In its ongoing quest to showcase Jacques Tardi's wide range,Fantagraphics is publishing one of his earliest and most distinctive graphicnovels: a satirical, Jules Vernes-esque "retro-sci-fi" yarn. In1899, a ship navigating the Arctic Ocean comes across a stunning sight: aghostly, abandoned vessel perched high atop an iceberg. Soon, the sailors'own ship is dispatched via a mysterious explosion. Enter JérômePlumier, whose search for his missing uncle, the inventor Louis-FerdinandChapoutier, brings him into contact with the sinister, frigid forces behind this-- and soon he, too, is headed towards the North Pole, where he willcontend with mad scientists, monsters of the deep, and futuristic submarines andflying machines. Told with brio in hilarious slabs of vintage purple prose,The Arctic Marauder finds Tardi in fantastical mode and is a keystone of hisoeuvre.

Stunningly visual, extraordinarily detailed, powerfully dramatic, here is the first volume of a remarkable new series . . . The First Americans. When humans first walked the world, when nature ruled the earth and sky, a proud tribe is threatened by a series of natural disasters. A bold young hunter named Torka, who lost his wife and child to a killer mammoth, leads the survivors over the glacial tundra on a desperate eastward odyssey to the save their clan. Through attacks of savage animals and encounters with strangers not unlike themselves, they must brave the hardships of a foreign landscape and learn to live in an exotic new world of mystery and danger. They must travel toward the land where the sun rises for a new day for their clan—and an awesome future for the American.

This collection of essays explores the social and cultural aspects of steampunk, examining the various manifestations of this multi-faceted genre, in order to better understand the steampunk sub-culture and its effect on--and interrelationship with--popular culture and the wider society.

A deadly fifty-year-old secret from World War II, hidden away at a top-secret Nazi submarine base, could spell disaster for the modern world when a ruthless corporate mercenary plans to hold the entire world hostage, unless geologist Philip Mercer and his colleague, Anika Klein, can stop him. Original.

The French cartooning master Tardi’s first solo graphic novel is a riotous action-adventure comedy. Paris, 1914. In one auspicious night, Lucien Brindavoine’s humdrum life is thrown into wild disarray. Out of the blue, a strange old man visits Brinvadoine’s flat and implores him to go to Istanbul to seek his destiny. No sooner are these fateful words spoken than a shot is fired through the window and the man is murdered by a mysterious assailant. Thus kicks off a madcap adventure wherein the mild-mannered dilettante Brindavoine races to the Middle East ― by boat, plane, and jeep ―with cutthroat assassins threatening him at every turn. After much ado, he encounters an iron city in the desert where an eccentric American billionaire will decide his fate. The first solo graphic novel by Tardi, Farewell, Brindavoine showcases the French cartooning master’s signature blend of dark humor, brutal violence, and beguiling mystery. For Tardi fans, an essential early work; for newcomers, a thrilling primer to the Tardi oeuvre.

“Shelly Laurenston’s shifter books are full of oddball characters, strong females with attitude and dialogue that can have you laughing out loud.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer Some men just have more to offer. Like hard-muscled, shape-shifting Bo Novikov--part polar bear, part lion, pure alpha… Ten years after Blayne Thorpe first encountered Bo Novikov, she still can't get the smooth-talking shifter out of her head. Now he's shadowing her in New York--all seven-plus feet of him--determined to protect her from stalkers who want to use her in shifter dogfights. Even if he has to drag her off to an isolated Maine town where the only neighbors are other bears almost as crazy as he is. Let sleeping dogs lie. Bo knows it's good advice, but he can't leave Blayne be. Blame it on her sweet sexiness--or his hunch that there's more to this little wolfdog than meets the eye. Blayne has depths he hasn't yet begun to fathom--much as he'd like to. She may insist Bo's nothing but a pain in her delectable behind, but polar bears have patience in spades. Soon she'll realize how good they can be together. And when she does, animal instinct tells him it'll be worth the wait… "Non-stop laughter, snark, and witty banter." –SmexyBooks Praise for the novels of Shelly Laurenston "Delicious, sexy and wicked fun!" --New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter on Bear Meets Girl

In the midst of an international crisis, Heidi Milligan, a beautiful, brilliant American naval commander, accidentally discovers an obscure reference to the long-buried North American Treaty, a precedent-shattering secret pact between the United States and Great Britain. The President believes that the treaty offers the single shot at salvation for an energy-starved, economically devastated nation, but the only two copies plummeted into the watery depths of the Atlantic in twin disasters long ago. The original document must be found—and the one American who can do the job is Dirk Pitt. But in London, a daring counterplot is being orchestrated to see that the treaty is never implemented. Brian Shaw, a master spy who has often worked hand in hand with American agents, now confronts his most challenging command. Pitt’s mission: Raise the North American Treaty. Shaw’s mission: Stop Pitt. Praise for Night Probe! and the Dirk Pitt® novels “A rich tale . . . an absorbing, carefully told mystery with plenty of surprises.”—Los Angeles Times “Dirk Pitt is a combination James Bond and Jacques Cousteau.”—New York Daily News