Billy Hazelnuts

Tony Millionaire, creator of Sock Monkey and one of America's most popular weekly comic strips,Maakies, delivers his first original graphic novel for Fantagraphics, Billy Hazelnuts. Billy Hazelnutstransmutes nursery rhymes and the golem myth into a storybook about Becky, girl scientist, her friend Billy Hazelnuts (who was created from cooking ingredients by tailless mice), and their journey to find the missing moon while battling an evil steam-driven alligator with a seeing-eye skunk. Millionaire fuses the darker spirit of older fairy tales with an absurdist adventure story, throws gender politics into the mix, and brings it to life with his dementedly charming and meticulous drawing style that is utterly transporting.

Take a trip into the deep, deep woods with this original all-ages graphic novel. Billy Hazelnuts is back for the first time since his acclaimed 2006 Eisner Award-winning debut. Life has settled back to normal in the old house. Becky and her mom are getting used to having Billy around, as he performs various household chores, utilizing his amazing strength. Nothing could be better, aside from a jumpy relationship with the cat. until one day Billy hears screeching in the back yard and runs out to find a very large owl attacking his housemate. “I hate that cat, but it’s our cat!” yells Billy, and chases the owl off. Billy soon discovers that the owl he has just scared off has left an egg in his nest. When the egg hatches, it’s up to Billy to reunite the baby owl with his mother, and the two head off into the deep, deep woods in search of her. The resulting adventure is a crazy potion of all-ages fun, humor, thrills and chills like only Tony Millionaire is capable of.

Drinky Crow may be the drunken star of the weekly comic strip Maakies, but more often than not, he plays straight man to the hapless ape, Uncle Gabby. Here is the newest collection of Tony Millionaire's strip, never before published in book form. The suicide jokes may come less frequently than in earlier years, but the comedy and superb drawing style are at their peak, as is the volume of triple-X cartoon booze consumed.

Maakies has been one of the best and most popular weekly comic strips in America, running in over a dozen of the largest U.S. weekly newspapers, including The Village Voice, L.A Weekly, Chicago Reader, and Seattle’s The Stranger. (It was also a short-lived Adult Swim animated series in 2008.) As written and drawn by renaissance lush-cum-degenerate Millionaire, Maakies features the comical adventures of a drunken crow on the high seas, blending vaudeville-style humor (with plenty of bodily fluids and grievous bodily harm) and a breathtakingly beautiful line that harkens back to the glory days of the American comic strip. Green Eggs and Maakies is our eighth collection and features yet another two years’ worth of Maakies in a beautiful, deluxe, landscape format that complements the strip’s elegant and classical style.

Maakies features the comical adventures of a drunken crow on the high seas, blending vaudeville-style humor and a breathtaking line that harkens back to the glory days of the American comic strip. Designed by publishing’s foremost graphic designer, Chip Kidd, Little Maakies on the Prairie features a beautiful, deluxe, landscape format that complements the strip’s elegant and classical style.

Unbored is the book every modern child needs. Brilliantly walking the line between cool and constructive, it's crammed with activities that are not only fun and doable but that also get kids standing on their own two feet. If you're a kid, you can: -- Build a tipi or an igloo -- Learn to knit -- Take stuff apart and fix it -- Find out how to be constructively critical -- Film a stop-action movie or edit your own music -- Do parkour like James Bond -- Make a little house for a mouse from lollipop sticks -- Be independent! Catch a bus solo or cook yourself lunch -- Make a fake exhaust for your bike so it sounds like you're revving up a motorcycle -- Design a board game -- Go camping (or glamping) -- Plan a road trip -- Get proactive and support the causes you care about -- Develop your taste and decorate your own room -- Make a rocket from a coke bottle -- Play farting games There are gross facts and fascinating stories, reports on what stuff is like (home schooling, working in an office...), Q&As with inspiring grown-ups, extracts from classic novels, lists of useful resources and best ever lists like the top clean rap songs, stop-motion movies or books about rebellion. Just as kids begin to disappear into their screens, here is a book that encourages them to use those tech skills to be creative, try new things and change the world. And it gets parents to join in. Unbored is fully illustrated, easy to use and appealing to young and old, girl and boy. Parents will be comforted by its anti-perfectionist spirit and humour. Kids will just think it's brilliant.

Winner of the New England Book Award"Cathie Pelletier generates the sort of excitement that only writers at the very top of their form can provide."-Stephen King Welcome to Mattagash, Maine, a small, quirky town where everyone's personal lives are as entwined as their family trees. On the day of the first snowfall, the residents brace themselves for the long winter ahead. Mere survival will be hard; dealing with each other is another story. As winter settles in, various Mattagashians careen from conundrum to conundrum, trying to save dying small businesses, caring for crabby loved ones, and cruising through town, stirring up gossip any way they can get it. Through it all, 107-year old Mathilda Fennelson reflects on her life as the town's oldest resident, born the year Mattagash was founded. Through her dreams and memories, she reveals the scrappy, strange, and earnest pioneer history of these people weighed down by their own existence. At once funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, The Weight of Winter is a perfect for fans of Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout), The Language of Flowers (Vanessa Diffenbaugh), and The Good House (Ann Leary) who will fall in love with Mattagash and its people. More from Mattagash, Maine: The Funeral Makers (Book 1): Mattagash, Maine: a quiet town rocked by scandal, seduction, mayhem, blackmail, and the only recorded case of beriberi on the entire North American continent! Wedding on the Banks (Book 2): Amy Joy Lawler just announced her engagement-to an outsider! The Weight of Winter (Book 3) The One-Way Bridge (Book 4): Return to Mattagash-the anything but tranquil town where a mysterious dead body has just been found in the woods. What readers are saying about The Weight of Winter "While wildly funny at time, The Weight of Winter is a much darker and even more compelling novel than was the first book in the series." "Wonderfully written with humor, yet extremely hard-hitting." "This was one of those books that I looked forward to falling back into each time I picked it up, and each time, it felt like going home." What reviewers are saying about The Weight of Winter "Pelletier's ear for dialogue is exceptional, and her characters' interior monologues, what they think but don't say, are subversive, humorous and heartbreaking."-Publishers Weekly "Frequently funny and always poignant, it is a chronicle of past and present times, detailing lost dreams, found meaning, and echoing the sins of generations."-Library Journal What people are saying about Cathie Pelletier "Nobody walks the knife-edge of hilarity and heartbreak more confidently than Cathie Pelletier."— Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls "It is Pelletier's gift to be able to coax the drama from stony ground without artifice or sentimentality."-Boston Globe "An ambitious, fearless novelist."-The Washington Post "Cathie does a wonderful job of capturing [her characters'] moods and loves and losses, and yearnings...Her writing is lovely and so descriptive"— Annie Philbrick, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT "Sharp stuff...Her sentences are powerful and unique as snowflakes."-New York Times

A collection of the best graphic pieces published in 2010.