Picture pages

Last-minute gifts for the comic-book nerd in your life

ROUNDUP. No gift says, “I’m going to make broad assumptions about how you enjoy spending your time,” quite like a book. If you’re going to go there, why not give the gift of a graphic novel? It’s like a book, but with pictures. Everybody loves pictures.

For the giftee who already has all those ‘Peanuts’ collections:
‘Betsy and Me,’ Jack Cole
(Fantagraphics, $13)
It’s one of the saddest stories in the history of comics: In 1958, virtuoso cartoonist and “Plastic Man” creator Jack Cole began drawing “Betsy and Me,” a comic strip about a married couple and their troublemaking boy-genius son. On Aug. 15, with two and a half months of strips in the can, Cole left his home, bought a .22 pistol and shot himself in the head. This book collects his final, sadly unfinished creative effort.

Also try: “Sundays With Walt and Skeezix,” Frank King (Sunday Press, $95); “Krazy & Ignatz: The Kat Who Walked in Beauty,” George Herriman (Fantagraphics, $30)

For the artsy-fartsy giftee:
‘The Acme Novelty Datebook, Vol. 2,’ Chris Ware
(Drawn & Quarterly, $40)
Chris Ware is the most celebrated artiste among contemporary cartoonists. (That’s what happens when you guest edit an issue of McSweeney’s and become the first cartoonist ever to have his work serialized in the New York Times.) The “Datebook” series gathers selections from his sketchbooks, giving an absolutely miserable (and lovely) portrait of what life drawing pictures for a living is like.

Also try: “Storeyville,” Frank Santoro (Picturebox, $25); “The Squirrel Mother,” Megan Kelso (Fantagraphics, $17)

For the giftee who dressed as Spider-Man (again) on Halloween:
'Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil,’ Jeff Smith
(DC, $30)
“Bone” author Jeff Smith’s take on Captain Marvel, Earth’s Mightiest Mortal, is a kid’s book. It also might be the character’s best incarnation ever — and damn well more fun to read than any other superhero story released this year. If only every comic book featured such clean artwork and tight storytelling.

Also try: “The Death of Captain America, Vol. 1,” Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (Marvel, $20); “All-Star Superman, Vol. 1,” Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC, $20)

For the giftee who missed it the first time:
‘James Sturm’s America: God, Gold and Golems,’ James Sturm
(Drawn & Quarterly, $25)
Before he became the grand high muckity-muck at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, Sturm authored “The Golem’s Mighty Swing,” a gorgeous book about a barnstorming, all-Jewish baseball team set in the 1920s. This new volume also includes two of the artist’s earlier cracks at historical-fiction comics, the graphic novellas “Hundreds of Feet Before Daylight” and “The Revival.”

Also try: “Palestine: The Special Edition,” Joe Sacco (Fantagraphics, $30); “King Cat Classix,” John Porcellino (Drawn & Quarterly, $30)