News pg. 10

Saving WARD'S VALLEY Will Be Gnome Mean Feat!

January 10, 2018 / More →


Pre-order now for release in April 2018!

Praise for Bobby Curnow & Brenda Hickey:
“A modern myth that evokes the agelessness of the best folktales but is a completely new invention.” Newsarama
“Hickey’s artwork is outstanding.” Comic Wow!
“Depth of characters and story are what really drive this book to be one of the best out there right now.” Comic Attack
“Fantastic... the artwork is magical.” Florida Geek Scene

Ward is a grumpy gnome who only wants to be left alone. He never asked for company… but when his beautiful forest starts filling up with animals, it’s more than just grumpiness that makes him nervous. Mysterious muck-trolls and terrifying humans are invading, and he’ll need all the help he can get to defend Ward’s Valley.

Bobby Curnow (Night of 1000 Wolves, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Brenda Hickey (My Little Pony) team up for an all-new adventure full of charm, color, and surprising depth.

Ward's Valley by Bobby Curnow & Brenda Hickey (APRIL 2018)
$19.99 (US) • ISBN 978-1-60309-424-5 • Diamond: JAN180567 • For all ages (10-13 and up)
Full-color softcover graphic novel with flaps • 6.5” x 9.25" • 128 pages
Read a 4-page preview now and pre-order from your favorite retailer!


"Pay What You Want" for 25 of our greatest books — and support great charities — with Humble Bundle!

January 10, 2018 / More →


Our friends at Humble Bundle are offering one heck of a deal, starting today and running for the next two weeks only. The result is a win-win that supports The Hero Initiative's work with comic creators in need and Traveling Stories' work providing books to underprivileged kids — while introducing you to a few of your new favorite graphic novels!

Name your own price, and for as little as $1, you'll get DRM-free digital editions of books that will knock your socks off, with more and more books "unlocked" as you scale up.

What's inside? Erin Nations' powerfully personal Gumballs, Nate Powell's Eisner-Award-winning Swallow Me Whole, Jeff Lemire's heartbreaking Essex County, Jennifer Hayden's profoundly moving The Story of My Tits, Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill's jaw-dropping League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele's bestselling The Surrogates, Alex Robinson's beloved Box Office Poison, Shannon Wheeler's hilarious Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump, Eddie Campbell's life-changing Alec: The Years Have Pants... and that's barely scratching the surface! It's your whole 2018 reading list taken care of in one click — or an incredible gift for someone dear to you.

Visit Humble Bundle for more details and to grab your bundle today!


SH*T MY PRESIDENT SAYS gallery show at Mar-A-Lago!

January 10, 2018 / More →


Shannon Wheeler's been involved in some nutty schemes before — but this one takes the cake. "The most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you've ever seen," maybe.

Tonight in West Palm Beach, Florida, Shannon unveils the first ever gallery exhibit for his bestselling book Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump. The show runs for the next month at Gallery EmKo, just across the water from Mar-A-Lago, the so-called "Winter White House." Maybe POTUS will stop by and get a look at his cartoon self?

As the Washington Post said, "Wheeler’s Trump is a rotund scamp with a mischievously fiendish spirit... instead of slinging mud that can turn matters opaque, he’s actually attempting to render a window into Trump."

Visit EmKo tonight for the launch party or stop by anytime through February 10th. For more info on Sh*t My President Says (including some of Wheeler's favorite cartoons), visit its official site at sh-tmypresidentsays.com!


The key to success on prom night? Wearing the right suit.

December 4, 2017 / More →

Top Shelf is thrilled to unveil the triumphant return of artist, rock star, storyteller, and Vermont's first Cartoonist Laureate James Kochalka in an all-new graphic novel for adult readers!

Two lovable dirtbag teens, tired of being bullied, build a robot battle suit to take revenge on their entire high school. But they never expected to become… kind of popular?

Mechaboys combines Kochalka's elegant cartooning, wild imagination, and embarrassing memories to create a high school comedy for the modern age — something like a Charlie Brown special remixed with Superbad, Mean Girls and Iron Man.

Packed with frustrated teens, slam-bang plot twists, and moments of genuine sweetness, Mechaboys is a thrilling new direction for Kochalka and an unmissable graphic novel event.

Mechaboys by James Kochalka (MARCH 2018)

$19.99 (US) • ISBN 978-1-60309-423-8 • Diamond: DEC170549 • For mature readers (16+)

Softcover graphic novel with flaps • B&W interiors • 7” x 7” • 192 pages

Read a 7-page preview and pre-order now from your favorite retailer!


Introducing Sashko Danylenko with CAT 'N' BAT!

December 4, 2017 / More →

There's no friendship quite like the friendship between two idiots. Celebrate that special bond with these delightfully creative comics -- packed with mischief and mayhem in the vein of Beavis & Butt-Head, Ren & Stimpy, and Broad City.

Cat and Bat are best friends. Every day, they watch awful television, get awful ideas, and get into an awful lot of trouble. In the grand tradition of silent comedy, award-winning Ukrainian animator & artist Sashko Danylenko presents an addictive collection of strips that reveal painfully funny truths about human nature.

Cat 'N' Bat by Sashko Danylenko (MARCH 2018)

$9.99 (US) • ISBN 978-1-60309-422-1 • Diamond: DEC170548 • For mature readers (16+)

Softcover graphic novel with flaps • B&W interiors • 5.2” x 7.25” • 88 pages

Read a 5-page preview now and pre-order now from your favorite retailer!


2017 Top Shelf Gift Guide — Graphic Novels for Every Reader!

December 4, 2017 / More →

'Tis the season for looking back over the year gone by — and looking for gifts! As we contemplated the huge variety of books we published in 2017, we decided to break them down into a few categories, to help you navigate to the perfect match for your loved ones. Take a look after the jump...

Read More →


Her ex-lovers are all dead... in THE THREE ROOMS IN VALERIE'S HEAD!

September 29, 2017 / More →

Falling in love is easy. But it's not the fall that kills you.

In January 2018, Top Shelf welcomes two remarkable British talents — ultra-short fiction writer David Gaffney and comic artist Dan Berry — in their first collaboration. The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head is a dark comedy about relationships, memory, loneliness and obsession.

Valerie has a rich interior life. Serially unlucky in love, to feel better she imagines that her previous boyfriends are dead and that their bodies are kept downstairs in the cellar in a strange, mummified state. Every day she brings them upstairs and speaks with them about what went wrong.

What follows is a series of peculiar, funny, and sometimes disturbing short tales about inept lovers, weird obsessions, and socially malfunctioning men who repeatedly fail to build a relationship with poor Valerie.

Apart from Stanley. Stanley was special.
Could he be the one to save her?


The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head is a full-color softcover graphic novel with French flaps, 9.5" x 6.5" (landscape), 120 pages. Check out a six-page preview and pre-order now from your favorite retailer!


New York Comic-Con is next weekend!

September 29, 2017 / More →

Our nation's biggest city holds one of our nation's biggest comic-cons — and we'll be there next weekend, October 5-8, for New York Comic Con! Come to Booth #1844 (IDW Publishing) to meet these awesome cartoonists:

Tara O'Connor (Roots) — a New York Comic-Con debut!

Shannon Wheeler (Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump)

Kim Dwinell (Surfside Girls: The Secret of Danger Point)

Janet Lee (Return of the Dapper Men: Deluxe Edition)

Lauren Purje (You Might Be An Artist If...)

Plus: join us Sunday, October 8 at 2:30pm in room 1A18 for a festive panel with these & other authors, plus coming attractions!


Ignatz Awards for Jess Fink and Carolyn Nowak!

September 29, 2017 / More →


It was a good night to be a robot lover.

At the Small Press Expo earlier this month (as Top Shelf celebrated our 20th anniversary!), the Ignatz Awards went to all kinds of amazing indie cartoonists. But we were particularly proud to see two winners from the Top Shelf family:

Jess Fink won "Outstanding Series" for her erotic masterpiece of steampunk romance, Chester 5000. If you're new to the series (and over 18), there's no better time to pick up its two handsome hardcover volumes!

Carolyn Nowak won "Outstanding Story" for her charming, haunting graphic novella "Diana's Electric Tongue." As Publishers Weekly reported this week, Carolyn is coming to Top Shelf for Girl Town, a collection of her award-winning short stories coming next year!

Congrats to all the nominees and winners, and stay tuned for more on Girl Town!


SPX 2017 Marks 20 Years of Top Shelf!

September 14, 2017 / More →


This weekend, America's indie comics community descends once again on our nation's capital for the Small Press Expo (SPX), September 16-17, 2017 at the Bethesda North Marriott in Rockville, MD. And Top Shelf will be spending it as we've done for 20 years now: bringing you brilliant comics from veteran creators and brand-new talents alike!

What talents, you ask? Talents like:

Plus plenty more members of the Top Shelf family (Jess Fink, Liz Prince, etc) around the room.

It's all happening at SPX Table W64-67!

Stick around Saturday night for the Ignatz Awards ceremony (featuring nominees March and Chester 5000) — and read on for four killer panels featuring Top Shelf talent you won't want to miss:

Read More →


Sh*t My President Says breaks the internet!

August 15, 2017 / More →

Image for <em>Sh*t My President Says</em> breaks the internet!

Congratulations to Shannon Wheeler, whose new book Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump comes out in stores today & tomorrow. This 120-page hardcover, in which the award-winning cartoonist and satirist tackles the 140-character president, has blown through the roof with a staggering 3,649,450% climb on Amazon's bestseller charts, easily reaching #1 on the "Movers & Shakers" list and cracking well into the top 10 of all books!

Of course, this avalanche of demand has blown through Amazon's inventory, but they'll be restocked very soon, and the book lands in bookstores everywhere today, followed by comic shops tomorrow. Ask for it by name! (Well, you might have trouble with the asterisk...)

For more on Sh*t My President Says, visit Shannon's interview with the Washington Post, or visit the book's official web site!


Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill present The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: THE TEMPEST

July 20, 2017 / More →

Image for Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill present The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: THE TEMPEST

Six-issue miniseries will serve as "swan song" not only to award-winning LEAGUE series but also to creators' careers

San Diego, CA (July 20, 2017) – After an epic seventeen-year journey through the entirety of human culture – the biggest cross-continuity ‘universe’ that is conceivable – Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill will conclude both their legendary League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and their equally legendary comic-book careers with the series’ spectacular fourth and final volume, The Tempest.

Tying up the slenderest of plot threads and allusions from the three preceding volumes, The Black Dossier, and the Nemo trilogy into a dazzling and ingenious bow, the world’s most accomplished and bad-tempered artist-writer team will use their most stylistically adventurous outing yet to display the glories of the medium they are leaving; to demonstrate the excitement that attracted them to the field in the first place; and to analyse, critically and entertainingly, the reasons for their departure.

Opening simultaneously in the panic-stricken headquarters of British Military Intelligence, the fabled Ayesha’s lost African city of Kor and the domed citadel of ‘We’ on the devastated Earth of the year 2996, the dense and yet furiously-paced narrative hurtles like an express locomotive across the fictional globe from Lincoln Island to modern America to the Blazing World; from the Jacobean antiquity of Prospero’s Men to the superhero-inundated pastures of the present to the unimaginable reaches of a shimmering science-fiction future. With a cast-list that includes many of the most iconic figures from literature and pop culture, and a tempo that conveys the terrible momentum of inevitable events, this is literally and literarily the story to end all stories.

Commencing as a six-issue run of unfashionable, outmoded and flimsy children’s comics that will make you appear emotionally backward if you read them on the bus, this climactic magnum opus will also reprint classic English super-team publication The Seven Stars from the murky black-and-white reaches of 1964. A magnificent celebration of everything comics were, are and could be, any appreciator or student of the medium would be unwise to miss The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: THE TEMPEST.

-- a 6-issue mini-series, each issue 32 pages in (mostly) full color, saddle stitched, 6 5/8” x 10 1/8” (standard comic-book size), $4.99 (US). Issue #1 is scheduled for June 2018.

Co-Published by Top Shelf Productions (US) and Knockabout (UK).


Top Shelf brings an incredible lineup of old friends & new faces to San Diego Comic-Con 2017!

July 18, 2017 / More →

Comic-Con International starts this week in San Diego. It's the biggest show of the year... and the big debut for so many of the incredible books we've spent all year preparing for you.

Come visit us at the bustling Top Shelf corner of the enormous IDW pavilion (Booth #2743) and meet the following Top Shelf talents:

And last but not least:

  • Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, official guests of Comic-Con for the first time, celebrating MARCH with one very special panel and book signing on Saturday.

Plus: keep an eye out for Molly Ostertag (Strong Female Protagonist), Ray Friesen (Pirate Penguin vs. Ninja Chicken), Koren Shadmi (Love Addict), and other friends of Top Shelf!

Check IDW's official signing schedule for authors' official time slots — and in addition, most Top Shelf authors will be available in the Top Shelf zone throughout the show, ready to show off their new books and sign your copy.

Read on for panels you must not miss!

Read More →


Welcome to SUPER TOKYOLAND and I AM A NUMBER!

July 6, 2017 / More →

As we gear up for San Diego Comic-Con and the release of some stunning summer books (including Home Time, Surfside Girls, Sh*t My President Says, and Return of the Dapper Men), time marches ever on — and two amazing fall books are now open for pre-order! The Top Shelf family continue to expand as France's Benjamin Reiss explores Tokyo while UK design legend Rian Hughes presents his first ever solo collection of comics:

Super Tokyoland by Benjamin Reiss

"[Super Tokyoland's] visual style, strongly inspired by manga, enhances the story's tone beautifully... This well-constructed graphic novel illuminates a radically different way of life from European culture." — Planete BD

"Humble, sincere and spontaneous... The drawing is original, and Reiss takes every opportunity to show that he has more than one arrow in his quiver." — Le Bar à BD

"One feels grateful for its sincerity and frankness... Reading Super Tokyoland is a pure moment of pleasure: travel, cultural discoveries, and guaranteed escapism." — Publik Art

In August 2002, artist Benjamin Reiss flies to Tokyo to spend a year with Kayoko, the Japanese girl he met in France a year earlier. What he finds upon landing is a vast and complex culture, steeped in tradition but full of surprises. As one year stretches into six, Benjamin becomes immersed in the world of sento baths, taiko drums, and bento boxes, while studying cartooning under several masters of manga.

With striking detail and easy charm, Super Tokyoland is a perfect hybrid of European and Japanese comics, forming a rich exploration of immigrant life.

Super Tokyoland by Benjamin Reiss
ISBN 978-1-60309-418-4 • Diamond: JUL17-0675
$24.99 (US) • 232 pages
2-color softcover graphic novel with French flaps, 6.75” x 9.5”
On sale October 2017
Check out a 10-page preview!

I Am a Number by Rian Hughes

"Rian Hughes is a luminescent pop culture demon." —David Quantick

"One of the most successful and prolific designer/illustrators of the past 20 years" —Roger Sabin, Eye Magazine

"Hughes has been credited with doing more than anyone else to elevate the sophistication level of comic book design."—Michael Dooley, AIGA

"One of the most interesting and engaging graphic designers working with comic books today." —Sonia Harris, Comic Book Resources

Rian Hughes has got your number!

When everyone has a number, everyone knows their place. Lower numbers are better, higher numbers are less important, and that’s just the way it is. But what if that number could change? You might try to buck the system and assert your individuality… or you might end up with a big fat zero.

Big questions are explored and unexpected answers found in the first solo comics collection from award-winning designer & illustrator Rian Hughes. His whimsical, witty, and insightful strips reveal the lighter side of our obsession with social rankings. Where do you stand in the pecking order? Is your number up?

I Am a Number by Rian Hughes
ISBN 978-1-60309-419-1 • Diamond: JUL17-0674
$19.99 (US) • 120 pages
Full-color hardcover graphic novel / strip collection, with transparent dust jacket, 6” x 9”
On sale November 2017
Check out an 8-page preview!


Announcing ROOTS and BOTTLED, two gripping graphic novels for September!

June 9, 2017 / More →

There's nothing quite like a debut. The thrill of discovery — when an amazing new talent pops out of the ether, blending familiar influences with a fresh perspective and personal touch that's all their own — is one of the great joys of reading indie comics. This month, we're delighted to announce two excellent cartoonists' first graphic novels.

Roots by Tara O'Connor

On a journey to the old world — she discovered a whole new world.

After a messy year of heartbreak and setbacks, Tara sets off to Ireland in search of clues to her family’s ancestry, but what she finds isn't at all what she expected. Some of it has to do with the lack of records, but a lot has to do with John, the charming cartoonist she met on Twitter. Wrapped in real family history and set amongst the natural beauty of the Irish countryside, Roots is a classic romantic-comedy adventure and a page-turning account of a young woman finding herself.

Roots by Tara O'Connor

ISBN 978-1-60309-417-7 • Diamond: JUN170548
$19.99 (US) • 176 pages
black & white softcover graphic novel with French flaps, 5" x 8"
On sale September 2017
Check out an 11-page preview!

Bottled by Chris Gooch

What are friends for?

Jane is sick of her dead-end life in the suburbs, and desperate for a change. Her old friend Natalie made it out, living in Japan as a fashion model. Now, as Natalie comes back to town on business, Jane sees a way for her friend to do her a favor… whether she likes it or not. Young Australian cartoonist Chris Gooch debuts with a haunting portrait of millennial alienation, tinged with body horror and Greek tragedy, glamour and terror.

Bottled by Chris Gooch
ISBN 978-1-60309-420-7 • Diamond: JUN170551
$19.99 (US) • 288 pages
2-color softcover graphic novel with French flaps, 5.8" x 8.3"
On sale September 2017
Check out an 8-page preview!