dominated sector of publishing?
As a reader I’ve been really excited to see that, in the U.K. at least, festivals and cons are full of women and girls, both fans and authors. Most of my favorite comic artists are women! As an author, being typecast as a "female comic artist" can be quite irritating. Obviously it is positive and necessary that spaces are being created for women within a traditionally male-dominated industry, but it can also be patronizing and condescending. Once I was given a rag doll as a prize at a "women in comics" themed event for example! Furthermore, the comics industry is not only traditionally very male, but also very white, and much more is needed to open it up to new voices.

What authors and artists have influenced you the most?
I love comics, and I love artists like Kate Beaton, Grace Wilson, Tillie Walden, Jillian Tamaki, Tove Janson and so many others. Mainly I think I have been most influenced by the novels I read growing up that I still love today; Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Pullman, J.R.R. Tolkein.

What is the most challenging aspect of working within the graphic novel as a format for storytelling? Most rewarding?
I love to draw, so I get immense pleasure from doing it. However, it can be quite an alarming moment when you finish writing and thumbnailing a 200 page book, think you are finished and then realize you now have to draw the whole thing! I love the writing and drawing equally and get as much enjoyment, in different ways, from both. I think what I find challenging is knowing when to stop using words and let the images speak for themselves. I work in quite a text heavy way anyway, but I love to write, and sometimes that can overtake the drawings!

How do you see the graphic genre and its literary importance evolving in the future?
I would like to see a time when comics and/or graphic novels (however you want to call them—I do not mind!) are not on their own shelf in the corner of bookshops, but are so commonplace and well thought of that they are shelved according to their genre; crime, biography, autobiography, fantasy etc., rather than in one section when they could be vastly different! Comics are not a genre—they are a medium.

Do you have any new projects on the horizon?
Yes! But it's too early to talk about!

Eisner Award-winning author and illustrator Isabel Greenberg takes readers back into the magical medieval world of her acclaimed 2013 graphic, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, with her new book, The One Hundred Nights of Hero. A bold and poignant play on the traditional story of Scheherazade in The Arabian Nights, Greenberg's tale follows Cherry and her quick-witted maid, Hero (a star-crossed couple secretly in love) through their 100-day ploy to distract a diabolical man by regaling him with with stories so compelling that he loses track of time altogether.

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