comics

Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
Ganges #4	Kevin Huizenga	Fantagraphics	Ignatz	$7.50 ($7.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Here's the one Copacetic customers have been ringing the phone off the hook about.  And not without reason.  Each issue of Ganges has managed to make something new with the comics form.  Huizenga pretty much picks up here where #3 left off – it may very well be the very same evening, diegetically speaking – and continues exploring the twilight zone of consciousness that lies between waking and sleeping, where memory and fantasy mix with all kinds of thought:  this time around, from list-making to self-analysis to pondering the nature and meaning of being and time and space and... well, you get the idea.  Ever the innovator, Huizenga has here incorporated the unique Ignatz format into the body of the work by making the extended French-flaps serve as a novel form of "infinity cover" – using them to create a "hall of mirrors" effect that provides the sense that the work continues ad infinitum in either direction, both forward and backward, in time and space.  There are many major intellectual riffs being explored on these pages, which are more densely packed with ideas than any other comic book on the market.  Foremost among them here is the compositional dynamic created by playing off the innate tension between the utopianism of the collecting/hoarding impulse and the harsh reality of mortality.  This modulates seamlessly back and forth between rock solid ruminations on temporal scales – geological, historical and personal – and the human urge to collect and organize time itself in modular units.  All of which folds back in on itself in dealing with the quandaries presented by memory storage and retrieval systems, both organic and technical.  These are heady comics, but let there be no mistake, they are still comics, and a sense playfulness suffuses all:  Huizenga is a master craftsman – all the aforementioned is made possible by the combination of his stone cold grasp of the fundamentals of the medium with his relentless explorative urge.  In keeping with the comics tradition, there are many lighthearted asides, comical juxtapositions and flat-out fun cartooning interwoven through the main themes that provide many a mirthful moment.  Notable are the various confusions and misconceptions that result from the semi-conscious state and, especially, the delicious yet not unfriendly skewering of the often overblown philosophizing of continental intellectuals of the 20th century, particularly Jean Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger and their intellectual progeny - Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Derrida come to mind.  A comic book to remember.
The Death-Ray	Daniel Clowes	Drawn and Quarterly		$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award Winner, Daniel Clowes originally wrote and drew this work a few years back for what remains the last issue (#23) of his epoch-making comics book series, Eightball.  Here in this laminated, oversize, full color hardcover edition from Drawn & Quarterly it is represented in a "revised" version.  We have not yet had the opportunity to do a page by page comparison between the two versions of the story (sadly due to our inability to locate our copy of the issue of Eightball in question), but are confident that the story will continue to pack the same wallop that it did back when it first appeared – especially to those readers who are encountering it here for the first time.  We remember well when Clowes first announced that he was working on "a superhero story set in the 1970s" and he stated that his doing so was "a sure sign that I have lost my mind" (or something along those lines).  Yet, for all that, when it arrived on the stands, it was another Certified Clowes Classic™.  And here it is again for all those who weren't there the first time around – and for those who were, as well.
The Best American Comics 2011	Alison Bechdel	Houghton Mifflin	Best American	$22.75 ($25.00 list)
Read more and comment...	edited by Alison Bechdel   This year's volume gets off to a good start with Bechdel's own illustrated introduction wherein, in addition to introducing the work that follows she meanders autobiographically and waxes philosophical in and about comics.  It must mean something that this year's volume is the first in which there was a substantial amount of work that we here at Copacetic were not previously familiar with.  It seems that we can no longer keep up with all the deserving work out there.  As it doesn't feel like we're reading any less, the only conclusion to draw is that there's even more good work out there than we can keep up with.  A good sign, indeed!  The contributor list includes the essential work by those key artists whose work over the past year it is the first and foremost responsibility annual "best of" collection to present: Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, Joe Sacco, three of the best cartoonists of our times, did some of the best work of their career over the past year, and it is duly represented by excerpts here.  Dash Shaw's Bodyworld also receives a massive excerpt here (second in length only to Sacco's), and there are about a half dozen additional excerpts, most notably from Kevin Huizenga, Jeff Smith and Ken Dahl.  Then there are the short pieces, from all over, many of which – for the first time, as we noted – were new to us.  Included under this category are David Lasky and Mairead Case's "Soixante Neuf," Michael DeForge's "Queen," (how did we miss this one?), cover artist Jillian Tamaki's "Domestic Men of Mystery," Eric Orner's "Weekends Abroad" and Angie Wang's sumptuous "Flower Mecha."  Other great short pieces that we had already read and were glad to see here, include stories by Gabrielle Bell, John Pham, Joey Alison Sayers (from Papercutter, our favorite comic book anthology series), Noah Van Sciver, the webcomics sensation Kate Beaton and Paul Pope.  And we can't leave without mentioning the six-page "Anatomy of a Pratfall" by Peter and Maria Hoey from their self-published comic book series, Coin-Op.  This is a strongly Joost Swarte-inflected piece that would have been at home in Raw Magazine back in the day; it also reminds us, in its complexity, of some of Michel Gondry's more adventurous music videos.  We weren't hep to Coin-Op before reading this year's Best American.  Now we are; that's the idea.
Hark! A Vagrant	Kate Beaton	Drawn and Quarterly		$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Beaton's phenomenally popular webcomic series gets the deluxe Drawn & Quarterly treatment in this 166 page hardcover volume.  Beaton had previously self-published a chunk of earlier strips in Never Learn Anything from History, but this volume is quite an improvement both production quality-wise and value-wise.  The Nova Scotian Beaton gives history and literature (as well as popular culture of various eras) a fun, and feminist (post-feminist?), spin by situating it squarely in contemporary internet-connected consciousness and letting it rip.  Worlds collide as traditional linear temporality collapses in on itself when we project ourselves into the past and claim history for the present; and it's all good.
Cartoon Picayune #2	Josh Kramer, Bill Volk, James Sturm, Katherine Roy and more ...	Self-published	Cartoon Picayune	$3.00 ($3.00 list)
Read more and comment...	edited by Josh Kramer 36 pages of feature news stories in comics form.  This time around we have the second half of editor Kramer's story of high school ski jumpers, "Fly By Night"; Pittsburgher Bill Volk provides a tale of Pittsburgh (and post-Pittsburgh) brewing in "'Arn: A Brief History of Iron City Beer"; Josh Kramer is back again with "School's In for the Summer," a tale of – if you can believe it – a day camp school-of-rock; and then the issue closes out with a piece by Center for Cartoon Studies founder and director, James Sturm and Katherine Roy, "Honk and Wave," that follows Vermont gubernatorial candidate, Matt Dunne around for a day of his election campaign.  A small press comics innovation!
Daybreak	Brian Ralph	Drawn and Quarterly		$19.75 ($21.95 list)
Read more and comment...	After years spent in the small press comics wilderness, Brian Ralph finally makes it onto bookstore shelves everywhere with this handsome, finely crafted (embossed!) hardcover volume from Drawn & Quarterly that collects the three softcover volumes orginally published by indy stalwart, Bodega Press.  A co-founder of the Providence, RI-based art collective, Fort Thunder, Ralph made his mark with the (now out of print) wordless graphic novel, Cave-In, published by Highwater Books.  Daybreak employs a formally unique hybrid of second-person and direct address that it would be hard to pull off in any medium other than comics to tell a tale of post-apocalyptic zombies that puts the reader right in the thick of it.
The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists	Seth	Drawn and Quarterly		$22.75 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	And speaking of finely crafted books from Drawn & Quarterly, here's the latest from the cartoonist who more than anyone else is responsible for what might be considered the D&Q "house style", whose conscious integration of book design as a formal element into the structure, significance and meaning of his comics works may very well be his most lasting contribution to the medium.  The GNBCC is a follow-up to his first "sketchbook" graphic novel, Wimbledon Green.  Not exactly a sequel, it is set in the same quasi-fictional/semi-factual world and (re)creates an unequalled sense of Canadian comics cameraderie.  Complete with exhaustive index and reproductions of Seth's cardboard constructions.
The Man Who Grew His Beard	Olivier Schrauwen	Fantagraphics		$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Readers who discovered Flemish cartoonist Olivier Schrauwen's work in MOME, and, especially, those who will be coming across it for the first time here, are in for a real treat in this, his first English language collection.  Copacetic customers interested in, drawn towards and/or especially engaged by comics such as those by Christopher "C.F." Forgues, Yuichi Yokoyama and the like that are published primarily by PictureBox in the U.S. should be pleased to discover that Fantagraphics has entered the fray here by providing this collection of work that adds significantly to this continuum of comics that work to explore the mental mechanics of thought and memory and their inextricable relationship with visualization.  Get an idea of what we're talking about here, by feasting your eyes on this PDF preview of "The Assignment".
The Best of Harry Lucey, Volume One	Harry Lucey, Jaime Hernandez	IDW Publishing	Archie	$22.75 ($24.99 list)
Read more and comment...	introduction by (the one and only) Jaime Hernandez    First off, we'd like to nominate this book as the single most overdue volume in the history of comics.  It may not win, but it will certainly be a contender.  If there is one single artist that comics readers need to increase their consciousness of, it's Harry Lucey.  Any comic book reader over forty is almost certainly already familiar with Lucey's work as he pencilled hundreds of stories for Archie Comics, including the majority of its flagship title for fifteen years.  So, anyone who read a few Archie Comics from before 1975 – or any of the ubiquitous Archie Digests that were seemingly everywhere through at least the 1980s – has read at least a few Harry Lucey stories – but there is no way they would have known it:  because LUCEY NEVER GOT ANY CREDIT – until, finally, now.  With all due respect to Bob Montana, Dan DeCarlo and all the other fine artists who worked for Archie Comics over the past seventy years, Harry Lucey was the best comics artist who ever worked for Archie and his work is their greatest legacy.  While this volume does not come close to presenting "The Best" of Lucey's work, the fact that it is subtitled "Volume One" fills us with hope that, when taken together with an ever expanding series of subsequent volumes, it will ultimately live up to it's title.
Nuts	Gary Groth, Gahan Wilson	Fantagraphics		$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	introduction by (none other than) Gary Groth    Back in the day at the shop that was the precursor to The Copacetic Comics Company there was a book that was always out on the shelves bearing the label, "Funniest Book at BEM."  That book was the original Nuts collection that was published way back in 1979, and has been long out of print.  Now, thanks to the fine folks at Fantagraphics (aka Gary Groth and Kim Thompson) we now have this, the finest distillation of childhood angst, anxiety, fear, pain, suffering, disappointment, disillusion, fleeting joys, idle pleasures, and just about any other childhood emotion you can lay your finger on and draw, back in print in a hardcover "complete" collection.  Nuts originally ran in the glory days of National Lampoon.  We respectfully request that anyone not familiar with this work do themselves the favor of checking out this PDF preview.
Freddy Stories	Melissa Mendes	Self-published		$9.00 ($10.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Ms. Mendes has, with Freddy Stories, produced a collection of vignettes of life as seen and experienced from a child's perspective which are simply spot on, and demonstrate an abundance of sympathy for the condition of child consciousness.  Accurately recreating a child's state of mind and world view is especially difficult to manage in any medium, but comics' formal qualities have seemed to have provided creators with a toolkit well adapted for exactly this job.  Even so, the vast majority of comics deptictions of childhood are mawkish, simpering, sentimental and just plain wrong.  Here, in what is – sadly – one of the last books that will be funded by the Xeric Foundation, Center for Cartoon Studies graduate Melissa Mendes gets it right, and has produced a work that truly captures one of the most elusive of artistic subjects – the child mind.  See what we're talking by taking a look at this excerpt of the first few pages.
The Next Day	Paul Peterson, Jason Gilmore, John Porcellino	pop sandbox		$15.00 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	"Constructed from intimate interviews with survivors of near-fatal suicide attempts," The Next Day takes us into the minds of four individuals who attempted suicide and lived to tell the tale, and asks the question, "What if they had waited just one more day?"  Certainly, the decision of the authors to bring in John Porcellino to illustrate this work was the single most important one they made, as only Porcellino's minimal, understated line could work here; anyone else's work would have risked pushing the material into the maudlin realm.  Obviously, this is not a book for everyone, but it's good that it's now out there for anyone.  Delve deeper into this book by reading The Comics Journal review.
Streakers	Nick Maandag	Mean Dog Comics		$7.00 ($7.00 list)
Read more and comment...	And, speaking of John Porcellino, he personally recommended that we carry this book; and of course we readily obliged.  Also recommending this work by this Torontonian is fellow Canadian cartoonist, Seth, who states:  "Streakers is that rare creation – a work whose subject matter is unexpected, unasked for, and probably unwanted (!)... and yet, one that is both funny and genuinely affecting.  I certainly laughed plenty while readin it.  It's a very funny book.  But I also felt strangely moved by these unpleasant creeps.  I was in their corner cheering them on the whole time.  Against all odds, Streakers is surely the book of the year!"  BACK IN STOCK!
copacetic gift certificates	Copacetic Comics	The Copacetic Comics Company
Read more and comment...	It's about time – COPACETIC GIFT CERTIFICATES!  Starting at $5.00.  (PLEASE NOTE:  Do NOT click on the "Add to Cart" button on the right; instead, click at left on "Read more and comment..." to go to ordering page, and then click on "Buy Gift Certificate."  You will be able to choose amount on the page you are then taken to.)

books

Title	Author	Publisher	Price
Lightning Rods	Helen DeWitt	New Directions	$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Wow!  While we had never completely given up hope that there would ever be a follw up to Helen DeWitt's brilliant debut, The Last Samurai (NOT to be confused with the Tom Cruise vehicle of the same name that came out years later, to which it bears no relation), we had come pretty close.  So we were nearly bowled over with surprise by our discovery of the impending release of Lightning Rods, which has now just arrived on our shelves.  We imagine that most – and hope all – of our customers who have had the opportunity to read The Last Samurai will share our excitement.
C	Tom McCarthy	Vintage Books	$13.75 ($15.00 list)
Read more and comment...	And, while we're on the subject of follow-ups to spectacular debut novels, Tom McCarthy's follow up to his one-of-a-kind debut, Remainder, is now in paperback.  As we have yet to find the time in our busy schedule to devote the uninterrupted attention that a novel like this deserves, we will have to leave it to the likes of this year's recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for literature, Jennifer Egan, to recommend this work.  She wrote in The New York Times Book Review that C is "a tour de force... An intellectually provacative novel that unfurls like a brooding phosphorescent dream."  And, to help you put it in context, The Washington Post reviewer states that with C, "McCarthy reignites the literary pyrotechnics of Perec, Calvino, Joyce and Sebald.  Words are celebrated in vocabularic feats... [He] has produced something truly original."
We Others: New and Selected Stories	Steven Millhauser	Alfred Knopf	$25.00 ($27.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Long-time Copacetic customers are well aware of how highly esteemed Mr. Millhauser is within our walls.  Millhauser has painstakingly crafted a voice in writing, an approach to the material, and a fictional method that combined to create a new and potent force in literature that has produced truly remarkable works that have definitely shaped the post-'60s literature since first dawning in the 1972 novel Edwin Mullhouse.  Here we have seven new stories together with selections from four of his previously published story collections that we have been persistently touting here for the past decade.  We would like to assure anyone reading this who has yet to succumb to our persuasions that this fine volume will provide an excellent entry point to one of the most singular, pleasurable and uncanny bodies of work they are likely to ever come across.  Long-time readers of Millhauser will, of course, perhaps feel a slight irritation at having to buy stories they already own, but this irritation will pass away within moments of opening the pages of this book, replaced by thankfulness and wonder.
1Q84	Haruki Murakami	Alfred Knopf	$25.00 ($30.50 list)
Read more and comment...	Yes, the "big book" of the year is here... and everywhere else, we know.  But we're not going to let that stop us from putting it out on the new arrivals table here at Copacetic.  The reviews are pouring in at such a torrential pace that we suspect that before all is said and done their combined word count will surpass even that of the novel itself, which is Murakami's most substantial yet, with the US edition clocking in at whoppin' 925 pages.  If you're looking for a book to get you through the long cold winter ahead, this may very well be your ticket.
Steve Jobs	Walter Isaacson	Simon and Schuster	$28.00 ($35.00 list)
Read more and comment...	The death of Steve Jobs must certainly mark the end of an era.  What exactly that era will be defined as it is surely far too soon to tell, but we have to start somewhere, and this book, somewhat freakishly released almost exactly coincident with Jobs's passing, may very well be the best place to start.  Why anyone would want to buy this particular book from The Copacetic Comics Company when they could purchase it at any bookstore in the known world we would not venture to guess, but we feel duty bound to offer anyone so inclined the opportunity to do so.

cds

Title	Artist	Publisher	Price
The Original Source	T-Bone Walker	Proper Records	$29.75 ($33.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	T-Bone Walker was the first bluesman to play the electric guitar, a renowned showman who electrified his audiences. He is the original source. 90 tracks and a 44 page booklet make up this essential set from a true innovator.
Reverie	Joe Henry	Anti-	$16.75 ($18.98 list)
Read more and comment...	They Still Do Make 'Em Like They Used To Department:  Exhibit A
Paley & Francis	Reid Paley, "Black Francis"	Sonic Unyon	$13.75 ($15.98 list)
Read more and comment...	They Still Do Make 'Em Like They Used To Department: Exhibit B – Here it is:  Long time friends and collaborators Reid Paley and Frank Black/"Black Francis" have finally released a joint CD of really solid tunes.   Each of the pair has contributed half of the songs, and they are sequenced in strict alternating order, starting with Francis and ending with Paley.  The entire record has a great old school mix that allows all the performances – including those of the legendary Spooner Oldham, on a variety of acoustic and electric keyboards, on all tracks – to come through crisply and in complement with one another in a way that really enhances the listening experience.  The artistry in everyone's playing is evident while still clearly in service of the songs.
Bad As Me	Tom Waits	Anti-	$12.99 ($15.98 list)
Read more and comment...	They Still Do Make 'Em Like They Used To Department: Exhibit C
Bad As Me (deluxe two-disc edition)	Tom Waits	Anti-	$21.99 ($24.98 list)
Read more and comment...	They Still Do Make 'Em Like They Used To Department:  Exhibit C-b

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