By Brian Heater

Whether you’re into heartfelt autobiography or silly plotlines and sarcastic one-liners, the guys and gals putting out graphic novels and comic strips continue to astound in their visual versatility and intelligent insight. We check in with a few recent and upcoming releases to make sure you didn’t miss the latest and greatest the genre has to offer.

Exit Wounds
By Rutu Modan, Drawn & Quarterly
Israeli artist Rutu Modan is no Joe Sacco—and thankfully she never tries to be. Exit Wounds is more of a frank examination of human life during wartime than a frontline, bullet-dodging adrenaline rush of a book. While suicide bombings are a fact of life in Tel Aviv—as well as the catalyst that first brings the book’s protagonists together—they become just another daily challenge amongst characters dealing with life, love, abandonment and any number of other emotions that cut across national boundaries. In the end, Modan’s Exit Wounds is less concerned with ways to die than it is with what it really means to be alive.
Oct. 21, Rutu Modan will be at JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. (at 76th St.), 646-505-4444; 6, free.

I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets: The Comics of Fletcher Hanks
By Paul Karasik, Fantagraphics
Pay no attention to the flying man on the cover: One need not be a dyed-in-the-spandex superhero fanboy to fully appreciate I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets. Paul Karasik’s book explores the known universe of Fletcher Hanks, an unorthodox pioneer of the form whose work has spent the decades following his passing (frozen to death while sleeping on a park bench) wallowing away in obscurity in pages of pulp comics anthologies. Some (Karasik included) consider the man to be an unrecognized genius of the form, others peg him as one of comics’ ultimate outside artists. Wherever you might fall, Hanks’ work is unquestionably distinctive, endowing his heroes with powers that are bizarre even by superhero standards, coupled with a thirst for Old Testament-style retribution.

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip - Book Two
By Tove Jansson, Drawn & Quarterly
The most unfortunate aspect of this second volume in the collected output of Tove Jansson’s beloved Moomin strip is the knowledge of the magic that we’ve been missing out on for decades. Following the adventures of a family of hippo-like trolls, Moomin has near-Disney status in its home of Finland, with theme parks, TV shows, museums and passenger planes erected in its image. A cursory glance at this whimsical 1954-75 strip shows why. Jansson’s opus possesses all of the warmth, wonder and whimsy of the best children’s literature. Drawn & Quarterly does the series right, with a hardbound collection that might be worthy of framing, were one not so tempted to share it with kids and adults alike.

Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories
By Nick Guerwitch, Dark Horse
That Perry Bible Fellowship has been a hit nearly since its inception should come as little surprise to anyone who has glimpsed the strip online (or in the New York Press). Nick Gurewitch’s on-going series is one of the freshest and most consistently hilarious examples of a format most often associated with the likes of Dilbert and Garfield to have come along in years. Not beholden to regular characters or an artistic style, Perry Bible Fellowship delivers its punch line like a refreshing smack to the face. Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, out in November, anthologizes a large portion of Gurewitch’s PBF output, and is an essential reader for anyone interested in the future of the form.

Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story
By Frederik Peeters, Houghton Mifflin
In the off chance that books like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Harvey Pekar’s Our Cancer Year have yet to convince you about the medium’s ability to take itself seriously, Frederik Peeters’ Blue Pills should help put you over the top. Subtitled A Positive Love Story, the book explores the author’s true-life love affair with an HIV-positive woman. From panic attacks brought on by broken condoms to learning how to bond with his girlfriend, Peeters’ first book to be translated into English (by Anjali Singh, the editor who brought Persepolis to the U.S.) will be available in January 2008 and is an unflinchingly frank examination of a topic that’s still largely taboo. The book is alternately heartwarming, sad and surprisingly funny, and Peeters’ loosely flowing linestyle will prove immediately appealing to fans of Craig Thompson’s Blankets.