Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis The Menace 1953-1954
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics' collection of George Herriman's Krazy Kat comic strip was a no-brainer: The strip was one of the most daring and influential, yet underappreciated and under-collected, works in newspaper comics history.
The publisher's next major work of funny-page preservation was The Complete Peanuts. Charles Schulz's contributions to the medium may have been overshadowed in American popular consciousness by that damn Christmas special and "Get Met" ads, but Fanta's series of beautiful books have allowed us to view Schulz's life's work through fresh, unfiltered eyes.
Now comes a complete collection of Hank Ketcham's Dennis The Menace, the second volume of which arrives next week. Ketcham's contributions to pop and consumer culture seem to have eclipsed his contributions to sequential art even more greatly than Schulz's did; think Dennis the Menace, and you're more likely to conjure the sitcom or Walter Matthau movie than the sight-gag masterpieces Ketcham started cranking out more than 50 years ago.
Once again, Fantagraphics' beautiful book design demands you pay attention: The squat, fat, hardcover books put one one-panel cartoon on each page, and even have a built-in bookmark in the binding, like the kind often included in bibles. Which is just about the amount of reverence the publisher treats Ketcham's creation with.
And once they've got your attention, Ketcham's elegant line work and distillation of the 1950s American dream convince you the work more than deserves it.
Superior Showcase #1
AdHouse Books
If there's one thing that American comic books have an obscenely abundant surplus of, it's superheroes. But that didn't stop small publisher AdHouse Books from introducing a few scores more heroes in their fantastic anthology graphic novel Project: Superior.
And if we have to have more superheroes, these are the sorts of heroes we need: Silly, fun and funny ones, their colorful adventures written and drawn by the sorts of small indie creators that you'd never see working on Spider-Man or Superman.
Spinning out of that project is a new, ongoing anthology series, Superior Showcase, which gives the contributing creators a regular venue for their offbeat tales of heroes that are sort of super.
The first issue kicks off with a story by Nick Bertozzi called "Super Mart," a slice-of-life story set in a convenience store. Where everyone wears superhero costumes and goes by code names. It's followed by Mike Dawson's "Ace-Face, the Mod with the Metal Arms," who was given He-Man-size bionic arms as a baby and had to grow into them. Now a middle-aged college professor, he's pretty much grown out of them.
Finally, artist Dean Trippe, creator of the online DC hero parody Butterfly, gives us a beautifully drawn, long-form version of his online strips, in which a sidekick takes on a sidekick of his own, and they go up against the threat of hipster ghosts, who smell like clove cigarettes and attack you with condescension. Awesome.
Banana Sunday
Oni Press
This graphic novel collects the agreeable all-ages story about Kirby, the new girl at school, and the three talking-primate pals of hers that transfer in with her, each with exactly one personality trait that writer Root Nibot mines for jokes. There's an intellectual orangutan, an adorably dumb gorilla and a randy monkey who can't get enough of the ladies.
Kirby's cagey about why the primates can talk and are smart enough to be in high school with her, and tries to keep their true nature a secret from nosy school paper reporter Nickles and nerdy love interest Martin.
It may be lacking in drama and relevance, but artist Colleen Coover is extremely gifted, and draws cute monkeys and cuter high-school girls like no one's business. Coover's style approaches what has practically become the de facto Oni house style, a simple, stripped-down cartoon Amerimanga look, where Dan DeCarlo's old Archie work meets Chynna Clugston-Major's Blue Monday. The simple story is probably more geared toward kids than adults, but Coover's art ensures the endeavor isn't wasted on adults.