New Comics for New Readers – August 15, 2012

Wednesday is New Comics Day! Each week, The Comics Observer picks brand new releases worth checking out that should be suitable for someone who has never read comic books, graphic novels or manga before.

These are out today! If you like what you see here, click the links to see previews and learn more about them. Then head to your local comic book store, or check out online retailers like Things From Another World and Amazon. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook.

For a full list of this week’s new releases, see comiXology and ComicList.com.

(Disclaimer: These aren’t reviews. Recommendations based on pre-release press, previews, and The Comics Observer‘s patented crystal ball. Product descriptions provided by publisher.)

The Making Of by Brecht Evens

The Making Of
Written and illustrated by Brecht Evens
Published by Drawn and Quarterly
Genre: Drama
Ages: 16+
160 pages
$29.95

An Angouleme Award winner returns with a parable about life in the art world.

The Making Of is the follow-up to international sensation Brecht Evens’s Eisner-nominated debut, The Wrong Place. With lush watercolors and his characteristic wit, Evens details the fumbling, amateurish foibles of the participants of a small art festival in the Flemish countryside.

Pieterjan is invited to the festival as an honored guest. From the moment he arrives, things start going wrong, and since no one seems ready to step in, Pieterjan takes over the show. He decides to build a giant garden gnome as a symbol of Flemish identity, but the construction process brings buried tensions to the surface as the other artists become jealous of Pieterjan’s authority. In The Making Of, Evens delves deep into the petty tensions, small misunderstandings, and deadpan humor that pervade modern relationships.

With a keen eye for the subtleties of body language, Evens’s The Making Of builds on the iconic visual style showcased in The Wrong Place. Sweeping watercolors jump off the page, surrealist scenery intermingles with crowds of people, and small suburban plot homes have never looked so lovely.

The Red Diary / The Re(a)d Diary Flipbook by Teddy Kristiansen and Steven T. Seagle

The Red Diary / The Re[a]d Diary Flipbook
Written and illustrated by Teddy Kristiansen
Written by Steven T. Seagle
Published by Image Comics
Genre: Drama
Ages: 16+
144 pages
$29.99

A bold experiment in the graphic novel!

Teddy Kristiansen’s European Album is newly translated to English by Teddy Kristiansen and Steven T. Seagle. But in a unique flip-novel format, the book is also “re-mixed” with a completely different script devised by Seagle before he collaborated on the translation. Both versions – The Red Diary – a tale of art forgery and World War and The Re[a]d Diary – a tale of identity theft and lost love – comprise this unique graphic novel from Seagle and Kristiansen – the Eisner nominated/winning team behind the acclaimed Vertigo graphic novel It’s a Bird….

Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics by Margreet de Heer

Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics
Written and illustrated by Margreet de Heer
Published by NBM Publishing
Genre: Non-Fiction, Philosophy
Ages: 12+
120 pages
$16.99

This illustrated primer on philosophy is a great way to be introduced to a complex topic. In her easily accessible style, Margreet de Heer visualizes the history of Western philosophy and makes it approachable for those with little knowledge of the subject. The book explains the thoughts of philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Nietzsche, and ponders questions such as What is thinking? What is reality? Is there free will? and Why are these ideas still important? A perfect introduction to exploring philosophical concepts, this humorous yet substantive graphic account strips the subject of unnecessary complexity.