I admit it.  I'm a generous guy.  Generous in a "oh my, you're on fire, let me help you" kind of way?  No.  Generous in a "that's okay, honey, I know you didn't mean to call me by your ex-boyfriend's name last night" kind of way?  No.  Generous in a "I'm sure the waiter isn't deliberately trying to kill me because I specifically said no peanut sauce and look, look, right under here, smeared on the bottom side of this piece of bok choi here" kind of way?  Dear God, no. Food service people want nothing more than to be able to kill people and get away with it.  I hear they keep a little tally in the back by the little heater they use to keep the milk at room temperature.

But when it comes to comic books, I am vast, expansive and kindly. Not by letting any of you little bastards handle them, of course.  But I am more than willing to buy comix and graphic novels for all my dear beloved friends.  Not only does it help the comix field (which really kinda needs it, basically) but it helps all those people so near and dear to me.  It expands them.  It completes them.  And it fills me with both the warm glow of human charity.   I'm still living off the warm glow in my chest from that year I gave my ex-girlfriend with the eating disorder a subscription to Jughead.  I pat myself on the back at the memory.

And but so this year I entreat all CE customers to consider buying at least one extra comic or graphic novel that will similarly enrich the life of someone you care about (plus, it shaves about 23 days off your Christmas shopping).  You know how hard it is to shop for your parents?  How you can never figure out what they want and when you ask they just say something sloppily sentimental like, "I just want us to have a nice Christmas together," or "I just want you to find a job and stop bleeding me like a tick?"  Dude, just get them a Bondage Fairies trade paperback or, if you're feeling particularly randy, Super Taboo I and II.  I guarantee you, you'll treasure the reverential silence with which they'll appraise you afterwards.

Now, since the world is one big situation comedy, with all of us knowing perhaps not the exact same people, but almost certainly the exact same type of people, I offer the following holiday gift shopping list of books that are top-notch in quality and offered in abundance here at CE, with helpful annotations where necessary.

For Your Funny Friend Who is Frequently Morbidly Nostalgic and Tends to Call You Late At Night When He's Drunk And, Now That You Think of It, Is Pretty Much Always Drunk:  Maakies, by Tony Millionaire, the Charles Bukowski of comics (Fantagraphics, 136 pgs, $14.95).  Maakies is a clarion call to the golden days of newspaper cartooning, if George Herriman and Winsor McCay had been allowed to express just exactly how blitzed they were when working.  A two-tiered strip, the top tier of Maakies follows the lavishly illustrated adventures of Drinky Crow (who is in the grand tradition of classic cartoon icons whose name explains exactly what they are and what they do) and Mr. Gabby (who, in the grand tradition of classic cartoon icons that make no sense whatsoever, is a bleary looking monkey who wears a shamrock hat) on a pirate ship as they encounter mermaids, pirates, and their own desire for booze and self-destruction.  The bottom tier of Maakies is kind of a crudely drawn "setup; punchline" strip that proliferates newspapers today except that Milionaire's version is usually both obscene and hilarious.  (A typical strip:  A man says to a woman, "Just one thing, baby...never ask me to stop drinking." To which the woman replies, "Can I ask you to stop peeing on my leg?")  Maakies collects 260 of these strips and after about a third you'll be enthralled with Millionaire's uniquely delightful vision.  Bonus points:  Book and cover design by Chip Kidd; printed on the material used to make paper for kindergartners.

For Your Pal Who Is Either A Conspiracy Nut or Who Likes To Talk About How Much Better We Are Than Australians:  From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (Eddie Campbell Comics, 560 pgs., $35.00).  You've heard me jibber-jabber about this big-ass book before so I won't take up too much valuable space all over again.  Moore and Campbell tell the story of Jack The Ripper and pinpoint the birthplace of the 20th Century in the tiny blood-smeared magic-lined alleys of London.  A beautiful formalist masterpiece.  Bonus points:  Currently banned in Australia which, sadly enough, is where Eddie Campbell lives and works.  Printed on the type of paper provided to students in Typing 101 classes.

For Your Raver Friends Who Want Something to Flip Through While Waiting for the E to Kick In:  Little Nemo In Slumberland: 1905-1914 by Winsor McCay (Taschen Books, 430 pgs. $39.95).  I'm really torn whether to call this the bargain buy of the year because there's so many of them, but this is definitely up there; a full color collection of McCay's groundbreaking work on Little Nemo for about half the price of Fantagraphics' individual five volume series.  Whether showing the dissembly of Jack Frost's palace by greedy ice company men or a twister that knocks a house onto the noggin of a full (and fully befuddled) moon, the whimsical fantasy of McCay's images are married to an illustrator's eye for realism and detail.  The result is literally breathtaking.  Bonus points:  Finally allows to you understand that old Tom Petty video.

For Your Artsy Comics Friend Who Keeps Saying They Don't "Get" Marvel Comics:  Nick Fury, Agent of Shield, mainly by Jim Steranko (Marvel, 240 pgs., $19.95).  This is also quite a bargain albeit, as Dr. Evil would say, an evil bargain.  I hear that, in order to avoid paying Steranko any reprint fees, Marvel printed this in Europe and then imported it.  Consequently, it's a million times better looking and sturdy than any trade Marvel's ever done.  Baroque to the point of parody, Steranko's Nick Fury is intoxicating comics gumbo; the power of Kirby's figures melded to the formalism of Will Eisner's layouts, blended with the relentless storytelling of Chester Gould and spiced with Lichtensteinian self-consciousness.  In other words, twice as big, twice as bold, twice as absurd as your average comic book.  That's how Marvel did comic books back in the day.  Bonus points:  Includes the popular game, "What does this ink smell like?" at no extra cost.

For Your Friend Who's a Grad Student in Literature and Rolls Their Eyes When You Talk About Comics:  Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon Books, 380 pgs., $27.50).  For me, this is a tough call because frankly, I think some of the stuff that Ware didn't include for thematic streamlining (including a huge chunk of the first issue of Acme Novelty Library and that pretty amazing issue where Jimmy is stranded on a desert island with his Mom and Superman) was staggeringly brilliant.  But on the bonus side, there's the fold-out cover and the inside front and back covers, all of which add up to almost a whole issue of detail on their own. Also, the graphic novel is far cheaper than the coin you'd be laying down for all the individual issues.  And if your friend hasn't been exposed to Chris Ware yet, expect them to thank you rapturously for this poignant generational epic of isolation and angst.  Take that, Don DeLillo!  Bonus Points:  The exam and riotous faux article about the "New Pictorial Language" on the inside front bookflap.  Co-design and editing by Chipp Kidd.  Paper reminds you of expensive textbook.

For That Hipster Friend Who Always Insists That You Go To "Spike & Mike's" Every Year With Them And Won't Lend You Their "Sacred" Liquid Television Tapes:  Crumple: The  Status of Knuckle by Dave Cooper (Fantagraphics, 120 pgs., $14.95).  The best short-hand for Cooper's art style might be "Ren & Stimpy in Hell," and here he uses cute funny-looking cartoon characters to tell a story of gender conflict that would make R. Crumb squirm in discomfort.  By the time you get to the section of the story that seems like an episode of Bosom Buddies as directed by David Lynch, you'll be aware that Cooper is a talent that could very well eclipse all of his influences. The feel crawly book of the year!  Bonus Points:  The author's inside jacket self-portrait in all his hairy-shouldered glory.

For That Friend of Yours Who Used to Watch Babylon 5 While Surfing The Web Simultaneously:  Finder, Vol. I: Sineater by Carla Speed McNeil (Lightspeed Press, 164 pgs., $15.95).  I've also babbled about this at great length earlier so you should know the routine.  McNeil creates a world utterly familiar and odd, deep enough to deserve the book's endnotes, and packed with enough great storytelling and character complexity that you'll forget to check those notes for dozen of pages at a time.  Bonus Points:  This book is still backed by my personal guarantee.  If you buy it and don't like it, bring it back for a refund and I'll by your copy off Brian.  I want to give away a gajillion of these for gifts, and in fact I can't find my copy because I loaned it to someone and I don't know who. Razzin-frazzin...

For Anyone That I've Missed:  It's sorta unfair that I've managed to list so many graphic novels and trades without once mentioning DC since they've arguably done more than any other publisher to develop the graphic novel market; on the one hand, I can't imagine a regular CE shopper who hasn't bought at least one DC or Vertigo trade.  Let me mention quickly mention my three current favorites.  Ed Brubaker's and Michael Lark's Scene of the Crime: A Little Piece of Goodnight (108 pgs., $12.95), a mystery novel good enough to nab an Edgar; Peter Milligan and Edvin Biukovic's The Human Target (104 pgs., $12.95), a wonky, gun-filled meditation on identity that reads like one of John Woo's better H.K. films and shows off how much the comics field lost when Biukovic died tragically young late last year; and the first volume of DC's Wonder Woman Archives (240 pgs., $49.95) collecting some the more charmingly twisted and naively demented superhero comics I've ever read.

Did I mention Humanoid Publishing's awesome reprinting of Bilal's Nikopol Trilogy?  Or Marvel Essentials' cheapie collection of Roy Thomas and Barry Smith's Conan, or Lee and Kirby's mindlessly unstoppable Captain America?  A Knights of the Dinner Table Collection?  I didn't? Well, believe me, you'll find someone who'd love to find these babies under the Christmas tree.  Let's all take advantage of the country's Playstation 2 shortage and give the gifts people'll still be reading next holiday season (or whenever they finally get their new Playstation 2).  As that large unkempt ukulele playing folk singer Tiny Tim once said, God bless us, everyone!