Never read a graphic novel before? Haven’t read a comic book in years?

Here’s some brand new stuff coming out this Wednesday that is worth a look-see. You should be able to pick these up cold without having read anything else. See if something doesn’t grab your fancy. If so, follow the publisher links and you should be able to buy yourself a copy. Or, head to your local friendly comic book shop.

Disclaimer: Having not read these yet (’cause this isn’t Wednesday), I can’t vouch for their quality. But, from what I’ve heard and seen, they just might appeal to you.

Warlord of Io and Other Stories – $3.95
By James Turner
48 pages; published by Slave Labor Graphics

New from the creator of Rex Libris comes The Warlord of IO & Other Stories. The main story in this comic centers on Jon Jett, an unstoppable, unopposable hero in the mold of Flash Gordon. In this opening adventure he comes up against the emperor Zing in a fun and funny space adventure, with plenty of political commentary tossed in for good measure! Also featured in this one-shot is Hell Lost, a social satire that follows the spiritual journey of Muktooth, a demon serving in Hell’s Police Department. Assigned to police crimes that exceed mandated punishment, as well as patron-on-patron (Hell is a service industry, after all!) related crime, he has a case book higher than Mount Everest!

Ctrl+Alt+Del Volume 1: This is a Great Idea – $12.95
By Tim Buckley
136 pages; published by Blind Ferret Entertainment

Video games, food, and sleep. These are the priorities, in that order, of Ethan MacManus, a twenty-something gaming enthusiast with a low tolerance for work, and a penchant for making up his own rules. Anything goes as Ethan and his best friend Lucas deal with life, pop culture, obnoxious customers, and more games than there are minutes in a day. Introducing the first collection of the much-sought-after webcomic, Ctrl+Alt+Del! Hillarious, sarcastic and funny in all respects, this collection includes 130 strips dating back to the epic beginning of the series.

The Bun Field – $12.95
By Amanda Vähämäki
96 pages; published by Drawn & Quarterly

Characterized by an intriguing disjointed rhythm and delicious pencil-smudged style, The Bun Field is defined by a surreal ebb-and-flow, possessing a deep sense of foreboding and hurt, yet maintaining a biting sense of humor. Amanda Vähämäki’s first graphic novel is infused with a sense of abbreviated adolescence and a kind of grey sky banality. A young girl dreams of a dinosaur eating Donald Duck; wakes to find a bald, hulking stranger sharing her breakfast; leaves to take a car trip with a bear; falls and breaks a tooth, to have it replaced from her dentist’s dog’s mouth; and pays back the favor by plowing a field of buns. Young people and anthropomorphic animals commingle in dreamy landscapes, performing mundane tasks that are skewed with an absurd and fantastic edge.

Buck Rogers #0 – $0.25 (yes, a quarter!)
By Scott Beaty & Carlos Rafael
12 pages; published by Dynamite Entertainment

Join us as we present comicdom’s first hero — Buck Rogers… the first man out of time… the first man to be taken out of his present environment and put into the future! In the tradition of such best-selling introductory Dynamite launches as Red Sonja and Battlestar Galactica, Dynamite is launching the all-original #0 issue for just 25¢! Under a John Cassaday cover (Cassaday serves as series cover artist), writer Scott (Batman) Beatty and artist Carlos Rafael present an original 12 page comic book adventure – ‘The Death of Buck Rogers’! This is where it all begins and Dynamite’s plans for Buck Rogers follow the model that they’ve followed over the years beginning with Red Sonja, embracing the history of such classic characters, but giving them a modern edge for today’s audiences! All this, and for a quarter to introduce you to the new canon of Buck Rogers!

Stonecutter – $14.99
By Jon J. Muth & John Kuramoto
136 pages; published by Feiwel & Friends

This adaptation of a Chinese folktale begins with a man’s dissatisfaction with his life. Weary of being a stonecutter, he becomes many things in his quest for authority, each time finding that greater power lies elsewhere. Rooted in Taoist principles, Stonecutter is an exquisite tale about self-acceptance. Originally published in a small, limited edition fifteen years ago, Jon J. Muth republishes the story because “Certain stories leave you with more than when they found you. They shed light on something, or unknot something for you, or offer some insight. At least they do for me. Stonecutter is one such story.” This inspiring tale pushes the boundaries and possibilities of graphic literature, and is now available for a new audience.

The Beats: A Graphic History – $22.00
By Paul Buhle, et al
208 pages; published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux

In The Beats: A Graphic History, those who were mad to live have come back to life through artwork as vibrant as the Beat movement itself. Told by the comic legend Harvey Pekar, his frequent artistic collaborator Ed Piskor, and a range of artists and writers, including the feminist comic creator Trina Robbins and the Mad magazine artist Peter Kuper, The Beats takes us on a wild tour of a generation that, in the face of mainstream American conformity and conservatism, became known for its determined uprootedness, aggressive addictions, and startling creativity and experimentation.

What began among a small circle of friends in New York and San Francisco during the late 1940s and early 1950s laid the groundwork for a literary explosion, and this striking anthology captures the storied era in all its incarnations—from the Benzedrine-fueled antics of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs to the painting sessions of Jay DeFeo’s disheveled studio, from the jazz hipsters to the beatnik chicks, from Chicago’s College of Complexes to San Francisco’s famed City Lights bookstore. Snapshots of lesser-known poets and writers sit alongside frank and compelling looks at the Beats’ most recognizable faces. What emerges is a brilliant collage of—and tribute to—a generation, in a form and style that is as original as its subject.