The Katzenjammer Kids first ran in a supplement to the New York Journal in 1897. It was created by Rudolph Dirks, inspired by an old German children's story, Max and Moritz. In 1912, Dirks took a break from drawing, so the Hearst newspaper syndicate brought in artist Harold Knerr to continue the strip. A lawsuit ensued, and two comic strips emerged. Knerr would continue to draw The Katzenjammer Kids, while Dirks would run his own version, The Captain and the Kids (initially called Hans und Fritz). The Captain and the Kids ran (continued by Dirks' son, John) until 1979. Knerr drew The Katzenjammer Kids until his death in 1949. It has continued to the present day under different artists. This volume includes The Katzenjammer Kids pages from several issues of Ace Comics, and four issues of The Captain and the Kids.

American Horror Story meets the dark comedy of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as Cat searches for a way to escape her high school. A tale of family, love, tragedy, and masks—the ones others make for us, and the ones we make for ourselves. Katzenjammer will haunt fans of Chelsea Pitcher’s This Lie Will Kill You and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars. Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school’s breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat’s best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh. Cat doesn’t remember why she is trapped in her school or why half of them—Cat included—are slowly transforming. Escaping has always been the one impossibility in her school’s upside-down world. But to save herself from the eventual self-destruction all the students face, Cat must find the way out. And to do that, she’ll have to remember what put her there in the first place. Using chapters alternating between the past and the present, acclaimed author Francesca Zappia weaves a spine-tingling, suspenseful, and haunting story about tragedy and the power of memories. Fans of Marieke Nijkamp’s This Is Where It Ends and Karen McManus’s One of Us Is Lying will lose themselves in the pages of this novel—or maybe in the treacherous hallways of the school. Includes interior illustrations from the author.

Coast-to-coast readers of more than 150 newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, and Toronto Star share Fagan's view of this laugh-out-loud strip that deftly balances the tightrope of political correctness. Pardon My Planet: Omigawd! I've Become My Mother! represents the first collection of this uproarious cartoon that finds humor in all that makes us a little uncomfortable. Lee's razor wit is delivered through an array of seven recurring characters, each with their own off-kilter look at the world. In one panel, middle-aged suburbanites Dennis and Chloe learn from their Realtor that they may have found a home in their price range, but "unfortunately, there's a Scottish terrier named Rusty living in it." In another panel, while twentysomething roommates Jesse-Jane and Norris are dining out, Jesse-Jane asks the server how the chicken is prepared. The waiter dryly replies, "With no sugar-coating. We tell them right up front they're going to die." At times, the humor of Pardon My Planet is subtle but speaks to a deeper truth. Other times it is flat-out bizarre. This heady and hilarious collection captures it all, laying bare the annoyances and eccentricities of the inhabitants of our planet in this strip's unique and fresh way.

"Mit dose kids, society is nix!" So said the Inspector about the Katzenjammer kids, but he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years at the turn of the last century. From the very first color Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper sales, even though their crude and often offensive content placed them in a whirl of controversy. Sunday comics presented a wild parody of the world and the culture that surrounded them. Society didn't stand a chance. These are the origins of the American comic strip, born at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium. Here are the earliest offerings from known greats like R. F. Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, and George Herriman, along with the creations of more than fifty other superb cartoonists; over 150 Sunday comics dating from 1895 to 1915.

"Written as a satire on the comic devices cartoonists use, [this] book quickly became a textbook for art students. Walker researched cartoons around the world to collect this international set of cartoon symbols. The names he invented for them now appear in dictionaries."--Page 4 of cover