NBM Publishing Announces 2014 Release Schedule

Slate includes releases by Jim Benton, Nicolas De Crecy, Enki Bilal and More

NBM Publishing has announced the release schedule for the first three quarters of 2014, including new editions of books from Ted RALL, and Nicolas De Crecy; brand new releases from Jim Benton, Jesse Lonergan, and Eric Hobbs & Noel Tuazon; and new, translated volumes of The Louvre series by Enki Bilal and Zombillenium by Arthur De Pins being released in English for the first time.

MARCH 2014
(April Trade Publication Date)

All Star?
By Jesse Lonergan

?From the creator of Joe and Azat and Flower and Fade

It's the end of the school year in 1998. Mark McGwire is racing Sammy Sosa to break the home run record, Bill Clinton is being questioned about a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, Semisonic's Closing Time is on top of the charts, and Carl Carter is leading the Elizabeth Monarchs of rural Vermont to the state championship in his senior year. A full scholarship to the University of Maine is waiting for him, and everyone says he has a shot at the pros. He?s so good he can do whatever he wants. ?Until he makes one very arrogant mistake.?

6x9, 176pp., B&W trade pb. $13.99, ?ISBN 9781561638352

FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK, UPDATED WITH AN ALL NEW CHAPTER!

SILK ROAD TO RUIN:? Why Central Asia Is The Next Middle East ?2nd Edition ?
By Ted RALL?

"A sincere (yet still wry) attempt to stave off another disaster. His forte
is exposing the comic-tragic truth buried within political rhetoric."

-Village Voice

"Stuffed with information, characterized by courage, in photos, "comic
novellas," and pictures, he serves up a travelogue of a region teetering
on the brink of irreparable political and environmental failure."

- The Boston Globe

Part graphic novel travelog, part tongue-in-cheek travel guide, here are the adventures of caustic cartoonist Rall in the wild and wooly central Asian countries, a powder keg sitting on tomorrow?s oil... Combines articles with comics chapters relating his experiences retracing the old legendary Silk Road starting with the sublime history of China and ending in the absurdity of the petty dictatorships of the ?The ?Stans? where Rall had the temerity -or was it blustery stupidity?- to go back, including once with a group of listeners to his radio show, on a dare. It?s exotic adventure, satire and a fun way to find out more about a part of the world that looms in importance with its immense reserves of oil...?"

?6x9, 304pp., B&W trade pb, $19.99, ISBN 9781561638857

APRIL 2014

(May Trade Publication Date)

Family Ties ?An Alaskan Crime Drama
?By Eric Hobbs and Noel Tuazon

From the creators of The Broadcast

?Hoping to secure a future for his children, an aging Alaskan crime boss looks to retire and divide his empire amongst his three heirs. But when his idealistic son refuses the inheritance, the old man disowns him. This turns out to be a fatal mistake when he sees his cold-blooded daughters use their new-found power and influence against him. Inspired by the classic play King Lear; The Godfather meets Shakespearean tragedy in this epic tale of betrayal and loss.?

6x9, 208pp., B&W trade pb., $14.99, ISBN 9781561637294

MAY 2014
(June Trade Publication Date)

The Louvre Collection:?Phantoms of the Louvre
?By Enki Bilal

Superstar European SF and Fantasy comics artist Enki Bilal revisits the Louvre in twenty-two portraits... He imagines 22 fates of men, women and children whose lives have been affected by a work of art. 22 portraits for 5000 years of creation.?

They haunt the halls of the Louvre ... they are long dead, often violently ... they are a Roman legionary, a muse, a painter, a German officer ... Each, one day, met a painter or a sculptor and was their model ...?

Bilal felt them, wandering the corridors of the Louvre, close to the work that tipped their life: Mona Lisa, the Victory of Samothrace, Christ reclining, an Egyptian mask ...Bilal startlingly brings them back to life.?

Both a work of Fantasy and a masterful homage, this was presented in a special exhibition in the Louvre in early 2013.?

9x11 ½?, 144 pp., color POB, $29.99, 9781561638413

BACK IN PRINT AND IN HARDCOVER FOR THE FIRST TIME
2007 EISNER AWARD NOMINEE "BEST PAINTER"

GLACIAL PERIOD?
By Nicolas De Crecy

"De Crecy is a gifted storyteller whose eye for body language and ear
for a funny line never fails him. He deftly combines art history, science
fiction and simple philosophizing in a short but very sweet tale."

- Publishers Weekly

"A clever upending of the resilient myth that masterworks of art
preserve the history and spirit of their era; the meaning of art,
De Crecy suggests, belongs to the people who experience it."

- Washington Post

With this graphic novel, for the first time in the US, ComicsLit brings over the latest enfant terrible of European comics, a mad genius, and for the first time, The Louvre museum is involved in a co-edition of a series of graphic novels, each a vision of this great museum by a different artist.?

De Crecy, at the sight of the incredible richness of the museum's collection was overwhelmed and felt small and ignorant. The result is a story set thousands of years hence in a glacial period where all human history has been forgotten and a small group of archeologists fall upon the Louvre, buried in age-old snow. They cannot begin to explain all the artifacts they see. What could they have meant? Their interpretations are nonsense, absurd, farcical.

?8 ½ x11 , 80pp., color POB, $22.99, ISBN 9781561638550

JUNE 2014
(July Trade Publication Date)

Dog Butts and Love. And Stuff Like That. And Cats.?
Cartoons by Jim Benton

"If laughter is the best medicine, then your insurance
company should reimburse you for the cost of this book."

- Jerry Zucker, Director/Writer/Producer;
Airplane!, The Naked Gun

"Consistently brilliant, always hilarious, Jim Benton is one
of the best cartoonists on the web right now."

- Matthew Inman, TheOatmeal.com

Best selling cartoonist Jim Benton of It?s Happy Bunny and Dear Dumb Diary fame has also been posting whimsical, dry humored, at times nasty, cartoons on Reddit. They have become one of the site?s most popular items. At last, here is a collection all in one place! From wry observation of the absurdities of life to acerbic comment, to poetic musings, from cats and dogs to humans, from one size to another, one style to another, this compendium will amaze as to the breadth of Benton?s inexhaustible talent for humor.?"

6x9, 96pp. full color trade pb. with flaps, $13.99 ISBN 9781561638468

JULY 2014
(August Trade Publication Date)

Zombillenium, Vol.2: ?Human Resources?
By Arthur De Pins?

Tempers are flaring around Zombillenium, the monster amusement park run by monsters. When one hires only the dead (or witches!) in a region where unemployment is in the double digits, one must expect some friction. But things get particularly ugly when the park?s security is breached from two sides: activists and a very strange visitor, mom to two peculiar sons the head of the park seems to remember from somewhere? Gretchen and Aurelian do their best to help save a precarious explosive situation! All presented in De Pins? trademark tongue-in-cheek jubilant black humor and stunning art.?

9x12, 48pp. full color POB, $14.99, ISBN 9781561638505