Hey Kids! Comics! Mae Booksch
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Below are some comic and cartoon books scheduled for May 2026 release (or so).
Images and links from a variety of publishers and outlets,
though ordering through your local comic shop or independent book store is a good idea.
Trudeau & Doonesbury: A Biography by Joshua Kendall (Smithsonian Magazine review)
The definitive account of the life and work of Garry Trudeau, creator of the massively popular Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoon Doonesbury, based on archival sources and original interviews, including with Trudeau himself, and lavishly illustrated with over 200 cartoons and images.
Drawing on extensive interviews with Trudeau, his friends, fellow cartoonists, prominent journalists, and even politicians who were mocked in the strip, as well as previously unmined archival materials, Trudeau & Doonesbury serves as an alternative history of the last 50 years of American life and is an entertaining romp through Trudeau’s singular career.
Hal Foster’s Tarzan. The Complete Sunday Comics 1931–1937 (with George Carlin and Don Garden)
In 1929 Hal Foster illustrated Tarzan of the Apes as a 60-episode daily newspaper strip: the first adventure comic. From 1931 to 1937, 292 full-page Tarzan Sunday comics followed. Foster’s ape man defined Tarzan and adventure comics for decades to come. This volume reprints every comic from the original newspapers, in a colorful XXL format.
Hardcover, 13.5 x 17.3 in., 11.44 lb, 392 pages
The Hal Foster Sunday Tarzan pages were written by George Carlin and Don Garden.
This Is a Book of Sentence Diagrams by Man Martin
Sentence diagramming might sound like something from a fussy grammar assignment, but you’ll find no red pens here. Instead, this book is a visual celebration of the relationships between words. This witty collection features dozens of unforgettable one-liners, from blockbuster films and famous speeches to Shakespearean zingers, classic novels, and philosophical musings.
Each diagram turns a familiar sentence into a little work of visual art by mapping out the nouns, verbs, and clauses to reveal unexpected symmetry and glorious grammatical chaos. Some quotes, like Melville’s “Call me Ishmael,” land like a javelin. Others spiral upward like a tower of tinker toys held together with linguistic duct tape. If you love the inner workings of language, you’ll find joy (and a few laughs) in seeing well-known lines stripped down and displayed across the page in all their syntactic glory.
How I Make Comics by Kim Deitch
How I Make Comics is not just about how Kim Deitch makes comics, but about how comics made him. The book pinwheels between real autobiography and imagined comics history, but it begins in 1952 with a true story of eight-year-old Kim Deitch appearing in the audience of the Howdy Doody Show with eight-year-old Donnie Trump.
How I Make Comics is a creatively kaleidoscopic, non-stop exploration of how Deitch’s imagination turns ideas, influences, and irritations into comics in his inimitable style. Snippets of behind-the-scenes explanations of his notes and sketches expand into cascading short stories. Each section goes freewheeling from notion to notion, quietly building themes and reveling in its own wild-eyed imaginative capacities across 180 pages to form both an intimate graphic memoir and an eye-popping graphic novel. One of the most prolific artists of his generation, Deitch enters his 60th year of cartooning more inventive than ever and showing no signs of slowing down.
Pookie and Bean! by Sandra Boynton
Bestselling author/illustrator Sandra Boynton has created another perfect Pookie board book sure to be a lovely gift for baby showers, birthdays, holidays, and any other gift-giving occasion.
It’s a wonderful thing to have a best friend—it’s Pookie and Bean!
Alan Dunn: The Cartoonist as Architectural Critic by Gabriele Neri
The first in-depth study of American artist Alan Dunn (1900–1974), whose incisive cartoons mocked twentieth-century architecture and urban environments, expanding the field of architectural criticism.
Drawing on his pioneering expertise in the relationship between graphic satire and architecture, Gabriele Neri retraces Alan Dunn’s path from painter to renowned cartoonist, offering an unconventional perspective on architectural and urban transformations—and on their perception within society.
Featuring 200 carefully selected images, including Dunn’s correspondence, unpublished cartoons, preliminary sketches, watercolors, and rare photographs, Alan Dunn demonstrates the critical potential of caricature and cartoons for architectural history.
The Phantom Dailies: Vol. 35 (1991-1993) by Lee Falk and Sy Barry
This exciting 35th volume continues the SY BARRY YEARS! Reprinted in all its black and white glory, journey with Hermes Press as we bring you five complete continuities drawn by Sy Barry himself which continue the adventures of The Phantom, Diana, and his two children. Also included is a comprehensive essay and documentary material.
Size: 9.25 x 1 x 12.25 inches, 264 pages; Style: Hardback with Dust Jacket
Mandrake the Magician Dailies: Vol. 4 (1939-1941) by Lee Falk and Phil Davis
Mandrake the Magician whisked readers to exotic locales (often fictional amalgams of the Orient, the Middle East, India or Eastern Europe) and immersed them in extended narratives with memorable villains and a colorful support cast.
Contains stories: Mandrake in North Africa, The Mountain Bandits, The Museum Mystery, The Octopus Ring, Dr. Griff’s Invention
Size: 264 Pages, 8 x 1 x 12; Style: Hardback, no dust jacket
This Is Fine: The Official Coloring Book by KC Green
his is Fine: The Official Coloring Book presents 40 new and classic, hilarious (and horrific) illustrations of Question Hound trying to navigate the extremely relatable everyday struggles determined to beat him down. When you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, just pick up a colored pencil and keep repeating “This is fine.”
Coloring these charmingly bleak images makes for the perfect activity for a creative afternoon, especially if you want to curl up in bed and hide from the world.
Dick Tracy Collection – 1943 by Chester Gould
Pruneface is sprung from the hospital and makes his last stand against Tracy in the dead of winter! The gangster Nifty has lost his baby boy, and it is Dick Tracy who finds him! Orchestra leader 88 Keyes is on the run after a boy is found in his piano! Mrs. Pruneface is out for vengeance with her sights set on the yellow clad detective! Finally, a laughing murderer is selling forged narcotic prescriptions! Dick Tracy has never had his hands more full!
Every volume collects a full year of newspaper strips, from January 1 through December 31. Each book is printed in an 11” x 8.5” landscape format softcover book that slides into a vertically oriented die-cut slipcase!
The Short Years by Alison McCreesh (author interview)
After her highly acclaimed graphic memoirs about travelling the north, McCreesh turns her uncompromising lens to the domestic everyday work of parenting three small children. Combining gag humour and individually moving comics McCreesh gives an insiders perspective over seven years. There’s a fair amount of talk about death, as well as love and music and art, there’s heartbreak about family friends moving away, there’s some talk of gender, and there are plenty of those general existential questions that kids ponder so well. More than that though, there’s something deeper that comes from these comics spanning so many years.
“a compilation of comic strip-like vignettes created over a period of about seven years”
The Fantastical Box of Unicorn Fun (Volumes 9-12) by Dana Simpson
For fans of unicorns, comics, and laugh-out-loud adventures, The Fantastical Box of Unicorn Fun is a great one to grab— pick up this four-book set and bring home a shelf-ready collection that’s just as fun to give as it is to keep.
Includes four sparkling Phoebe and Her Unicorn adventures:
- Unicorn Bowling
- The Unicorn Whisperer
- Camping With Unicorns
- Virtual Unicorn Experience
A solid box set for collectors and newcomers:
- All-new cover artwork and over 700 pages of comics
- Sturdy box to help display the books on your favorite bookshelf
- Each book contains a glossary explaining new words, people, and concepts mentioned in the story
Marvel Comics In The LATE 1960s by Pierre Comtois
This latest ALL-NEW volume in the ongoing “Marvel Comics in the…” series takes you back to the company’s late 1960s era, when past throwaway villains suddenly became world shakers, and stories grew to encompass the earnestness and immediacy of the turbulent times. As the company’s western, monster, and dramedy offerings waned, their super-heroes exploded as Marvel boldly entered the pop culture arena with increased attention from critics and college students. Featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of every Marvel comic of note from 1966-1969!
An Issue-By-Issue Field Guide to a Pop-Culture Phenomenon
ROCK & ROFLMAO: A Joe Lennon Cartoon Collection by Joe Lennon
Welcome to the distorted, ink-splattered world of Joe Lennon, where the gods of rock and roll are finally forced to deal with the mundane indignities of real life.
For anyone who has ever worshipped at the altar of a Marshall stack, this collection is your backstage pass to the side of music history the biographers usually leave out. Joe doesn’t just draw rock stars; he catches them in the awkward silence between the power chords. He finds the humor in the high-maintenance egos, the aging icons, and the sheer absurdity of life on (and off) the road.
Whether it’s The Beatles, Dylan, or the Stones, Joe’s pen is as sharp as a Telecaster and twice as loud. His style, a love letter to the gritty charm of 70s underground comix and the biting wit of MAD Magazine, perfectly captures the sweat and soul of the music industry.
Missed it:
Official Comics: A Compilation of Excessive Frankness by William H. Bonney
Step back into a world where pens scratched, Zip-A-Tone crackled, and a young cartoonist chased big ideas with small tools. In this warm and wildly entertaining collection, decades of underground, campus, and alternative-press comics come together — born in classrooms, dorm rooms, print shops, and late-night bursts of irreverence.
From makeshift word-balloon mischief in grade school to brushes with the Vietnam-era counterculture, to run-ins with principals, publishers, professors, and even Robert Crumb himself, this book traces the unlikely evolution of a cartoonist determined to draw… even when nobody asked him to.
Scorchy Smith 1942 – 1945 newspaper dailies by Frank Robbins and Edmond Good
Artist Frank Robbins finishes his run as artist in this exciting volume! First, Scorchy is captured bythe Nazis in Russia! Barely escaping with his life, Scorchy heads to Turkey, where he finds himself entangled in an axis plot where an important passport has gone missing. The U.S.O. comes to the American base to entertain the troops, and Scorchy falls an intense yet brief affair with Kathy, an entertainer. Edmond Good takes over as lead artist, and has Scorchy and Kathy cross paths once again in Italy amid intense fighting! After a brief respite back home, Scorchy then goes to the Pacific and fights the Japanese!
Captain Easy 1970-1972 newspaper dailies by Jim Lawrence and Bill Crooks
Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy enter a new era! With Jim Lawrence writing and Leslie Turner’s assistant Bill Crooks doing the art, the strip enters the 1970s with a bang as Easy and Tubbs foil a plot to steal an Opal Skull gem! Next, Easy stops an attempt by gangsters to steal a secret formula! Then enters Ducey Wilde, private investiagtor, who teams up with Easy for a series of adventures—from infiltrating a millionaire’s mansion to going undercover in a circus!
Jim Hardy 1940 – 1942 newspaper dailies by Dick Moores
Jim Hardy returns for one last adventure in this final volume of the overlooked and long forgotten Dick Moores masterpiece! Windy, Paddles and Mollie go to New York where they encounter a racketeer who wants Paddles for his own nefarious needs. Jim is after this same racketeer, and with Windy’s help brings him to justice. Upon their return to California, Windy and Paddles face an uncertain future where Paddles might be getting too old to race. They encounter various people who see them as easy prey, but all learn in various ways that the pair are no pushovers. Finally, Windy and Paddles become involved in the war effort in a fight against an axis scientist whose mad schemes threaten national security! Jim Hardy—officially retitled as Windy and Paddles in 1941—is a showcase for Dick Moores’ monumental talents.
Miss Cairo Jones 1945 – 1947 dailies & Sundays by Bob Oksner and Jerry Albert
If you like suspense, intrigue and dark adventure, you’ll get a big thrill from this beauty of the comic pages, Miss Cairo Jones, who discovers thrilling drama before her readers!
Abbie an’ Slats Volume 2 by Reaburn Van Buren (artist) and Al Capp (writer)
Abbie an’ Slats Dailies Volume Two reprints dailies from October 12, 1938 to October 12, 1940 with an introduction by Steve Smith of Panels and Prose.
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