Pulp Fictions may be on hiatus, but the comics just keep on coming. Here's what's been turning my pages recently:

A Drifting Life
Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Drawn & Quarterly

Lauded for his downbeat short works collected in The Push Man and Other Stories and Goodbye, Yoshihiro Tatsumi depicts his early years of (sometimes) bitter struggle as a young manga workhorse in this massive and mesmerizing 855-page autobiography. Tatsumi, born in 1935, conflates his personal struggle to invent gekiga, a cinema-inspired "manga that isn't manga," with Japan's postwar economic recovery and the labor-intensive grind of producing works for the country's insatiable "rental manga" market. Hardly adrift as a creator, Tatsumi applies a lifetime of experience to the ambivalent family and professional relationships that background his unflagging imagination and admirable work ethic. Among its countless graphic delights is Tatsumi's crafty knack for mimicking the creations of many manga peers throughout this sprawling personal epic.

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe
By Bryan Lee O'Malley
Oni Press

You probably know somebody like Scott Pilgrim. Hell, you may even be somebody like Scott Pilgrim, whether you know it or not. Bryan Lee O'Malley's cute and feckless 24-year-old protagonist is an old-fashioned slacker, a tabula rasa for what could well be our next lost generation. He works part time in a Toronto health-food restaurant, plays bass in a crap band called Sex Bob-omb, and gave up his innocent17-year-old girlfriend, Knives Chau, in order to move in with the older, wiser, and certainly more enigmatic Ramona Flowers. O'Malley depicts Scott's inner life as a videogame, complete with bonus points and extra lives. He's never more alive than when engaged in battle with Ramona's seven "evil ex-boyfriends."

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

Omega: The Unknown
By Jonathan Lethem, Karl Rusnak, Farel Dalrymple, and Paul Hornschemeier
Marvel

Although a hardcover edition of its 10-issue run was published in October, novelist-essayist Jonathan Lethem's audacious remake of Steve Gerber's original late-'70s series "Omega: The Unknown" deserves not to have its mysterious title taken quite so literally.

Lethem bravely puts the love of comics he chronicled in Fortress of Solitude into practice by rewriting the title he says most inspired that semiautobiographical novel. In Gerber's original comic, the titular alien superhero - "a nameless man of somber, impassive visage" - is connected mysteriously to a 12-year-old boy raised by robots. Gerber's deeply flawed series, set in Manhattan's then-sketchy Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, was a nearly impenetrable mish-mash of pompous narrative, incredibly annoying secondary characters, and a gratuitous parade of B-level Marvel supervillains. Gerber and co-writer Mary Skrenes left the series midway through its run before rejoining "Omega" for its two final issues.

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka Volume One
Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka
Viz

20th Century Boys Volume 01
Naoki Urasawa
Viz

Someone is killing the great robots of Europe. In celebrated manga artist Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, manga god Osamu Tezuka's novel-length Astro Boy story, "The Strongest Robots in the World" (available here) has become something darker. Urasawa's extended ongoing rewrite shifts the focus from Tezuka's childlike icon to Inspector Gesicht, an anxious, overworked robot (in human form) that's also on the killer's list. When reading Tezuka you're always aware of who's a robot and who isn't; the differences are slipperier and more elusive in Urasawa's Moore/Miller/Morrison-esque remake. His robots have immensely enhanced powers of strength and intelligence, they also write poetry, play the piano, and seemingly possess a full range of human emotions (one of the seven lives with a wife and five children).

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

All photos by Richard Gehr

Comics publishers have always relied on anxiety to engage readers in their ongoing conflicts - both on and off the page. Who will be the new Batman? Will the Watchmen movie live up to the hype? Can Chris Claremont recapture his glory days with X-Men? Non-manga industry revenues are reported to be up, but there was still plenty of anxiety go around this past weekend during this year's early-recession edition of the New York Comic Con.

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero
Edited by Angela Ndalianis
Routledge

The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero, edited by Angela Ndalianis, is the second genre-warping collection of essays either delivered at or inspired by the University of Melbourne's 2005 conference, "Holy Men in Tights! A Superheroes Conference." Published late last year, the book covers the greater pop cultural impact of superheroes, whose mythic and godlike qualities were explored in the earlier Super/Heroes: From Hercules to Superman (New Academia Publishing), spun from the same conference. In the wake of popular music and videogames, comics have emerged only recently as a legitimate area of academic concern. But my favorite moments from The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero suggest that plenty of fanlike enthusiasm fuels these writers as they explore fascinating notions of time, space, identity, and colonialism inspired by superhero comics' colorful and disposable delights:

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

RASL: The Drift
Jeff Smith
Cartoon Books

You could zip through RASL: The Drift, which collects the first three issues of Jeff Smith's self-published book, in less than an hour, or you could linger on his carefully composed pages. When it comes to narrative, though, speed is of the essence in this briskly paced hardboiled sci-fi hybrid set in a Southwestern desert community. (Following his robberies, Rasl looks like a boom-tube refugee from Jack Kirby's Fourth World as he rambles down a mountainside.)

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

Black Jack Volumes 1-3
Osamu Tezuka
Vertical

The dour doctor known as Black Jack, whose medical exploits manga godfather Osamu Tezuka serialized from 1973 to 1983, is arguably the closest Japanese comics ever got to a typically alienated silver-age Marvel superhero. Black Jack's superpower is surgery, and he operates, so to speak, as a shadowy unlicensed healer at odds with the Japanese medical establishment. On the outside, he's callous rebel with a new-wave haircut, black gothic garb, and a bad attitude. He charges the rich exorbitant rates for his services but also works pro bono for the poor.

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

Jeff Lint's 'The Caterer'
Steve Aylett
Floating World Comics

Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby
Takashi Nemoto
Picture Box

During the mid-1970s, Jeff Lint - a fictional author created by real-life British writer Steve Aylett - took a break from his pulp science fiction career and dabbled in comics. According to Aylett's fictional biography, Lint's comics career ended when his absurdist antihero Jack Marsden went on a Disneyland murder spree in the pages of his most successful book, The Caterer, thereby bringing the legal wrath of Disney down upon the "Pearl Comics Group."

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions.

Beasts! Book 2
Jacob Covey
Fantagraphics

You Are Forgiven
Matt Leines
Free News Projects

Collections are one place where size definitely helps. First published in 2006 (and newly available in paperback), editor/curator Jacob Covey's handsomely appointed volume titled Beasts! seemed merely intriguing at the time, with its 90 mythological, supernatural, and folkloric creatures illustrated buy as many fine artists. Beasts! Book Two (Fantagraphics), however, adds 90 more creatures, and takes Covey's obsession over the top and into the realm of the maniacal with its colorful tributes to the Boo Hag, Chupacabra, Deer Woman, Mermaid, Nymph, Reptoid, Three-Legged Ass and other figments of our fears, in yet another classy hardback edition.