"From James M. Cain to Stephen King, from Sophocles to the Marquis de Sade to Iceberg Slim, here are stunning and sometimes macabre visualizations of some of the greatest crime and mystery stories of all time. Rick Geary brings his crisp style to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment; C. Frakes resurrects the forgotten novella "Talma Gordon," the first mystery written by an African American. Crime finds new life in these graphic renditions of The Arabian Nights, the Bible, James Joyce's Dubliners, Patricia Highsmith, and leading mystery writers of today like Jo Nesbø"--

The latest volume in Russ Kick's New York Times best-selling series retells classic crime fiction in full-color visual comix splendor. "Easily the most ambitious and successfully realized literary project in recent memory." --NPR "A treasure trove for literary comics fans." --WIRED Here are Teddy Goldenberg's dense, murky treatment of Dashiell Hammett's "The Road Home," often considered the first hardboiled detective story ever published. Shawn Cheng renders the first serial-killer story, the so-called fairy tale "Bluebeard" by Charles Perrault. Landis Blair reimagines The Trial as a choose-your-own-adventure story that you cannot win, and Ted Rall retells an O. Henry story about a petty criminal who just can't get arrested. Plus 28 other contributors using a wide range of illustrative styles. As with previous volumes in the Graphic Canon series, the illustrations run the full gamut of media and techniques, and artistic interpretations range from verbatim literalism to metaphorical extensions to surrealism and abstraction. The common theme, tracing the origins and standout texts of the morbid and mysterious, unites these multifarious partners in crime.

The first of two volumes builds on the brilliant and original Graphic Canon series in retelling classic works of literature as comics and other visual forms. Organized thematically, Volume 1 opens with "The Act" (think In Cold Blood and A Clockwork Orange), followed by sections dedicated to "Criminals," Whodunit," "Judgment" (Scarlet Letter, anyone?), and "Punishment." Here you'll find stunning and suspenseful adaptations starring classic PIs Sherlock Holmes, Auguste Dupin, Hercule Poirot, Father Brown, Mike Hammer, and teenage girl-detective Violet Strange. But the mystery, intrigue, and foul play don't end (or begin) there. The artists also bring to life crime stories from the Arabian Nights, the Bible, The Canterbury Tales, China's Song Dynasty, Shakespeare, James Joyce's Dubliners, Patricia Highsmith, Truman Capote, and current writers like Stephen King, Jo Nesbo, and Sara Paretsky. Rick Geary brings his crisp style to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Teddy Goldenberg gives us a dense, murky treatment of Dashiell Hammett's "The Road Home," often considered the first hardboiled detective story ever published. C. Frakes resurrects the forgotten novella "Talma Gordon," the first mystery written by an African American; and Shawn Cheng renders the first serial-killer story, the so-called fairy tale "Bluebeard" by Charles Perrault. Even the very natures of crime, justice, and punishment are up for grabs. Landis Blair reimagines The Trial, as a choose-your-own-adventure story that you cannot win, Ted Rall retells an O. Henry story about a petty criminal who just can't get arrested. From The Marquis de Sade to James Cain, Aeschylus to Paula Hawkins, crime and mystery has never been so brilliantly reimagined.

Jillian Tamaki, co-author of This One Summer, picks the best graphic pieces of the year. "The pieces I chose were those that stuck with me, represented something important about comics in this moment, and exemplified excellence of the craft. Surveying the final collection, I'm moved by the variety of individual approaches. There are so many ways to make us care about little marks on a page."--Jillian Tamaki, from the introduction The Best American Comics 2019 showcases the work of established and up-and-coming artists, collecting work found in the pages of graphic novels, comic books, periodicals, zines, online, in galleries, and more, highlighting the kaleidoscopic diversity of the comics form today. Featuring Vera Brosgol, Eleanor Davis, Nick Drnaso, Margot Ferrick, Ben Passmore, John Porcellino, Joe Sacco, Lauren Weinstein, Lale Westvind, and others.

The Graphic Canon, Volume 2 gives us a visual cornucopia based on the wealth of literature from the 1800s. Several artists—including Maxon Crumb and Gris Grimly—present their versions of Edgar Allan Poe’s visions. The great American novel Huckleberry Finn is adapted uncensored for the first time, as Twain wrote it. The bad boys of Romanticism—Shelley, Keats, and Byron—are visualized here, and so are the Brontë sisters. We see both of Coleridge’s most famous poems: “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (the latter by British comics legend Hunt Emerson). Philosophy and science are ably represented by ink versions of Nietzsche’sThus Spake Zarathustra and Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Frankenstein, Moby-Dick, Les Misérables, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment (a hallucinatory take on the pivotal murder scene), Thoreau’s Walden (in spare line art by John Porcellino of King-Cat Comics fame), “The Drunken Boat” by Rimbaud, Leaves of Grass by Whitman, and two of Emily Dickinson’s greatest poems are all present and accounted for. John Coulthart has created ten magnificent full-page collages that tell the story of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. And Pride and Prejudice has never looked this splendiferous! This volume is a special treat for Lewis Carroll fans. Dame Darcy puts her unmistakable stamp on—what else?—the Alice books in a new 16-page tour-de-force, while a dozen other artists present their versions of the most famous characters and moments from Wonderland. There’s also a gorgeous silhouetted telling of “Jabberwocky,” and Mahendra’s Singh’s surrealistic take on “The Hunting of the Snark.” Curveballs in this volume include fairy tales illustrated by the untameable S. Clay Wilson, a fiery speech from freed slave Frederick Douglass (rendered in stark black and white by Seth Tobocman), a letter on reincarnation from Flaubert, the Victorian erotic classic Venus in Furs, the drug classic The Hasheesh Eater, and silk-screened illustrations for the ghastly children’s classic Der Struwwelpeter. Among many other canonical works.

Chicana/o literature frequently depicts characters who exist in a vulnerable liminal space, living on the border between Mexican and American identities, and sometimes pushed to the edge by authorities who seek to restrict their freedom. As this groundbreaking new study reveals, the books themselves have occupied similarly precarious positions, as Chicana/o literature has struggled for economic viability and visibility on the margins of the American publishing industry, while Chicana/o writers have grappled with editorial practices that compromise their creative autonomy. From the Edge reveals the tangled textual histories behind some of the most cherished works in the Chicana/o literary canon, tracing the negotiations between authors, editors, and publishers that determined how these books appeared in print. Allison Fagan demonstrates how the texts surrounding the authors’ words—from editorial prefaces to Spanish-language glossaries, from cover illustrations to reviewers’ blurbs—have crucially shaped the reception of Chicana/o literature. To gain an even richer perspective on the politics of print, she ultimately explores one more border space, studying the marks and remarks that readers have left in the margins of these books. From the Edge vividly demonstrates that to comprehend fully the roles that ethnicity, language, class, and gender play within Chicana/o literature, we must understand the material conditions that governed the production, publication, and reception of these works. By teaching us how to read the borders of the text, it demonstrates how we might perceive and preserve the faint traces of those on the margins.