Well it looks like things are just about back to normal with the arrival of outstanding indie publishing news. Toronto-based indie publisher Koyama Press has announced three fall releases from Julia Wertz, Michael DeForge and the Team Society League collective. Details below:

Koyama Press is pleased to announce three new titles debuting in September 2012: THE INFINITE WAIT AND OTHER STORIES by Julia Wertz, LOSE # 4 by Michael DeForge, and THE BIG TEAM SOCIETY LEAGUE BOOK OF ANSWERS by comics collective Team Society League.

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The Infinite Wait and Other Stories is latest book from Julia Wertz, the critically acclaimed author of The Fart Party Vols. 1 and 2 (Atomic Books, 2007 and 2009) and Drinking at the Movies (Random House, 2010). In contrast to her last book, which was a full-length graphic memoir, The Infinite Wait is not a sustained narrative, but rather a collection of three short stories or graphic novellas. The stories in this collection contain Wertz’s signature acerbic wit, ribald humour and keen eye for the everyday, but they also find the cartoonist delving into the personal. “Industry” catalogues 25 years of alternately terrible and terrific jobs, from selling golf balls, feeding and failing to feed animals, waitressing, and finally to cartooning and the publication of her first book. “A Strange and Curious Place” is a love letter to Wertz’s hometown library; its mysteries and revelations, and its ability foster growth, rebellion and even artistic affirmation. The most sustained narrative in the collection, the eponymous “The Infinite Wait,” chronicles Wertz’s move from her small hometown to San Francisco, her diagnosis with an incurable, auto-immune disease and her subsequent discovery of comics and comic making.
 
The collection’s title, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, intentionally and ironically recalls the vacuous and pretentious book titles of the literary elite, but these stories are the polar opposite of pretension. They are comics born out of illness, but not defined by it, and they are filled with the sometimes messy, heartbreaking and hilarious moments that make up a life.

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The fourth installment of Michael DeForge’s award-winning, one-artist anthology series Lose is another genre-defying mix of visual styles and cartooning. This issue—“The Fashion Issue”—features a post-adolescent punk’s leather-and-spike-laced metamorphosis, a look at the lives and fashions of the exquisite corpses that make up the Canadian Royalty, and a town that is haunted by its past, which happens to look a lot like its present. Along with these longer stories, Lose #4 also features shorter strips and pin-ups including Abbey Loafer whose adventures also grace the pages of Toronto’s Offerings zine. Lose #4 is a comic that blends the banal with the bizarre to create a mélange that is filled with horror and discomfort, humanity and humour.

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The Big Team Society League Book of Answers by Toronto jam comics collective Team Society League (Aaron Costain, John Martz, Steve Wolfhard, and Zach Worton) is an absurd blend of priapic comic pantomimes that feature an adorable cast of characters doing abominable things. Ridiculously violent and unabashedly immature, The Big Team Society League Book of Answers is a comic destined to be hidden between, and confiscated from, the pages of history textbooks.

1 COMMENT

  1. My wallet’s gone into hiding, witness protection style. I’m probably going to just hand the Koyama table a blank check when I see them.