Beyond the Pale! Krazed Komics and Stories #[nn]

Kim Deitch's singular underground sensibility is on full display with this 1989 Fantagraphics collection, its cover bursting with the kind of cheerfully unsettling imagery that made him one of alternative comics' most distinctive voices. The cover art — all Deitch's own pencils and inks — plunges you into a candy-striped carnival world where robotic figures on rollerskates share a checkerboard stage, a googly-eyed yellow creature grins from the lower left, and two wide-eyed cylindrical human figures stare out from the foreground with expressions caught somewhere between wonder and alarm. It's a dense, hand-lettered spectacle that promises exactly what the title delivers: "Krazed Komics and Stories" that cheerfully venture well past the boundaries of the ordinary.