5. PAUL GOES FISHING
by Michael Rabagliati
Drawn & Quarterly
$16.95

Paul Goes Fishing is the latest semi-autobiographical volume of slice of life stories by Michael Rabagliati. Paul is a thinly disguised version of the artist and has been the star of three previous books that have told stories taken from various points in the artist's life. In Paul Goes Fishing, Paul and his wife, Lucie are trying to have a child. As Paul goes off on a fishing trip and ponders his own childhood and how he got to where he is now, the hope of starting a new family gets a little complicated.

You can read a pretty extensive preview of the book here.

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4. SMUGGLING SPIRITS BOOK ONE
Written by Ben Fisher; art by Mark Henderson
Ambrosia Publishing

I admit that I don't know too much about this book except for what I've read in this review. But it looks like a nice looking book with stark black and white artwork reminiscent of Frank Miller's Sin City work. The story is about monsters roaming the earth during the Prohibition, which always makes for a nice visual setting a la The Road To Perdition. Nathan, a young orphan is befriended by Al, an alcohol smuggler who is blind to the creatures that are running around killing people.

Check out a preview here.

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3. THE CLOUDS ABOVE
By Jordan Crane
Fantagraphics
$16.99 | 224 pgs

Here's a great one for the kids. Simon and his cat Jack decide to skip school and end up caught up in a conflict between warring clouds as they try to make their way back home. Jordan Crane is one of the most talented creators working in the business and his acclaimed children's graphic novel, The Clouds Above, is finally being released in a more affordable softcover edition. Told in large, square shaped panels with expressive line work and cotton-candy like colors, this is a perfect book to sit down and enjoy with your kids. Crane usually works in indie-melancholia but this story successfully plays in kiddie-book surrealism.

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2. TRANSHUMAN #1 (of 4)
story JONATHAN HICKMAN, art JM RINGUET, cover JONATHAN HICKMAN
Image Comics
$3.50 | 32 pgs

Jonathan Hickman is an exciting new talent in the comics industry who received a lot of acclaim for his uniquely designed treatise on media saturation - The Nightly News. This time out, Hickman teams with artist JM Ringuet and tries out another new spin on comic storytelling - the comic book as documentary. The subject of the documentary is superhuman genetic engineering and Hickman, through his show's star and protagonist, Heinrich Dowidat, explores the subject from every angle - from the corrupt corporations financing it to the people who are trying to market the idea to the world. The book is billed as a "mockumentary" though which hints that none of this is going to be taken too seriously.

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1. APOCALYPSE NERD
By Peter Bagge
Dark Horse
$13.95 | 120 pgs

Perry and Gordo are software engineers who go camping in the woods outside of Seattle when a North Korean nuclear attack wipes out their city. What lengths must they go to survive in this post-apocalpytic wasteland? This latest book from indie comic humorist Peter Bagge is sort of Office Space meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's very political, very dark, very bizarre and - as you'd expect from the man who brought us Hate and the Buddy books - very funny. This is his first major work since Hate ended about ten years ago and the reactions to the original 6 issue series ranged from glowing to perplexed which is probably what Bagge was going for.