Julian Cope, Britain’s self-adorned “visionary rock musician and musicologist, hip archaeologist and one-time frontman of the Teardrop Explodes,” doesn’t write books for the laid-back music fan.

You would think that being the last man on Earth would have some advantages, the obvious one being all the women you could potentially sleep with (unless you were the last man on Earth and gay, now that would suck). But the reality may be much darker than that, if Y: The Last Man is any predictor.

Islamic terrorists detonate bombs in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. The U.S. government institutes a draft, invades Iran, and sets its sites on Syria.

Hey Jude, have you heard the tale of Red Rocket 7? Let me take you there. A rising rock star in the mid-’90s, Red Rocket 7 takes the stage at a sold out Portland show. As he strums his first notes a strange scaly Enfinite alien assassin targets him with a laser pistol.

Jesse Reklaw’s Slow Wave takes readers’ submitted dreams and turns them into four-panel comic strips. Dark Horse collects most of his strips from 1999–2003 in The Night of Your Life, a sturdy, hardbound volume.

Twenty-five years ago, Mister X was an expressionistic trip for the mind. Dark Horse’s remastered hardcover collection lives up to that legacy.

When the Joker is released from Arkham Asylum, his first order of business is to reclaim his territory and to show Gotham’s other villains (notably Two Face and The Penguin) who’s boss. The story is told from the perspective of a two-bit hood named Jonny Frost, who volunteers to pick up the Joker from the asylum and hopes to hit the big time as the Joker’s right-hand man.

Rutu Modan’s characters recall the “clear line” style of Hergé’s Tintin series or the late Margaret Kilgallen. Despite these comparisons, the Israeli cartoonist fashions unique colloquial narratives that recede into each panel with a restful color palette.

Writer Matt Fraction’s deft narrative explorations of Shell Head’s personal five nightmares dig up his past with Obadiah Stane and his misgivings regarding the future.