We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

From the mind and pen of Ron Regé Jr. come images that rival Where’s Waldo in sheer intricacy and detail. Stop Thinking Start Sleeping Stop Sleeping Start Living is issue twelve of the cartoonist/musician’s long-running comic series Yeast Hoist, and it compiles drawings, sketchbook excerpts, and odd scraps produced within a five-year span and bound up nicely in a cherry-red cover. Regé’s subjects range from suburban pastorals to mental breakdowns to messy offices, and all are brought to life with the kind of scrupulous detail born of a lifetime of doodling (and some sharp peepers).

(Not to mention Ron’s sick Wild Things tribute over at Vice!)

London-based illustrator and cartoonist Tom Gauld makes books that double as art objects—books that come in weird shapes with unusual covers and paper stock that you just want to rub your cheek against (go ahead, Gauld would be cool with that.)

His newest, The Gigantic Robot is a minimalist fable about human folly and the passage of time rendered in fifteen flawless images and just as many sentences. The book has the appearance of a children’s book but the resonance of something far darker and probably inaccessible to the most innocent minds. As Glen David Gold puts it, Gould’s “black humor makes Beckett look timid.”

Without spoiling the story, we’ll just say that the moral of The Gigantic Robot is chilling (in a good way) while the perfection of the artwork is something to admire with untrammeled wonder. The particular cocktail of light and dark that Gauld cooks up is something to behold, especially at the start of a brand new—and heretofore unmapped—decade.

We introduced you all to Matt Furie a couple of months ago with a micro-questionnaire that covered the basics of his creative psyche: the childhood urge to retreat into imaginary worlds, the taxonomy (or lack thereof) of his creatures, favorite kid’s books, and so forth. When we got hold of Boys Club 3, the newest installment in his comic series published by Buenaventura Press, we thought an update on the Furie situation would be a prudent undertaking.

So what does numero 3 bring us? Teenage monsters, naturally. This time the cast is engaged in a tale of friendship and scatology that reaches viewers via forty pages of clean comic beauty. Title notwithstanding, Boys Club isn’t strictly for dudes, although it probably helps to have a refined yet gutter-level sense of humor for the purest enjoyment of the comics. In short, Boys Club is for everyone. Except, maybe, for parents. We hear that space between the mattress and the box spring makes an exceptionally good hiding place.

If the words “gigantic” and “comic” and “anthology” make you tingle with delight when combined in one sentence, get ready to tingle hugetime. Gutter is an anthology of comics and drawings edited by Victor Kerlow and produced by Tiny Vices, featuring 100 pages of full-color work by a bundle of artists all equally worthy of each other’s company.

Among the many scribblers included are Eamon Espey, Genevieve Simms, Gavin McInnes, our old favorite Travis Millard, Joana Avillez, Frank the Addict, Ben Jones, Andrew Gonzales and a zillion others. At seventy bones, the book is no drop in the bucket, but it’s worth putting on the Christmas list just in case you get lucky.

Examining a Marc Bell drawing is like gaining entry into the mind of a psychotically talented and slightly autistic doodle-machine. It’s art that’s fun to look at but funner to snuggle up with, which is why we’re happy that the Vancouver artist has released a book of comics and artwork on drawn and quarterly. Hot Potatoe combines experiments in typography with comic stories and stand-alone assemblages, and at an imposing 272 pages, the book contains enough of Bell’s work— or “Fine Ahtwerks” as he calls it— to keep you armchair-traveling for hours.

It’s worth mentioning that Bell scored a glowing mention in the New York Times, where Ken Johnson compared his drawings and paintings to “medieval manuscript pages with collage and sculptural elements sometimes added” and praised the “wild shifts of space, time and scale.” Meanwhile, LA Weekly has called the artist “a riddle wrapped in a conundrum further wrapped in salty bacon.” Yummers!

You might remember Nina Matsumoto from a single perfect image she created in 2007 called Simpsonzu (above). The illustration was simple: a portrait of the entire Simpsons cast rendered in manga style. The internet rejoiced, Matsumoto was named a new talent, and she landed penciler positions for both The Simpsons and Futurama comic book series.

Matsumoto went on to publish a full-length English manga about the world of yokai (Japanese spirits) in 2008, to loads of acclaim. Del Rey published the book, Yokaiden, and it’s one to add to your list if you’re into the enchanting/adventurous theatrics of manga. At the very least, it’s awfully charming!