Welcome to Oddville. Here you will find flying babies, giant robots, undead rock bands, evil scientists, brick-throwing cats, talking monkeys, and eight-year-old super-hero Melanie McKay, better known as Jetcat! It all begins with a kiss. When young Tod Johnson gives Melanie McKay a peck on the cheek, Daisy appears and takes to the skies. From there, it's a mad dash through town for Jetcat to catch the gravity-defying infant and bring her back to earth. These things are things that can only happen in a place called Oddville, and only from the mind of a cartoonist like Jay Stephens. These classic comic strips began in independent newspapers before jumping into their own collected book, which then disappeared for many years, only now to finally return. ODDVILLE is a curious, bizarre, and hysterical book unlike any other. And it contains the first ever appearance of Jetcat anywhere! Take a left at weird and head up the road for about a mile, and settle down in Oddville.

2034: Evangelical secret agents, fast food moguls, the voice of God in computer software, violence in the Bermuda Triangle! George W. Bush's foreign policy vindicated by a quick victory in Iraq, lucrative invasions of Egypt and Syria followed, bringing unparalleled prosperity to America and setting off thirty years of right-wing rule. But when a war in Iran goes bad--and the resulting cover-up goes worse--the democrats reclaim the presidency. This is the time of Pax Americana and its zealous anti-hero, government agent Tuck Squires. Reading the ironic silences between the lines of the thriller, and roaring like a jet engine, Pax Americana is a sacrilegious, conspiratorial monster; like a literary dogfight between Martin Amis and Robert Anton Wilson, loaded with prophecy, Baumeister's debut is an exorcism and an antidote for our era. 'Like an episode of Archer written by Kurt Vonnegut, Baumeister takes us into a hilarious and high-velocity world of espionage and global politics in this send-up of god, country, and the possibility of doing good in a world gone bad. It's fast-paced fun, watch out for paper cuts as the pages fly by.' -Shya Scanlon 'If there is to be an American peace, it's certainly not going to come on the pages of this lit match of a novel. Kurt Baumeister has fashioned exactly the old school pre- and post-Bond techno x-travaganza everyone bored with explorations of the louvre has been waiting for. Pax Americana is both dark satire and deeply satisfying, an adrenaline rush that runs through suspect politics, spirituality software, and the sacredly profane. It's a blast. Buy it now.' -Sean Beaudoin

A veteran music journalist explores how four legendary rock bands—KISS, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz—laid the foundation for two diametrically opposed subgenres: hair metal in the '80s and grunge in the '90s. It was the age when heavy-footed, humorless dinosaurs roamed the hard-rock landscape. But that all changed when into these dazed and confused mid-'70s strut-ted four flamboyant bands that reveled in revved-up anthems and flaunted a novel theatricality. In They Just Seem a Little Weird, veteran entertainment journalist Doug Brod offers an eye- and ear-opening look at a crucial moment in music history, when rock became fun again and a gig became a show. This is the story of friends and frenemies who rose, fell, and soared once more, often sharing stages, studios, producers, engineers, managers, agents, roadies, and fans-and who are still collaborating more than forty years on. In the tradition of David Browne's Fire and Rain and Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, They Just Seem a Little Weird seamlessly interweaves the narratives of KISS, Cheap Trick, and Aerosmith with that of Starz, a criminally neglected band whose fate may have been sealed by a shocking act of violence. This is also the story of how these distinctly American groups-three of them now enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-laid the foundation for two seemingly opposed rock genres: the hair metal of Poison, Skid Row, and Mötley Crüe and the grunge of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and the Melvins. Deeply researched, and featuring more than 130 new interviews, this book is nothing less than a secret history of classic rock.