Eisner Awards

Here is the list of the 2025 Eisner Award winning comics and graphic novels for 2025. We have a number of these in stock at the store.

 

Will Eisner Week

 Will Eisner Week is celebrated is year to remember Will Eisner, considered the creator of the graphic novel, essentially a book length original comic book. Books such as Gender Queer, Ducks and My Favorite Thing is Monsters can be classified as graphic novels, since they are written and drawing as a self contained whole. Eisner Award winners such as Saga, Bone, Monstress and even Maus could be classified as trade paperbacks, since they were originally released as comic books, or in the case of Maus as part of a comic anthology, before getting collected into book form

Will Eisner Week

 March 1 through 7th is Will Eisner Week. Will Eisner, creator of the Spirit, is widely considered the father of the graphic novel, which is generally defined as a book length comic book, while a trade paperback is a collection of several individual comic issues which form a complete story arc. 

To celebrate, we are offering a 10% discount on all graphic novels and trade paperbacks, both used and new, through March 7th. Castle Cards may be applied to your purchase, as well as your Preferred Customer Discount.

The Happy Shop

 New All ages graphic novel releasing next February

PORTLAND, OR (August 25, 2023) - Oni Press, the multiple Eisner and Harvey award-winning publisher of comic books and graphic novels, will publish Brittany Long Olsen’s graphic novel, THE HAPPY SHOP. This heartwarming middle grade story will be released in February 2024.

 

In THE HAPPY SHOP, eleven-year-old Darcy is feeling sad and alone after she moves to a new country when she accidentally stumbles into a magical store that sells happy feelings. But when Darcy witnesses a sad feeling accidentally being sold at work, she begins to wonder. Is happiness really the only emotion people need? 

 

“THE HAPPY SHOP shines a light on the deep importance of experiencing a whole range of human emotion, not just happy feelings, and building community with the people we care about,” said cartoonist Brittany Long Olsen.

 

“THE HAPPY SHOP's charm is that it exists in a world just like ours,” said Oni Press Editor Grace Scheipeter. “The story features a contemporary setting with just a light touch of magic. And much of that magic is in the dynamic cartooning of Brittany Long Olsen, whose graphic novel is a delight and inspiration. It’s a perfect read for fans of the film Inside Out, Mai K. Nguyen's Pilu of the Woods, and Brenna Thummler's Sheets.”

 

THE HAPPY SHOP will be available in bookstores and comic shops in February 2024. 

The Hundreth Voice

From the creator of The Hundreth Voice. If you would like us to order you a copy, let us know.

"I’m Caitlin Like, a cartoonist from Portland, Oregon and creator of Dark Horse Comics’ upcoming graphic novel The Hundredth Voice. It’s a middle-grade dark fantasy graphic novel about a haunted music school, and I’m emailing to let you know preorders are now open. 

 

Uriel Driscoll was born into a family with an amazing gift…and a terrible curse.

 

While his family all have superb singing voices, they are doomed to lose their gifts at the height of their success!

 

Invited to the exclusive Aisling Academy, run by his own mysterious grandfather, Uriel finds the curse is the least of his problems: horrible accidents keep befalling the students, ghosts roam the halls, and Uriel isn’t sure he can sing in the first place! And if Uriel can’t find a way to break his family’s curse, he’ll have to leave his new school, and his new friends, forever…"

Mother Nature

 Jamie Lee Curtis (yes, that Jamie Lee Curtis) has co-written a graphic novel based on an idea that has perculating in her head since she was 19. We are taking pre-orders now if you are interested and the book releases August 9.  You can watch a preview of the book, Mother Nature, here.

Maus

 In Janurary of 2022, a Tennessee school board voted to ban Maus for "book’s content, its age appropriateness and the best way to teach children about the Nazis’ persecution of European Jews during World War II". As a result, the graphic novel shot back up to the top of the best seller lists. We sold more copies of Maus in 2022 than we had in the previous 5 years. 

The lesson, of course, is if you want more people to read a book, ban it.

Art Spiegelman

 Art Spiegelman, best known as the author of Maus, was interviewed about it and his other works on today's Morning edition. 

Maus

 Not game related but as we do sell comics and graphic novels, the recent uptick in interest in the Maus graphic novel bemused me.  https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/50294/tennessee-school-board-pulls-maus-from-8th-grade-history-classes  For those who missed the story, a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to pull the book from its library shelves, over the protests of teachers who used the book in their discussion of WW2 and Holocaust, due to obscene language and a tiny picture of the author’s mother, who committed suicide in a bathtub. This news shot Maus back to the top of Amazon’s best seller list and, from what we have seen in the store have heard from other stores, more customers have asked about and bought the book in the past week than have in years. Wil Wheaton is asking his social media followers to buy a copy and ask the shop to lend or give it away to some who asks. Stores nationally have reported more sales in the past week than in the past couple of years.  Nothing sells like controversy.

Banned Graphic Novels

 In case you are looking for other banned graphic novels to read after Maus, here are several

Bone

The Killing Joke

Y:  The last Man

Sandman:  Preludes and Nocturnes

Watchman

Fun Home

New Graphic Novels

 In case you want to get all of the codes in one place, the Batman/Fortnight hardcover collection releases tomorrow, with all 6 issues of the mini series and 7 digital codes for use in the game. Also the newest volume of the very popular My Hero Academia and the collected Joker/Harley miniseries release as well.

Interview With the Creators of She Said Destroy!

Five questions with the writer and artist of the upcoming trade paperback She Said Destroy!  Let us know if you want to pre-order a copy

Could you describe the plot of She Said Destroy?

The last two Goddesses are at war! The Goddess of the Sun, Brigid, has taken claim over everything the Sun touches save one space colony that houses the few remaining followers of Morrigan, the Goddess of Death. With the final invasion underway, can the faith of Morrigan’s followers hold out against Brigid’s overwhelming forces?

Readers of which series would probably like She Said Destroy?

The Wicked + The Divine, Camelot 3000, Sera and the Royal Stars, The Marked, Star Wars, Saga

What other books, graphic novels, comics have you written?

Joe: I’ve edited the Eisner nominated (Best Short Story) and Ringo Award winning anthology Mine!, the GLAAD nominated Oh S#!t It’s Kim & Kim, edited and wrote stories in the Dead Beats anthology, wrote shorts in the Everything Is Going Wrong anthology, This Nightmare Kills Fascists, Dates Volume 3, a short prose story in They Keep Killing Glenn edited by Peter and Kathleen David, as well as a number of currently unannounced projects I am editing and writing.

Liana: I started my career with a piece in Joe's Ringo winning/Eisner nominated Mine!, working my way to Black AF's Devil's Dye, and being published in the 2018 2000AD SciFi Special. I've also been working on anthology pieces for All We Ever Wanted (AWBW), Dead Beats, Everything is Going Wrong! and then doing shorts for Renegade's new GWAR book, and a ton of other fun projects! I even started writing (co-writing with Joe!)

What else would you like to say about the book?

This is a story that taps deep into our youth and the media we consumed at the time. Everything from Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy, Star Wars, The Legend of Zelda, and all the excitement and creativity it sparked at the time that carried over into adult life makes it to the pages of She Said Destroy. 

How can readers find out more about your work and upcoming projects?

Follow us on

Twitter @joecorallo & @lianakangas or Instagram @corallojoe & @lianakangas

Silver Graphic Novel

Below is a press release from Black Planet Publishing touting their new GN series Silver. We will bring in copies of their Free Comic Book Day giveaway to gauge interest but will only stock in if we get an order for it as the track record for independent GNs here is not that great. Let us you if you have an interest in it:

ears ago, Professor Abraham Van Helsing visited Dracula’s castle. Now his descendent, the mysterious vampire hunter Rosalyn Van Helsing, is teaming up with a master thief and his ragtag group of con men for a high stakes heist to rob Europe’s richest vampires. Welcome to the world of Stephan Franck’s SILVER, a globe-trotting graphic novel series that mashes up the world of Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula with action, adventure, humor, pulp storytelling and modern sensibilities.

This year, SILVER, is coming to a comic shop near you as a 4-volume set of trade-paperback graphic novels. SILVER writer and artist Stephan Franck tells us more:

SILVER begins 40 years after the events of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. We are in 1930’s New York city, where we meet a new character: conman and master-thief JAMES FINNIGAN. Finn kicks off the story by robbing a children’s charity auction, so clearly, karma-wise, he has some room to grow. The items up for auction are from the Harker family, a surname Dracula fans will immediately recognize. Then, thanks to a strange discovery at the end of Chapter One, a door will open on a new mysterious world of mortal undead danger and fortune untold. That’s too much for a thief like Finnigan to resist.

The adventure that follows is epic and super fun in the great Pulp tradition, but also an awesome opportunity to explore character. To me, con men and vampires are mirror images of one another. They live predatory, solitary lives on the outskirts of things and  don’t engage emotionally like other people do. The mash-up raises interesting questions, like “what does it really mean to feel alive?” Is it just about cheating death for a thousand years, becoming rich beyond your wildest dreams, or is there something more?

Finnegan immediately understands that, to take on the vampires, he will need a specialist. Thanks to Harker’s ledger, he locates a mysterious young woman known as “SLEDGE”, AKA ROSALYND VAN HELSING—the famed professor’s grand-daughter, and last of the Van Helsings.

Sledge carries on the family tradition of ridding the world of the vampire scourge, but it appears that she may have spent a little too much time lurking in cemeteries making sure the dead stay dead, and she’s pretty close to a complete spiritual burnout. She’s not someone easy to access, but eventually warms up to Finn’s scheme. Sparks fly as soon as they meet!

While we uncover a secret world of vampires, and while we have tons of fun with a super gothic/romantic take on DRACULA himself, SILVER is first and foremost a relentless Pulp adventure. The epic set pieces build one after the other, and the cons keep on coming.  

My hope is that some will make you laugh, some will break your heart, some will have you on the edge of your seat, and that all of it will keep you guessing until the very end!

Top 10 Graphic Novels for Christmas Gifts

Here are Brian's suggestions for 10 great graphic novels to give as gifts this holiday:

Top 10 Graphic Novels to give as gifts

1.        Saga Vol. 1:  A great gift for fans of science fiction or fans of compelling characters combined with great art and storytelling.  It has been showered with awards and is, in my opinion, the best comic currently available.

2.       Scott Pilgrim Color Edition Hardbacks:  The top choice for the video-game fan in your life.  This new edition has been colored gloriously and presented in quality hardback form.

3.       Gunnerkrigg Court:  Based on the award winning web-comic series, it has also been praised by Neil Gaiman.  It mixes Science Fiction and Fantasy into a wonderfully understated mystery set in the enigmatic Gunnerkrigg Court.  Great for fans of Harry Potter.

4.       V For Vendetta with Mask:  Make the political activist in your life happy with Alan Moore’s eponymous series about a corrupt fascist government being brought down by a lone revolutionary hero.  This edition also comes with a Guy Fawkes mask!  Great for any budding anarchist.

5.       Star Wars:  The Shadow of Yavin:  This Brian Wood series follows the Rebel Alliance after the battle of Yavin IV as they try and re-group and evade the Imperial navy.  It focuses on Princess Leia coming to terms with the destruction of Alderan and her new leadership role in the Alliance.  We also see Luke have to deal with his new status as one of the Alliance’s greatest heroes.  On the Imperial side, we see Lord Vader dealing with his failure to prevent the destruction of the Death Star and the Imperial officers who would take advantage of this to improve their position in the eyes of the Emperor.  This would be a wonderful gift to any Star Wars fan especially those who have shied away from the daunting expanded universe.

6.       Girl Genius Book 1:  Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank:  This introduces the reader to an alternative Victorian Europe, ruled (badly) by Mad Science.  We follow Agatha Heterodyne, the lost daughter of one of Europe’s greatest heroes as she struggles to find her destiny in a chaotic collection of city-states kept from controlled by the fearsome Baron Wolfenbach.  Ignorant to her famous lineage, she discovers that she, like her parents, possesses the “Spark”, the ability to create impossible feats of science.  Though This series borrows a lot from Steampunk, it’s creators describe it as “Gaslamp Fantasy”.  It is full of Heroism, Adventure and Romance, a must for any fan of Alternate History, Victorian Adventure, or Steampunk.

7.       The Massive Vol. 1:  Black Pacific:  This near future tale is set after “The Crash”, a combination of Social, Economic and Environmental collapse.  World governments dissolve, countries splinter into factions, weather goes haywire, economies crash and all of the side effects push the world past the breaking point.  We follow the crew of the Kapital, members of the Environmental Direct Action group, 7^th Wave, as they search for their sister ship, the Massive with which they have lost contact with.  They must carefully find their way through a new, frightening world that is emerging in the “Post-Crash” world.  How can they save a world that has already been destroyed?  Can they hold on to their ideals is a world gone mad?  This is a thrilling story that hits very close to home and would be a great addition to the library of the Environmentalist in your life.

8.       Maus:  Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer award winning book gives not only the harrowing account of his father’s experience surviving the Holocaust, it is a detailed study of his relationship with his father as he puts his story to paper.  One of the most notable features of this award winning book is the way he depicts the different ethnicities;  The Jews are depicted as mice, the Nazis are cats.  As enthralling as his father’s survival story is, the story of the long-lasting effects are just as gripping.  Probably one of the most important works of graphic fiction ever, this is a must for anyone looking for a powerful story of humanity, survival, and family.

9.       The Walking Dead Compendium 1:  Collecting the first 48 issues of the hugely popular zombie apocalypse series, this would be a great gift for zombie fans of all types, especially fans of the AMC television series.

10.   Mouse Guard:  Fall 1152:  This heroic tale follows members of the Mouse Guard, a group of brave mice who guard the roads between the independent mouse city states and protect the settlements from the barbaric weasels and all sort of predators.  Written and beautifully illustrated by David Petersen, readers young and old, will fall in love with the brave, tiny heroes trying to protect the innocent and each other in a big, dangerous world.  A great gift for fans of heroic fantasy and beautiful artwork.

Pre-orders Please

When customers pre-order items, it really helps us gauge the level of interest in the game or book.  The store puts in pre-orders 2-3 months ahead of the estimated release date of the game or book and, once we do that, we are committee to purchasing that quantity of the item from our distributor. Sure we can refuse to take delivery of it, but a store can only do that once before getting a reputation as an unreliable partner with suppliers.

In effect, stores gamble that we know what our customers want and in most cases, we are correct. Those stores that aren't, go out of business.  However, pre-orders allow us to better gauge the level of interest in a product and we get very few of them on most new releases.  Of the half dozen Pathfinder releases in January, and despite the fact that we have a comparatively large Pathfinder Society group, we had a pre-order for exactly one of them.  Pathfinder modules sell very slowly, so we have moved to a special order only on them.  Pazio mapping tiles and flip mats also move periodically.  We sat on a number of the flipmats for several months before most of them sold so are loath to restock them heavily.

Similarly in the field of comics, we had a customer in recently asking if we had gotten in the new hardback collection of Teenage Mutant Turtles comics.  Since we don't sell a lot of the comic off the rack, that indicates to us there is not much interest in a hardback collection of earlier issues. A pre-order on this book would have indicated there was and probalby encouraged us to order another one for the shelf.

Help us have the items on the shelf that you want to buy by either letting us know you are interested in it, or better yet, committing to a pre-order for it. That helps us manage our inventory better and lets us offer a more targeted selection to you.