40. UNDERTOW
With an intriguing premise from Steve Orlando and moody, expressive artwork from Artyom Trakhanov, we can’t wait to see where this new Image title takes us.
39. SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN
Following Hawkeye’s mix of humor, character-driven realism, and gleeful formal experimentation, SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN has quietly become one of Marvel’s very best books. Don’t let the secret out, but it almost seems like somebody over at the House of Ideas got it in their head that superhero comics are supposed to be fun…
38. This Shirt
Yeah, what if??
37. THE BUS
We detect some of the spirit of Winsor McCay in Paul Kirchner’s quietly masterful surrealist comic strip.
36. B + F
We were pleased to play host to Greg Benton and his huge, beautiful nightmare of a graphic novel. Greg is one of our favorite cartoonists and one of comics’ most righteous dudes, and we can’t wait to see what he does next.
35. INSECT BATH
True to its title, this new alt-zine style anthology series feels like a submersion in the creepy, underfoot world.
34. SPRING TRAINING
Baseball beckons, and with it a world made new.
33. ESCAPO
Paul Pope’s dark fantasy head trip has been out of print too long — it’s not back yet, but that’s not enough to stop us from listing it here out of sheer excitement for Z2 COMICS beautiful new edition.
32. Felix Baumgartner’s space jump
This is what it feels like making comics with Chris Stevens: plummeting through space, bound for glory or oblivion.
31. Chip Zdarsky’s ideas for the Marvel Universe
Can someone please hand this man the keys to the kingdom? I really need to add edgy new titles like PUNISHER FUCKS A GUN to my pull list.
30. ON LOVING WOMEN
Diane Obomsawin’s sweet, funny, and often sexy story collection takes a warmly wry look at the first loves and burgeoning sexual identities of her friends and lovers. A short, humane, sometimes bittersweet collective memoir.
29. MAGIC WORDS
Alan Moore is something other than human. He is a sentient mass of ideas, poetry and hair, held together by bitterness and sorcery. This new bio will show us how the spell is cast.
28. ART YOUNG
Art Spiegelman turned us on to the depressingly-hard-to-find work of this masterful early 20th century illustrator and cartoonist. His art is humane and engaged, and for all its old-fashioned charm, utterly relevant. Somebody ought to bring it back into print.
27. BLACK DYNAMITE
Ron Wimberly is one bad motherfucker, and his new BLACK DYNAMITE series with Brian Ash promises, like its source material, to be equal parts satire and sizzle.
26. THE PROM
Punches were spiked (and thrown). Moons were quartered. Lines were congaed. Our sexiest, awkwardest event yet was a golden time we will always hazily remember.
25. SOCK MONKEY TREASURY
The twisted, drunken, sometimes disturbing glory of Tony Millionaire’s beloved children’s character is collected here, in this gorgeous Fantagraphics edition.
24. TRUE DETECTIVE
Plays like the work of a brilliant creator with a gift for words whose intensity shifted into watching a lot of Martin Scorcese, reading too much Alan Moore, and playing a shit load of Grand Theft Auto. SPOILERS.
TRUE DETECTIVE made it a best-seller, but this odd, proto-Lovecraftian collection of short stories deserves all the attention Dim Carcosa is getting.
22. BANI GARU
Lea Hernandez’s webcomic has been doling out hilarious and depressing peeks behind the curtain of Gainax during the wild west days of anime in America.
21. THE LEGO MOVIE
The first movie about toys that actually has something to say about playing with toys. It helps that it’s about the BEST toys.
20. THE WIND RISES
Hayao Miyazaki’s low-key, but beautiful-as-ever, goodbye to the film form (or so he claims). It would be sadder if we didn’t know he’d be spending all his time on comics, now. The Nausicaa manga is still the best thing he’s ever made.
An artist and a romantic. We like this guy.
18. WINTER SOLDIER #1
THE BITTER MARCH is a pulpy throwback from Rick Remender and Roland Boschi, a slick James Bondish slice of comics yarn-spinning. Toss in a pretty killer trailer for the upcoming CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER, and it’s been a good month for one bad dude.
17. Bill Mantlo & Rocket Raccoon
Rocket Raccoon. This month we’ve seen him in movie trailers, in toys, in comics (including the announcement of his own solo series!). But as much as we love ol’ Rocky, the best part of this exposure has been the excuse to talk about his creator, Bill Mantlo.
16. Arctic Monkeys
The young Brits played their first Madison Square Garden this month and rocked the joint. A continent away, the even-younger Chvrches covered one of their new songs and the chocolate-and-peanut-butter mix was glorious.
15. “Traditional Fish Sex”
The one good thing to come out of that ridiculous Creationism debate(/museum advertisement) was the simultaneous tweeting of this phrase by about 8 million* tweetsters.
*estimated figure
14. BRAVELY DEFAULT
Square Enix just proved they could still make a good RPG, after all. The best part? Acknowledging (like The LEGO Movie did!) the different ways that gamers like to play, and letting us dictate the nuts & bolts of the experience without ruining the fun. Let’s make this a new trend, k?
13. NUMBER 1
Box Brown’s love of wrestling is the springboard for this top-notch slice of life story about a young outsider and an over the hill wrestler. Box’s economy of storytelling brings several different kinds of people into sharp focus, as his Retrofit imprint doubles up on this Top 40.
12. Afua Richardson illustrates Langston Hughes
Richardson brings Hughes aching soul-song “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” to iridescent life, in black, white and blood red.
11. SHE-HULK
In its first issue, Charles Soule delivered exactly the kind of legal fun that She-Hulk is uniquely built to bring us, while Javier Pulido & Muntsa Vicente elevated it all to one beautifully enjoyable comic.
10. THE WHITE SUITS
Frank Barbiere’s hard-boiled pulp formalism is given explosive life by the loose, wild, synaptic voodoo of Toby Cypress’ astonishing linework. This combination of sheer sizzling power and cartooning precision is a once-in-a-generation style, and it’s incredible to see Toby’s work coming into full flower. We’re proud to be hosting an evening with the remarkable Mr. Cypress tomorrow night.
PM Press is raising funds to publish a collection of their seminal radical comics anthologies. Get in the fight.
8. DAREDEVIL
Waid and Samnee bring the New York chapter of Marvel’s maybe-best superhero comic to an utterly satisfying close. It’s easy to take a series like this for granted — it comes out so regularly, each issue as pitch-perfect as the last, that it can get boring to talk and hear about it every few weeks. But this may well be the character’s second golden age.
7. PARASYTE
Not even slightly new this month, but Andrew started reading it and couldn’t put it down until it was done. A rare manga that put forward some interesting thoughts about the nature of humanity and our relationship to our ecosystem, but which also cut those “big” themes with wonderfully memorable and human interactions that you don’t often see in that kind of story. Also: gross monsters.
6. STRIPPED poster by Bill Watterson
We’ve often wondered whether we’d ever see any new art from Bill Watterson. This may just be a poster for an interesting documentary on the history (and sad demise) of newspaper comic strips, but it shows the maestro hasn’t lost a step. For your next trick please draw us a Nemo, Bill.
5. Bhob Stewart
We bid farewell to the restlessly creative polymath and sometimes-cartoonist Bhob Stewart. His resume makes him look like a dilettante, but he was anything but — he was a hungry explorer, always finding his way to the borders of new territories in art and culture, engaging with his sharp, open mind. The world needs more men like Bhob, and now there’s one less.
We were alternately horrified and enthralled by this new translation of the incredibly powerful French graphic novel from Drawn & Quarterly.
3. WICKED CHICKEN QUEEN
Like most of Sam Alden’s work, WICKED CHICKEN QUEEN is some kind of hastily drawn masterpiece, surreally blending a very human tale of connection and loss with a baffling, mythic fairy tale. The two meet in gorgeous, rambling, full-page drawings that dance on the edge of abstraction. A book like no other.
2. Harold Ramis
You can’t say this about everyone in the movie business: he changed our lives. All of ’em. And for the better.
1. ANT COLONY
Michael DeForge’s newest experiment is an itchy, magnetic, and thoroughly original piece of cartooning. His presentation at Locust Moon was impressive, funny, and inspiring, and we wish to God we’d had a camera running.
Locust Moon Comics 
Hey there Locust Moon,
This list is amazing and I am excited for a lot of the same things you are. I finally made it into your shop today after months of meaning to. You guys are doing a great thing over there and I am looking forward to coming in some day in the future and actually picking up a few titles. Thanks for all the hard work you all put into running a book shop these days. I’m sure it isn’t easy.
-Daniel Pilger (drwormhole)