comics

Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
Ganges 2	Kevin Huizenga	Fantagraphics	Ignatz	$7.50 ($7.95 list)
Read more and comment...	It's been almost a year (more?) since we've seen anything new by Kevin H. (not counting the self-published mini, Sermons #2), so it was with no small trepidation that we cracked open the second issue of Ganges. which is the 27th in the Ignatz series.  What surprises will it hold?  Well, we certainly don't want to rob you of this experience, so we're not going to go into too much depth here, but we will say this much:  This issue has a bipartate structure.  The opening section is a bravurra performance on Huizenga's part, in which he takes on a challenge that is dear to many cartoonists of his generation (Brinkman, Chippendale and Paperrad foremost among them):  that of portraying the inner vision of the inveterate videogamer.  Huizenga ups the ante here by going one step further and attempting to depict the ideational transformations that are brought about by continual gaming.  Employing a (nearly)purely visual approach that is in places reminiscent of the work of Jim Woodring and Ron Regé, Jr., he presents his vision in such a way as to imply that these transformations may involve actual organic restructuring -- although this latter implication is somewhat undercut by the conclusion of the piece, which is not so much a story as it is an experiment in visualization.  The following part, "Pulverize," which takes up 2/3 of the issue, is a more mundane piece.  Another of Huizinga's fictionalized, semi-autobiographical accounts of the type that dominated the first issue of Ganges, it provides an enjoyable, straightforward account of time spent working in a dotcom startup that involved a lot of after hours videogaming.  Here, however, it serves the additional (one might even say primary) function of providing the "real world" context -- the objective outer vision -- for the subjective inner vision of the opening pages that precede it.  Suffice it to say there's plenty of food for thought here; the only question is, will it be enough to sustain readers until the next Huizenga release?
The Ten Cent Plague	David Hajdu	UNDEFINED		$22.22 ($26.00 list)
Read more and comment...	We've been looking forward to this one.  It's an in-depth cultural history of comics by the author of Positively 4th Street (about Dylan & Co. in the Village) and Lushlife, a biography of Pittsburgh's own Billy Strayhorn.  We'll let you know what we think once we have a chance to get through it.  For now, here's the official hype:  "In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created—in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. No sooner had this new culture emerged than it was beaten down by church groups, community bluestockings, and a McCarthyish Congress—only to resurface with a crooked smile on its face in Mad magazine.  The story of the rise and fall of those comic books has never been fully told—until The Ten-Cent Plague. David Hajdu’s remarkable new book vividly opens up the lost world of comic books, its creativity, irreverence, and suspicion of authority."  HERE's a nice chunky preview excerpt .
Kirby: King of Comics	Mark Evanier			$35.00 ($40.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Here it is, the official authorized biography of the King!  Yes, of course, this is a lavishly illustrated oversize hardcover edition.  It's author, Mark Evanier was the man closest to Kirby during the last two decades of his life and so was in a position to learn of many personal anecdotes that no other chronicler of Kirby's life would have had access to.  That said, Evanier's acccount of Kirby's life is not the thorough, in-depth one that we are all waiting for -- it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer.  From a production and presentation standpoint, however, the creators of this volume have done an excellent job.  The quality of the reproductions is top notch and the've made all the right printing decisions  -- flat colors on flat, bright, low-reflective, heavyweight white stock. The book is filled with page after amazing page of full size reproductions of original art, as well as luscious reproductions of the comics themselves. This book is a real pleasure to go through.  When all is said and done, this must be considered a book that no self-respecting comics fan can be without.
Little Things	Jeffrey Brown			$12.50 ($14.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Mr. Brown takes another step closer to the mainstream with this 352 page collection published by Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster.  Subtitled, "A Memoir in Slices," this volume consists of a dozen  pieces of various lengths, all rendered in his trademarked scratchy pen & ink style.  Some of these have seen print before, most notably, the lead off "These Things, These Things," but this collection is mostly new.  It's pretty much a "must have" item for all pre-existent Jeffrey Brown fans.  It is, however, especially well suited to serve as a jumping on point to those readers who have yet to experience his work.  While the story content on display here will be especially appealling to twenty-somethings, Jeffrey Brown is a natural born cartoonist, and his work is unfailingly engaging to anyone who enjoys reading comics.
The Complete Peanuts, Volume 9: 1967-68	Charles Schulz	Fantagraphics	The Complete Peanuts	$25.00 ($28.95 list)
Read more and comment...	by Charles M. Schulz introduction by John Waters(!) Well, this time around the wonderful world of Peanuts we have 1967 & 1968, two of the most pivotal years in American history, the apogee of "the sixties."  The events of these years continue to resonate strongly today, bringing to the fore much of the culture clash that defines our own era.  Now's your chance to (re)experience Charlie Brown & Co.'s take on it all.  John Waters turns in a surprisingly heartfelt introduction wherein he reveals Lucy as his personal patron Peanut, providing yet another perspective from which to view his films.  Firsts on hand in this volume include the introduction of the strip's first African-American, Franklin, along with the less well remembered José Rodriguez.  There's plenty more we could say, but really, there's no need:  it's Peanuts, it's all good.
Barefoot Gen of Hiroshima 5: The Never Ending War	Keiji Nakazawa		Barefoot Gen	$13.50 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	We hope you haven't forgotten about Project Gen's ongoing project to bring the entire ten-volume saga of Hadashi no Gen to an American audience.  We certainly hadn't!  These two are the volumes we've really been waiting for as they take us into new territory, for the first time presenting material that has never before appeared in English.  Here are brief synopses courtesy the publisher, Last Gasp:  "Volume Five of the Barefoot Gen story follows Gen's struggles in postwar Japan. The people of Hiroshima face a massive food shortage and horrendous health problems. Gen is in school, but he is forced to choose between making money to support his family or staying in school to be a part of society. The choice is further complicated when his mother becomes sick, and his old friends reappear as part of a street gang. There is no help for his mother, save for the costly medicine procured on the black market. Gen becomes entangled with black market gangs and faces an internal struggle of honor, ethics, and duty to resolve his problems.
Barefoot Gen 6: Writing the Truth	Keiji Nakazawa	Last Gasp	Barefoot Gen	$13.50 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	In Volume Six, Gen fights against a corrupt medical system, the discriminatory practices of his neighbors, and the American presence in postwar Japan. Gen's brother, Koji, has gone away to work in the coal mines, but has since disappeared. To make up for the shortage, he and his friends must resort to more drastic measures, which lands one of the bunch in a juvenile detention center."  What's that?  You say you haven't even started reading this series yet?  Well, don't despair, we still have the first four volumes of this 20th century masterpiece in stock and copacetically priced.
Arab in America	Toufic El Rassi	Last Gasp		$12.75 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	While we're on the subject of comics' ability to show how the world looks through another's eyes, this new 118 page graphic memoir, also published by Last Gasp (which seems to be on a mission to broaden American's perspectives), promises its readers, "The eye-opening story of the life of an average Arab-American struggling with his identity in an increasingly hostile nation."  Moving with his family from Beirut to Chicago a year after his birth in 1978, El Rassi is well positioned to illustrate the prejudice and discrimination Arabs and Muslims experience in American society.  He recounts his personal experiences after the 9/11 attacks and during the implementation of new security and immigration laws that followed, and gives context to current world events, providing readers with an overview of the modern history of the Middle East, including the Gulf wars.  In addition, Arab in America includes several asides that examine the roles American films and news media play in creating negative stereotypes of Arab-Americans, in order to demonstrate how difficult it is to have an Arab identity in a society saturated with anti-Arab images and messages.
The Education of Hopey Glass	Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$15.99 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	The arrival of a new Love and Rockets collection is always a cause for celebration, and this 128-page hardcover, the 24th volume in the Complete Love and Rockets, collecting material that originally appeared in Love and Rockets v.2 #s 11 - 19, is certainly no exception.  The first course here is "Day by Day with Hopey," which gives us Hopey's gradual segue into (gasp!) middle age -- which, of course, involves Maggie along with many other lesser lights, some not seen for quite awhile.  This makes for a revelatory reading experience for anyone who's been around since anywhere near the beginning of this 25 year long story; an aspect we touched on in our review of L & R v.2#15.  The going gets even heavier -- and tougher and meatier and sexier and scarier and just about any other adjective you can add an -er to -- in the long series of linked pieces, all told from Ray D.'s perspective, that, while giving us several tantalizing glimses of Maggie and Angel (and Doyle!), focus primarily on the adventures of Vivian -- aka "Frogmouth"  -- who operates on the razor's edge of rationality, so you never know which way she's going to go, making her an extremely propulsive figure, narratively speaking.  A couple quick peeks at "The Angel of Tarzana" along with full-page B & W reproductions of those of Jaime's works that graced the front and back covers of the comics these stories originally appeared in round out this life sustaining collection.  Jaime Hernandez is the greatest delineator of character in the history of comics -- his pen and ink lines posses an uncanny transformative power capable of creating cartoon beings that  insinuate themselves into the reader's psyche to such a profound degree that they become an integral part of self and identity, weaving themselves into the very fabric of reality -- and he's still in his prime.  Long after we're all dead and buried, readers all over the world will still be marveling at the genius that is amply on display here.
Spunj Baahb	Chris Cornwell	Self-published		$4.44 ($5.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Are you looking for new, fun and smart, visually and intellectually stimulating, hand-made and independently published comics work that's created right here in Pittsburgh, PA? Well, if you are, you've come to the right place. Spunj Baahb is the latest comics conundrum by Copacetic customer Chris Cornwell. It's a 20-page, 8 1/2" x 11" black & white, saddle-stapled comics magazine printed on 28 lb. bright white stock with a two-color hand silk screened cover on sky blue cardstock. Except for two pages of exposition wherein the work's themes are explicitly stated, the narrative unfolds entirely in Cornwell's ever evolving pictograhic language. While cartoon characters such as Sponge-Bob Squarepants™ are commonly understood to represent the communal unconscious of the society that produced it, Spunj Baahb takes it a step further and posits the inner life of the cartoon character itself -- the dream within the dream, if you will -- and does so with much aplomb.
Haunted	Philippe Dupuy			$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This one represents quite a departure for Dupuy.  Those who are accustomed to his stylish depictions of French bourgeois life will be in for a surprise.   Taking the form of a 200 page hardcover graphic novel; sparse and scratchy in its execution; scary, funny, sad, cute, odd, bizarre and absurd, Haunted is a 200 page self analysis in comics that was nomiated for the 2006 award for Best Comic Book at Angoulême International Comics Festival.  Here's a 5-page preview to give you an idea of what we're talking about.
Cold Heat Special #3	Frank Santoro, Dash Shaw	Self-published	Cold Heat	$8.00 ($8.00 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	While Santoro burns the midnight oil finishing up the Cold Heat graphic novel, he knows Cold Heat fans are jonesing, and so has commisioned an ongoing series of specials.  These specials are all limited editions with very low print runs that won't be reprinted in the graphic novel, so don't miss out!  CHS #3 is a collaboration with up and coming comics experimentalist, Dash Shaw (see the latest issue of MOME) that is built around a combination of early Italian renaissance imagery and contemporary urban cityscape.  This time out we have a saddle-stapled 16-page horizontally formatted comic book with a wraparound two-color cover that blurs the line between waking and sleeping, dream and reality, drugged and straight, and yesterday and today, as well as between classical fine art and contemporary popular art.  Santoro & Shaw's cover image has been hand silk-screened by Pittsburgh's master poster maker, Budai!  Limited to 100 copies.

dvds

Title	Director	Publisher	Price
Lost Highway	David Lynch	Focus International	$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	The final (major) piece in the puzzle of the Lynchian oeuvre is at last in place.  Employing the great American metaphor of driving -- in a highly coded manner that takes one bizarrely twisted turn after another -- Lost Highway shows us the innermost workings of a psyche (in more ways than one, Lynch's own) that failed to successfully navigate the transition from childhood to adulthood and so remains trapped in a state of traumatized adolescence where identity remains in a constant state of transitional flux and the real and the imagined are never far apart.  Or something like that.  Not to mention the cool soundtrack.  Get creeped out, freaked out, wigged out and more!

cds

Title	Artist	Publisher	Price
Funplex	The B-52's	UNDEFINED	$12.77 ($18.98 list)
Read more and comment...	The first new LP in well over a decade by the band from Athens, GA that brought the party back to music over (good lord! >choke<)  thirty years ago.  The entire band -- including, once again, Cindy Wilson, who has returned to the fold  -- shake their tail feathers as hard as they can and prove that they can still rock the house.  They're still tripping the light fantastic in more ways than one and remain dedicated to their ethos of combining an inspired fun-filled kookiness with a stripped down sensuality to preach the gospel of personal  liberation.  It's hard to believe, but the B-52s are now as old as (and even older than) their own parents were when the band first started out, yet here they are, still at it.  You might experience a momentary twinge of awkwardness at the spectacle of fifty-somethings getting down and dirty, but hey -- that's what the B-52s are all about.

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