SHQ crew back with more recs!
Chris! With Books!
Cornelius by Marc Torices
Drawn & Quarterly, $40
Cornelius by Marc Torices
This book is pure cartooning elegance, weaving disparate art styles into a fever dream, dark-as-a-bottomless-pit comedy. Cornelius is "spoiled and immature, unable to deal with life as an adult. Someone feverishly feigning emotional stability while actually being driven by pure and simple desperation." Cornelius is an asshole. Cornelius is a coward. Cornelius is pathetic and pitiable. Cornelius is also a dog. Cornelius for president, or at least a nomination for a Nobel Prize.
Saga De Xam by Nicolas Devil & Jean Rollin
Anthology Editions, $60
Saga De Xam by Nicolas Devil & Jean Rollin
In Jean Rollin's 1979 film Fascination, the maids call their chateau a "universe of madness and death", an apt description of his own decade earlier book Saga de Xam. In its first English translation ever, heroine Saga escapes her war-riddled planet like a Kal-El with boobs, and proceeds to hop time through some of the most brutal (trigger warnings galore) and horny moments of Planet Earth. Equal parts Belladonna of Sadness, Barbarella and Ottinger's Madame X, Rollin forges his fantastique, feminist, sapphic priorities, but the true star is Nicolas Devil's art, a cannonball of psychedelic expression which feels as if Sun Ra's cosmic music is pouring through Devil's pen.
Them Shaped Clouds by Max Huffman
Cram Books, $20
Them Shaped Clouds by Max Huffman
Max Huffman's Dogtangle is terrific but three cheers for this riso mini-masterpiece from Cram Books. Collecting a handful of shorties, this banger combines Huffman's slacker wit with his angular-Hirschfeld, cubist naughty aughties Cartoon Network on acid style. This all with colors that would make the Las Vegas Boneyard blush.
Buff Soul by Moa Romanova
Fantagraphics, $30
Buff Soul by Moa Romanova
If JD Pinkus is the wise sage in your tale of youthful folly, you've already succeeded. Taking the EP (On Tour, published by Peow) and expanding it into a full length album, Buff Soul stirs all the feelings of wild salad days, ignoring your bodily well-being and balancing the teetering scale of new adulthood, where none of it matters and at the same time, all of it matters. It made me exclaim aloud "oh to be young again!", followed by the sobering realization that I was never punk, and have lived an uneventful, nerdy, little life.
Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano
New York Review Comics, $20
Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano
Illuminating, light-hearted, slice of life comics of a working girl in late 80s consumer culture Japan. Miss Ruki brought me cozy comfort on the same level of Taniguchi's Walking Man with a touch of the tangible realness of Matsumoto's Tokyo These Days. Basically Cathy except less nervous sweating and acks.
Spy Seal: The Corten Steel Phoenix by Rich Tommaso
Floating World Comics, $20/$30
Spy Seal: The Corten Steel Phoenix by Rich Tommaso
God bless Rich Tommaso and those Dawn of the Dead Mall weirdos at Floating World for reprinting one of the most criminally underrated comics of the last decade. Perfect for Tintin fans if you hate cultural appropriation. Perfect for Bond fans if you hate sexism and racism. Perfect for Usagi fans if you hate rabbits. Plainly, a perfect book.