The Couscous Comics collective is putting out their first trade paperback, a collection of SKIN HORSE by writer/artist Shaenon K. Garrity and co-writer, Jeffrey C. Wells. The 144-page book collects the first year of the strip — which follows an “overworked, underfunded secret agency dedicated to assisting America’s nonhuman citizens. The receptionist is a clockwork robot, the project head is a swarm of bees, the field team consists of Sweetheart the talking dog and her faithful zombie Unity, and Dr. Tip Wilkin, the lone human staffer, feels he can only do his job properly in high heels.” New features includ an exclusive bonus story by Garrity and Wells and additional previously unpublished artwork. It’s available via pre-order (an increasingly popular method to finance collections) here for $13.95.
Skin Horse won the 2008 Stumptown Trophy Award for Best Small Press and is the most popular comic strip on the WebComicsNation hosting site. It is syndicated online on its own site and on GoComics.com, the online arm of Andrews McMeel Universal. Garrity’s previous strip, Narbonic, was named one of the best comics of 2006 by The Comics Journal, earned Garrity the prestigious Lulu of the Year Award from the comics advocacy group Friends of Lulu, and spawned its own annual convention in Minnesota from 2003-2006. Wells is a writer and real-life government bureaucrat; Skin Horse is his first comics work.
