Moonstone Books' lineup for November includes a new Xal-Kor comic, based on the character created in 1964 by African American artist Richard “Grass" Green. Xal-Kor: The Return, by writer Gary Phillips (The Vigilante: Southland, Peepland), and artists Jason Schaufele (Golden Amazon) and James Burns (A Life Half-Forgotten, Uber-Tales) will be a 40-page, black and white mix of comics and prose with a cover by Shaufele and will have an MSRP of $4.50.

Green’s career as an artist began in 1964, when his work began appearing in fanzines such as Alter Ego and Star-Studded Comics.  He did some professional work for Charlton Comics, including a collaboration with Roy Thomas, then moved to the underground comics scene, with his work appearing in Super Soul Comix and Eros Comics titles.  Xal-Kor, whose superpower was that he could shift his shape between a cat, a man, and a hybrid man-cat, first appeared in Star-Studded Comics, where it was voted the most popular fan comic.  TwoMorrows published a collected edition of Xal-Kor comics in 2002.  Green continued to work on the comic until his death in 2002.

Also on deck at Moonstone: The Complete Lions, Tigers and Bears: Curator Edition, collecting the three volumes of the all-ages graphic novel by writer Mike Bullock and artists Jack Lawrence, Paul Gutierrez, and Michael Metcalf.  The comic has had a complicated publishing history:  The first two volumes were originally published as four-issue miniseries and then as collected editions by Image in 2005-2008; the third volume was published as a graphic novel in 2011 by Hermes Press (see “Hermes Gets ‘Lions, Tigers and Bears’”).  The 312-page Curator Edition will be limited to 300 copies and will be sold only through Moonstone’s website.