• Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Vol. 1. Michael Kupperman. Fantagraphics. 144 pages. $19.99.

Kupperman's dementedly absurdist comic pastiches may be too smart for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, which passed on the pilot for his bizarro creation Snake N' Bacon, but this brilliant, anarchic collection of errant dips into the cultural gestalt is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Like stuff that's fearless, brilliant and non-linear? Thrizzle is for shizzle.

• Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation. Tim Hamilton. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 160 pages. $16.95.

Hamilton has evolved light-years beyond his early indy and off-brand work. Now, he boasts the tools -- and chops -- to take on a Bradbury classic that's already tripped up the greats (like Francois Truffaut). He turns in a vivid and relevant meditation that will surely become a resurgent favorite of nervous librarians everywhere.

• Filthy Rich. Brian Azzarello and Victor Santos. Vertigo Crime. 200 pages. $19.95.

Hardboiled pulp fiction has become like the blues; a cliché for hacks but in the hands of a master something special. Azzarello's hardboiled tale treats the form with respect, and he doesn't try anything funny but adds a bit of himself to the venerable form. Santos' black and white art is more stylish than stylized, and he illuminates the typically tawdry tale forcefully and effectively.

• The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics. Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle. Abrams Comicarts. 256 pages. $40.

Kurtzman, Mad Magazine's progenitor and original editor, influenced almost every aspect of this planet's comedic sensibilities but remains unknown to most of its occupants. He was also a gifted artist, amazing writer and publishing visionary. This dazzling collection of his comic creations (Mad, Help and Trump) also features Playboy's Little Annie Fanny, which provided a sinecure of sorts during his latter leaner years. But the range and breadth of Kurtzman's oeuvre still dazzles.

• A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. Josh Neufeld. Pantheon. 208 pages. $24.95.

Neufeld's excellent post-Katrina webcomic has been refreshed and reconfigured as a rich, multi-threaded nonfiction graphic work. The characterizations are rock-solid and true. The abandonment of the people of New Orleans remains palpable and poignant in this visceral depiction of a disgraceful chapter of recent U.S. history.

Richard Pachter is The Miami Herald's Business Monday books columnist.

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