In October Pantheon Books is publishing two hardcover graphic novels of special interest to pop culture retailers, Marjane Satrapi's Chicken With Plums ($16.95), and The Long Chalkboard (also $16.95) by Jenny Allen and Jules Feiffer.  Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian exile living in Paris, has created some of the most interesting (and most successful) autobiographical graphic novels of the decade, Persepolis and Persepolis 2 (see 'Persepolis, the Stealth Hit').  In Chicken With Plums she illustrates the life of her great uncle, Nasser Ali Khan, a world-class musician in 1950's Iran who gave up his life for music and love.

In contrast to the singular focus of Chicken With Plums, The Long Chalkboard is a collection of three bittersweet short stories that resonate with the rhythms and issues of late twentieth century life in urban America.  A collaboration between writer and comedian Jenny Allen and her husband Jules Feiffer, The Long Chalkboard, is a triptych of modern life that should have a strong appeal to the baby boom generation.