Incoming Books: July 19

Hey, remember when Fantagraphics had that big sale for Memorial Day? (Don't worry if you didn't; I didn't, until the box arrived yesterday.) Well, the response was so good that some things had to be reprinted, and I gather that took a while.

Two things I ordered -- the second hardcover Feiffer collection and the second "McConey" graphic novel by Lewis Trondheim -- weren't available at all, and two more are still on backorder. But here's what did finally make it to my door. (And I'm not complaining; if you could see the invoice and knew what prices Fanta charged for these things, I doubt you'd complain either -- this is a steal.)

Peculia and Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires, both by Richard Sala -- More replacements of books lost in the flood of Hurricane Irene; I read these two before this blog existed, so there is no record of my opinions on them. (But see my reviews of the other Sala books The Hidden, The Chuckling Whatsit, and Cat Burglar Black as a consolation prize.)

Betsy and Me collects the entirely of the 1958 syndicated strip of that name by Jack Cole, which ended with his sudden death (by self-inflicted gunshot to the head) -- and Cole is the kind of quirky, weird comics creator that I'd like to dig deeper into.

Queen of the Black Black was Megan Kelso's first major collection of comics (before The Squirrel Mother and the recent full graphic novel Artichoke Tales -- I reviewed the latter for the August 2010 Realms of Fantasy, so I can't link here), and now I have my own copy of it.

Celluloid is "an erotic graphic novel" by Dave McKean, cartoonist of the excellent (if elliptic) book Cages and most famous as the Sandman cover artist. I don't think I've ever seen anyone write about it, but it intrigued me.

Two more "Love & Rockets" collections from the Hernandez Brothers -- the shelf is filling up, and I might be read for a re-read by the end of this year -- in Jaime's Maggie the Mechanic and Gilbert's Heartbreak Soup. Coincidentally, those are the first books in sequence from each of them.

A Shroud For Waldo by Kim Deitch -- another creator whose work I'll have to re-create after the flood, and I'm working on it.

And last is Harum Scarum, the first "McConey" graphic novel by Lewis Trondheim -- close readers will have noted that I also ordered the second, The Hoodoodad, but that it's no longer available. (Luckily, I guess, I have a really lousy copy that I got from an Amazon seller a couple of years back.)