Comics have always been an outlier art form, full of escapees from the fine art and literature worlds. Several indie gems coming out this season show off the medium's remarkable range of stories, themes, and characters, all with Bay Area tie-ins. Screw superheroes; we want gritty memoirs, hairy men getting jiggy with it, and perverted talking animals!
Local comics hero Ed Luce's Wuvable Oaf #5, the latest chapter in his big, hairy, cat-loving, metal-banging saga, debuts in early December. Matt Wobensmith, owner of Valencia Street's Goteblüd zine store, will write the issue's main story. This installment is the first that won't be included in the long-awaited Wuvable Oaf collection out next year (wuvableoaf.com). MariNaomi may have left the Bay Area for L.A., but we still love her. Her Dragon's Breath and Other Stories, coming out Sept. 9, collects her fantastic, lyrical, memoir vignettes from the S.F. literary website The Rumpus (2dcloud.com/shop/dragon-s-breath-pre-order). Her next book, Turning Japanese, about her time trying to connect with her half-Japanese heritage by working in a Japanese hostess bar, is being serialized online at 2dcloud.com. Oakland-based Rick Worley is releasing issue No. 2 of his Waste of Time comic on Sept. 24; the current storyline is about art, capitalism, pornography, and Goddard's film Masculin Féminin, and features the artist as a talking rabbit (northwestpress.com/shop/a-waste-of-time-2). How awesome is that? The comic is being serialized on his website, rickworley.com. Finally, everyone's favorite genderqueer Tasmanian artist Simon Hanselmann debuts his long-awaited collection Megahex on Sept. 21, which takes stoner humor to new neurotic, beautiful, and anthropomorphic heights (fantagraphics.com). Guaranteed, this will be one of the most talked about books this year, and he'll be reading at Mission Comics and Art on Oct. 7 in witchy drag. In the meantime, find his work online at girlmountain.tumblr.com.
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