This Month

We take stock of the vibrant medium of comics this month with a colorful collection of titles from all over the world. Adrian Tomine delivers a long-awaited graphic novel bubbling with angst. One of Tomine's inspirations, the alt-manga godfather Yoshihiro Tatsumi, crafts economical tales of gritty realism. Rutu Modan evokes a search for a lost father in her exquisite North American debut. Art Out of Time collects brilliant and forgotten strips from decades past, while The "Ignatz" Series gathers global comics talents into swoon-worthy editions. For those who want a better grasp of "sequential art" (or just the ability to bluff with authority), Douglas Wolk offers a critical primer on reading comics. We even have a couple of picture-free books under review: Austin Grossman novelizes a hapless superhero, while comics writer Warren Ellis serves up a hardboiled yarn.