Cover for "Second Hand Love" an illustration of a woman in a simple line art style, in purple moody lighting. She has short hair and looks over her shoulder, holding a flower behind her back.

Page excerpt, black and white comic panel of 2 characters eating and talking.

Page excerpt, black and white comic panel of 2 characters talking.

Second Hand Love by Yamada Murasaki

$ 24.95

Softcover, 228 pages, black and white. Measures 6.1 x 8.4 inches.

In the end, we’re all the same…we just want to be smothered like babies against another human’s beating heart

Through a cracked door, heartsick Emi hears a playful growl. Cautiously, she lets her lover in—a wolf of a man wielding a bouquet of roses. His shoulders must have been four inches wider than mine. As I stood behind him, I fantasized about the broadness of his chest and the thickness of his neck…and about becoming his mistress once again.

And so their story goes. For a young woman interested in love without the hassle of a traditional relationship, an affair with someone else’s spoiled husband is just what she ordered—until it’s time to move on.

Then there’s Yuko: with even less time for married men’s shenanigans, she turns her attention to her aging father and the guilt of adultery that has gnawed at his heart for years. Her mother is long dead, yet her memory is enshrined for eternity in their—both father’s and daughter’s—mirrored indiscretions.

Drawn soon after the critically-acclaimed Talk to My Back, the two stories in Second Hand Love mark the triumphant return of Yamada Murasaki, one of literary manga’s most respected feminist voices. Translated by noted historian Ryan Holmberg, this edition includes an interview with the artist from the height of her career in 1985, where her wit and wisdom are on shimmering display.

Uncovering a personal stash of collected ephemera can unleash a torrent of once-held ideals, longstanding hang-ups, and misdirected pursuits. In Stubs: 2001–2010, John Kim tackles head-on a stack of old concert ticket stubs spanning a decade. Each story revisits a stub, and his indie-rock-snob perspectives—at times self-deprecating, more often comedically judgmental—are punctuated with unabashed fanboy regard for pop acts and romantic interests alike.

With a backdrop of post-grad and early career pressures and relationships, the volubly recounted backstories and recollections of specific shows, from disappointment distilled (Modest Mouse at the Wiltern, 2005) to the acoustically sublime (The Breeders at the Fillmore, 2002), demonstrate how fandom and obsessions ease, or at least mark, transitions and time.

Cover for Akira Volume 6 featuring an illustration of 3 boys, standing among rocky ruins with busted down machines nearby. They hold weapons and look angrily at the unseen enemy.

Katsuhiro Otomo - Akira Vol. 6

$ 29.99

Softcover, 440 pages, 7 x 10 inches.

Whether you've seen the deeply beloved anime or this is your first foray into the world of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo's phenomenally illustrated manga is a must have for any manga or anime lover's collections.

IN A DEVASTATED 21ST CENTURY, Neo-Tokyo, the armed might of Earth is massed against the godlike powers of two psychic titans, the mute child Akira and the deranged youth Tetsuo. While Akira has unintentionally destroyed the city twice before, Tetsuo has ravaged the surface of the Moon for his sheer amusement, and his madness grows as his abilities expand. But he is gradually losing control of the limitless energies that rage within him, mutating Tetsuo into a horror beyond imagination, and as all forces converge for a final confrontation, the fate of the planet lies in the hands of mere mortals...and the mind of a child.

This final chapter of Katsuhiro Otomo's internationally honored graphic-novel masterpiece brings to a shattering, mind-warping conclusion the science-fiction epic that has influenced storytellers from every continent and in every medium. Akira is a one-of-a-kind work of breathtaking scope, unforgettable imagery, and singular vision.

Cover for Akira Volume 5 featuring a mostly green illustration of a boy with lean muscles emerging from a mass of wires and a cloud of smoke. Background is an interior of a metal mechanical room.

Katsuhiro Otomo - Akira Vol. 5

$ 27.99

Softcover, 416 pages, 7 x 10 inches.

IN THE 21ST CENTURY, the once glittering Neo-Tokyo lies in ruin, leveled in minutes by the infinite power of the child psychic Akira. From the flooded wasteland of rubble and anarchy rises the Great Tokyo Empire, populated by a ragtag army of zealots and crazies who worship and fear Akira ad his mad prime minister, Tetsuo, and angry teen with immense powers of his own— and equally immense, twisted ambitions. The world at large is not taking the threat lying down, and the military strength of the planet is massing to take on the empire, but will technology's most advanced weaponry be enough to destroy Akira? And are Tetsuo's rapidly growing paranormal abilities a potentially greater threat?

A mind-blowing epic, Akira is a sweeping graphic-novel tour de force of awe-inspiring vision and gut-wrenching intensity— and the inspiration for the brilliant Akira animated film. Creator Katsuhiro Otomo has influenced a generation of graphic novelists and animators and is universally acknowledged as a storyteller of extraordinary skill, standing alongside the finest writers and directors of science fiction.

Cover for Akira Volume 4 featuring an illustration of a small boy sitting on a large white stone throne with a very long red cape, which he sits on top of and continues down the stairs.

Katsuhiro Otomo - Akira Vol. 4

$ 27.99

Softcover, 392 pages, 7 x 10 inches.

Suffering the fate that beset its namesake three decades earlier, twenty-first-century Neo-Tokyo lies in ruin. Set off by the bullet of a would-be assassin, the godlike telekinetic fury of the superhuman child Akira has once again demolished in seconds that which took decades and untold billions to build. Now cut off from the rest of the world, the Great Tokyo Empire rises, with Akira its king, the psychic juggernaut Tetsuo its mad prime minister, and a growing army of fanatic acolytes ready to go to any length to please their masters. Forces on the outside still search for a way to stop Akira, and the answer may lie in the hands of the mysterious Lady Miyako, a powerful member of Akira’s paranormal brotherhood. But the solution to harnessing Akira may ultimately be more dangerous than Akira himself.

Twenty years since its original release in Japan, Akira remains one of the most widely acclaimed and influential works of graphic fiction, and creator Katsuhiro Otomo has become a legendary storyteller in animation as well as manga. Akira is a science fiction tour de force, a breathtaking vision of innocence, infamy, and insanity.

Cover for Akira Volume 3, featuring a mostly blue and dark red illustration of 3 angry boys, wielding weapons and shouting at an unseen enemy. Behind them is a large tank and the city of Tokyo.

Katsuhiro Otomo - Akira Vol. 3

$ 24.99

Softcover, 280 pages, 7 x 10 inches.

IN THE 21ST CENTURY, the glittering Neo-Tokyo has risen from the rubble of a Tokyo destroyed by an apocalyptic telekinetic blast from a young boy called Akira—the subject of a covert government experiment gone wrong now imprisoned for three decades in frozen stasis. But Tetsuo, an unstable youth with immense paranormal abilities of his own, has done the unthinkable: He has released Akira and set into motion a chain of events that could once again destroy the city and drag the world to the brink of Armageddon. Resistance agents and an armada of government forces race against the clock to find the child with godlike powers before his unstoppable destructive abilities are unleashed.

One of the true international classics of graphic fiction, Akira has once again taken America by storm. Artist/writer/filmmaker Katsuhiro Otomo is acclaimed worldwide as a master storyteller, and Akira showcases Otomo at the peak of his creative form. Akira is a timeless, epic work of unforgettable beauty, horror, and imagination.

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