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Copacetic Select




Title Creator Publisher Series Price
Kramers Ergot #8 Dash Shaw, Takeshi Murata, Robert Beatty, Sammy Harkham and more ... PictureBox Kramers Ergot $29.75
($32.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		<<•>>  edited by Sammy Harkham  <<•>>  Starting out way back in 2000 as a plain ol' self-published, black and white comic book, Sammy Harkham's Kramers Ergot has been through some serious changes over the years.  In 2003, when Sammy went for broke (literally) and switched to a massive full-color book format with the fourth issue, Kramers was transformed from a simple comic book to a synecdoche/catch phrase for the exploding art comics scene.  The subsequent two issues followed suit and were published by art house publisher, Gingko Press.  Then, with the seventh issue the stakes were raised again with the gigantic, full-blown, original-old-school Sunday page size – a whoppin'' 16" x 21" – full color, hardcover published by Buenaventura Press that knocked people's socks off the world over; not least folks here in Pittsburgh, where we hosted the Kramers Tour at The BrilloBox to much acclaim.  Now, with the eighth issue, Kramers is being published by our pals at PictureBox and has entered yet another phase.  This time out – perhaps in keeping with its maturation – Kramers takes the form of an unassuming standard size hardcover sporting a tan cloth cover of deceptively straightforward design by Robert Beatty; one which nonetheless provides both visual and tactile pleasure to the reader and hints at what is to come, which is another all-star anthology featuring some of today's top cartoonists working in an environment where they feel comfortable taking risks.  An essay by Ian Svenonius, "Notes on Camp, Part 2" sets the tone with a hyperbolic sequel to Susan Sontag's famous essay, in which Svevonius traces a lineage for pop, camp and comics that centers on Warhol and goes back through to the Roman Empire. Then we are treated to a brand new Jimbo adventure by Gary Panter followed by new stories by C.F., Kevin Huizenga (who redraws the story "The Half Men" from the classic ACG series of the 1950s & '60s, Mysteries of Unexplained Worlds), Gabrielle Bell, Johnny Ryan, Time Hensley, Leon Sadler, Chris Cilla, Anya Davidson, Ben Jones and Sammy Harkham, himself.  The clear standout of Kramers Ergot 8 is the collaboration between Dash Shaw and Frank Santoro, "Childhood Predators."  This sixteen page story is a masterpiece of layout which was consciously composed as a series of eight two-page spreads by someone who really knows what they're doing.  Santoro displays his mastery of the medium by employing a host of techniques and methods to deliver a highly textured, subtly nuanced, and deeply felt look at an emotionally complex and politically fraught scenario that will amply reward repeated readings.  In addition to the comics, there are a pair of art portfolios featuring Robert Beatty's "retro-future" airbrush art, as well as a series of freakishly photorealistic digital artworks by Takeshi Murata, all of which are reproduced on bright glossy stock, in contrast to the flat off-white stock of the comics work.  The 40-page dose of Oh, Wicked Wanda! comics that closes out this issue is also printed on glossy stock to mimic its original appearance in the pages of Penthouse Magazine back in the 1970s.  Oh, Wicked Wanda was created by the British artist and writer duo of Ron Embleton and Frederic Mullalley as Penthouse's answer to Kurtzman and Elder's Little Annie Fannie, which ran in Playboy Magazine.  As with everything Penthouse, it is the same as Playboy, only more so; and in this case, the humor is decidedly British (as was Penthouse) with its international settings and casual conflation of kinky sex with Nazis.  We'd be curious to learn why the largest hunk of this issue of Kramers was devoted to these comics, so we hope Harkham will go on record as to his rationale and motivation here.  Regardless of what they may be, Kramers remains in the vanguard of contemporary comics and is indispensable reading for anyone who likes their comics challenging.
Blast Furnace Funnies Frank Santoro Carnegie Museum of Art $8.00
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Read more and comment... 		2011 marked the culmination of a decades-spanning career arc as Frank Santoro found his art at the center of the 2011 Pittsburgh Biennial at The Carnegie Museum of Art, where he attended studio art classes as a youth.  We are excited to at last be able to offer for sale copies of his 16-page tabloid newspaper comics work that was the highlight of that exhibit.  In a signature Santoro move, Blast Furnace Funnies is a work of "High" (i.e., museum quality) art executed in the lowest of the "Low" art forms (a disposable newspaper); employing ephemerality to evoke eternity, he has here worked (in a form that often ends up) in the gutter to reach for the stars.  The originals for all 16 pages of Blast Furnace Funnies were exhibited at The Carnegie alongside of a giant stack of the newspapers we're offering here, and they really stood out on the walls for the wide tonal range displayed on each page; from wispy grays to solid blacks, from strong straight lines to streaks, curves, scribbles and blurs, each page contained marks made to match the mood.  The color scheme of the newspaper itself is a duo-tone of varying saturations, consisting of yellow and magenta, that yields a surprising variety of hues, suggested and actual.  The message that Blast Furnace Funnies has to deliver is a meditation on the relationship between the here and now and the past and gone that is, critically, played out in parallel on the scales of the personal and the historical.  The narrative works to convey how we use our sense of the historical to understand our own lives – and even more, to suggest that, at the end of the day, all we really have are our own personal histories; that perhaps the ultimate function of the history that we learn from books and at school is to help us come to grips with existence.  We all live in a relentless forward motion, each moment is here and then it is gone, replaced by the next and never to be physically experienced again.  The memory of each moment is, however, in the context of an individual's own life – and, like "historical" events – always there.  The personal is the historical.  Memory is history.  Pittsburgh is Pompeii. 
The Frank Book - softcover Jim Woodring Fantagraphics $29.75
($34.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		One of the classic colletions of contemporary comics is now back in print in this softcover edition.  This edition appears to be identical in size and contents and reproductive quality with the original out of print hardcover edition.  The 350 pages of wordless comics, both in startling black and white and luscious cartoon color, will transport readers into a vivid realm that is part waking dream part parallel universe in which natural laws are clearly in effect but off kilter.  Woodring has continued to visit this realm in a series of works, including this year's Congress of the Animals and last year's Weathercraft.  The Frank Book is where it all begins – representing the initial voyage of discovery to this previously uncharted region – and remains the essential volume  that belongs in every self-respecting comics reader's library.  Dan Clowes states, "Frank, and I say this without a shred of hyperbole, is a work of true genius by one of the all-time greats."
Donald Duck: "Lost in the Andes" Carl Barks Fantagraphics The Carl Barks Library $19.99
($24.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Over the past decade, probably the single biggest frustration we've experienced here at The Copacetic Comics Company was the inability to offer customers the opportunity to experience the magic of Carl Barks in book form. This frustration was then exponentially magnified by the fact that at any given moment, nearly the entire body of work of the comics creator who was measurably the most widely read and putatively the most beloved in the history of American comic books was out of print!  The influence on American culture of the Disney duck comic books Carl Barks wrote, penciled, inked and lettered for roughly a quarter century is incalculably large.  George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are just two of the literally millions of baby-boomers who grew up reading the comics of Carl Barks and who felt the imprint of Barks's wide-ranging spirit of adventure and pomposity-puncturing sense of humor; R. Crumb's entire sensibility is grounded in Barks; and this is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg – most of all was the influence that the millions upon millions of childhood hours spent reading works that were both wildly entertaining and subtly subversive had on the generation that came of age in the 60s.  Carl Barks is one of the true titans of comic books, one of the very few who can hold their own with the likes of Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman and R. Crumb.  Now, at last, well over a decade since Gladstone Publishing's incarnation of the Barks oeuvre went out of print, his collected works will once again become available for North American readers (his works have been in print in parts of Europe; elsewhere?) in what – based on the evidence of the first volume – is sure to be the most outstanding edition ever produced.  Rather than potentially put off novice Barks readers by starting the series right at the 1942 beginning of Barks's tenure on Donald Duck, Fantagraphics has launched the series with a period that is both one of the most popular and critically heralded (think Duke Ellington's Blanton-Webster era band):  the stretch in 1948 and 1949 that contains this volume's "title track," Lost in the Andes, as well as the equally classic March of Comics giveaway, Race to the South Seas, along with two other "feature length" tales, nine consecutive (and classic) 10-pagers, and a sizable helping of one-page gag strips, which, taken together, give a good idea of the tremendous range and quality of his work.  An eight page introduction by Donald Ault, one of the foremost North American Barks authorities, starts off the collection, and it concludes with twenty pages of notes on the stories by a bevy of Barks scholars from around the world, including The Comics Journal's Rich Kreiner.    So, thank you Gary Groth, Kim Thompson and Eric Reynolds, for undertaking to edit and publish the The Carl Barks Library.  Thank you Jacob Covey and Tony Ong, for your excellent design.  Thank you Rich Tommaso and Paul Baresh, for, respectively, your superb coloring and production.  Thank you Donald Ault and the host of other fine Barks scholars for your thoughtful contributions to aid in the understanding of and provide context for the work presented here.  And, of course, most of all, thank you Carl Barks for producing one of the greatest bodies of work in the history of comics.  Doubters among you may want to take a moment to read this generous 17-page PDF preview, but bear in mind that the experience simply won't be nearly as satisfying as that provided by the print edition.  Click on the image at left to read our full review and learn more about Barks and this fabulous book, the first volume in a fifteen year long project to collect the entire works of Carl Barks!
Ganges #4 Kevin Huizenga Fantagraphics Ignatz $7.50
($7.95 list)
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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. 
Gazetta: Comics from Belgrade to Bangkok Ron Regé, Dylan Horrocks, Amanda Vähämäki gazetta $15.00
($15.00 list)
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Read more and comment... 		This international anthology of comics from around the world has much to recommend it both in terms of scope and quality.  Cover artist Ron Rege, Jr.'s contribution is the first publication of his latest project, Cartoon Utopia.  Here he is producing what are, in effect, sermonistic lectures in spritual psychology (or, perhaps, lecturistic sermons on pyschological spirituality) in comics form; whatever one might decide to call them, they are both uniquely fascinating and uplifting, and, really, are worth the price of admission.  The Dylan Horrocks, the first new work by him we've read since we don't know when (what? Atlas #3, was it?), is so good that it makes us mad that this is all we get. Dylan's work has been so sporadic over the last decade that we suspect that there are plenty of folks out there who aren't familiar with his work.  If you fit this description, then you should change your status with all due speed, and picking this up might just be the ticket.  Then there are the two! – count them – contributions by Finland's greatest export, Amanda Vähämäki, rendered in her trademarked delicate yet precise pencils.  The remainder of the contributions are all quite worthy, and will have readers asking themselves why they haven't seen work by these creators before and/or where they can find more:  Belkis Ayón from Havana; Edmund Baudoin from Paris; Igor Hofbauer from Zagreb; André Lemos from Lisbon; Aleksander Opacic from Belgrade; Maurizio Ribichini from Rome; and Sam Seen from Bangkok.  Recommended!
The Jack Kirby Omnibus, Volume One Jack Kirby DC $44.44
($49.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		As much as it pains us to endorse a work published by the corporate behemoth that is Time-Warner, this book is simply too good to pass by.  Perhaps the only one able to follow the genius of the Hernandez brothers without seeming puny by comparison, Jack Kirby was a juggernaut of creativity unsurpassed in the annals of art, and this volume presents a great selection of his work, much of which has not been available since its original publication over fifty years ago.  With the exception of eight pages of work culled from the pages of issues of Real Fact Comics that were released in the late 1940s, the entirety of the work in this 300 page hardcover volume are from the year's 1957, 1958 and 1959; in other words, the years immediately preceding those in which Kirby (with the able assist of Stan Lee & Co.) remade the world of comics forever:  The Marvel Age (aka the 1960s).  The production on this volume is surprisingly good, with Digikore and Harry Mendryk doing a great job of reconstructing the original art and colors, all of which are smartly printed in the state of Kentucky right here in the USA, on flat, clean newsprint of low-reflectivity, that, taken together, makes for a reading experience that is as close to reading the original comics as one could have any reason to hope for.  Introduction by Mark Evanier
Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez Fantagraphics Love and Rockets $11.99
($14.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Yowza!  The new issue of Love and Rockets has arrived.  Last year's issue packed such a wallop that we are still thinking about it.  Even though more than a year has passed since then, we never felt like we were waiting for the next one.  It seems that the supernatural power that is imbued through the pen and ink on paper and reproduced in the pages of Love and Rockets is such that it is able to imprint its content on readers' minds to whatever degree is necessary to keep it thriving there until the next issue arrives.  And so, now that the new issue is here – and from what we've heard, it's another mind-blower – all we can do is hold onto our hats and dive in.  See you there!
Storeyville (original newspaper edition) Frank Santoro Sirk Productions $50.00
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Read more and comment... 		<<•>>  WAREHOUSE FIND <<•>>  Much to our amazement, a heretofore unknown secret stash of the original 1995 newspaper edition of Storeyville has been unearthed!  Each copy had been sealed in a polypropylene bag and the entire box had been taped up and stored away in a corner where it was eventually forgotten... until now!  We haven't seen a copy of this for sale anywhere for years (except for one that was on sale on Amazon for $1000!) so, if this is something you've been thinking about, don't debate about it too long, as there's only this one box, and when it's empty, that's it! A perfect match of form and content, Storeyville is a 40 page tabloid newspaper -- printed in black and white and a set of muted tones ranging from sandy yellow to a deep sepia -- that describes the arc of a youthful adventure that takes its protagonist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the USA to Montreal, Quebec in Canada at the opening of the 20th century.  Click on image at left to read our full length review.
Habibi Craig Thompson Pantheon $31.50
($35.00 list)
Habibi
Read more and comment... 		Craig Thompson's long awaited follow up to Blankets – one of the most widely and loudly lauded graphic novels in history – is now weighing heavily on the shelves here at Copacetic.  A sprawling, multi-layered, multi-faceted, multi-pronged work, Habibi is part history lesson, part tutorial, part travelogue, part anthro/socio/psychological study, part sermon, and all love story.  Thompson clearly had outsized ambitions for this work, likely necessitated by the high  expectations surrounding any follow up to Blankets.  It's always an additional challenge for creators to follow up a highly praised work.  Should they try to compete with their big hit? should they use this moment of high regard to do their secret project that they had always wanted to do, but could never hope to get green lighted before? or should they just pretend that nothing's changed and just do what comes naturally?  In the creation of Habibi, it seems that Thompson took all three approaches and melded them into an organic whole.  In other words:  Habibi tries to have it all and do it all; at times it seems that its contents may overflow.  Learn more in our full page review.  In any event, if the length of the lines of those waiting to buy a copy of Habibi and get it signed by Craig Thompson at SPX are any indication of the demand for this book, then it's safe to say that its publisher, Pantheon Books, will probably get over its grumpiness over how much longer it took Craig to finish the book than originally expected (2007) when they paid him his advance way back in 2005.  At least part of the reason it took him so much longer to finish the book is that it is another mammoth tome – weighing in at 674 pages it's close to 100 pages longer than Blankets, which was, at the time of its publication, the longest, not-previously-serialized graphic novel ever published.
Setting the Standard Alex Toth, Greg Sadowski Fantagraphics $35.00
($39.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		WOW!  It's a dream come true for long suffering fans of the work of Alex Toth:  over 370 pages of full color comics all scanned directly  from the original 1950s comics published under the banner of Standard Comics in Toth's glory days of 1952 through 1954; and not only that, this 432 page softcover includes a heavily illustrated 30-page vintage interview with Toth from 1968; and, that's not all – there are also fourteen pages of notes by editor Sadowski (who, we must add, is also responsible for this volume's knock-out design and production) plus full color scans of the original black and white artwork for two complete stories (as well as a stray page or two)!  While this book is a total no-brainer for all Toth initiates, we feel confident, despite it's relatively hefty price tag, in unreservedly recommending this volume to any student, practitioner and/or aficionado of comics:  Toth is one of the few great masters of the comic book story, and Setting the Standard is – by far – the single best collection of his comic book work ever published.
A Zoo in Winter Jiro Taniguchi Fanfare/Ponent Mon $21.75
($23.00 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Fans of Taniguchi's singular work, from the now-out-of-print Walking Man (which the cover image at left meaningfully evokes) to his ongoing Summit of the Gods, can now rejoice with the release of this new hardcover release (which is, amazingly, priced less than his last few softcover releases!). Originally released fairly recently (2008) in Japan, A Zoo in Winter's 231 pages amply display Tanuguchi's mature skills as he combines all of his interests - meditative scenes of walking outdoors, detailed urban landscapes, animals and snow, all in the service of a complex, deftly constructed narrative involving the intricacies of the human heart.  The story is an autobiographical roman á clef recounting Taniguchi's early years, beginning in the winter of 1966, at the point when he had recently moved to Kyoto to follow his dream of being a textile designer. Events there lead him to takie up a friend's invitation to move to Tokyo to work as a mangaka assistant... but we don't want to give too much away here! And as always with Taniguchi, that's just one layer of the complex weavings of the story, there's plenty more going on, all skillfully rendered and deftly paced. Recommended!
Esperanza: A Love and Rockets Book Jaime Hernandez Fantagraphics Love and Rockets $15.00
($18.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		This 248-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover is the fifth volume of Locas stories by Jaime Hernandez; and the eighth overall, the other three collecting Gilbert's Palomar stories.  Esperanza picks up where 2010’s Penny Century collection left off in collecting the  the stories from the second volume of Love and Rockets – the comic book size series that ran from 2000 through 2007.  Together, the two volumes collect everything Locas up through #19, the second to last issue of the series (#20, the last issue, presents the full color story that originally ran in the New York Times, along with a second, off-format story of Maggie's childhood, neither of which would work in this volume; completists take note).  Page after page of immortal classics fill this essential volume.  We know that all true believers already own the original issues, but, for the rest of you:  It really doesn't get any better than Love and Rockets.  Really.
Life with Mr. Dangerous Paul Hornschemeier Villard $20.00
($22.00 list)
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Read more and comment... 		When it comes to artfully integrating book design into the form of a graphic novel in such a way as to enhance the expression of its content, Mr. Hornschemeier has few peers.  To our mind, only Clowes, Ware and Seth have been as successful in this department*, and it bears remarking that there seems to be a bit of trend in effect among these design-oriented comics craftsmen as the latest work by each of these three creators shares with Hornschemier's a strong biographical focus on the protagonist.  Wilson, Lint and George Sprott each present their eponymous protagonist's life story**, and Life with Mr. Dangerous is solidly centered on its female protagonist, Amy Breis.  While, Mr. D shares many formal qualities with these works, it should not be seen as being derived from them as it has been under construction in MOME since 2005.  It is clearly an original work rather than a pastiche, and is unique in several respects.  First of all, Hornschemeier has clearly striven to create and maintain a woman's perspective throughout the diegesis of Life with Mr. D.  Secondly, in keeping with his relative youthfulness, his protagonist is squarely in her mid-twenties, and stays there for the duration.  Most of all, as we intimated at the outset, Life with Mr. Dangerous is a gift to biblio-æsthetes everywhere, as each line, letter and color on every surface from front to back of this hardcover edition has been thoughtfully designed, elegantly composed and carefully executed.  Not everyone will agree with every design decision he has made, but there is no arguing the the high level of craft on display here at each turn of the page, solidly bolstering this tale of a woman in her mid-twenties struggling to come into her own, accompanied by her mother, a cat, and the ongoing television adventures of "Mr. Dangerous."  *(although, as always, we have to credit Crumb for introducing this level of craft consciousness to the medium) **(It is additionally worth noting that Clowes's immediately previous work is the ironically titled, Mr. Wonderful, initially serialized in the NY Times.) 
Chimera Frank Santoro PictureBox $20.00
($5.00 list)
Chimera
Read more and comment... 		Santoro returns to the newspaper format he used to shake up the comics world in 1995 with his vastly influential newspaper comic, Storeyville.  Santoro has spent most of the 21st century painting, but has been lured back to comics by a conspiracy of circumstance to produce this unique tri-tone newspaper edition.  Anyone interested in seeing comics put to new uses will want to take a look at this piece.  With Chimera, we have a work that is striving to achieve a poetics of comics.  Drawing on the insights into the symbolic quality of images that he has gained through his years spent concentrating on the practice and study of painting, Santoro has created an evocative convergence of classical and contemporary mythologies that expresses the eternal unchanging nature of the relationship between the heart's true desire and the reality of the world in which one must work to realize it.  Don't miss it! ALMOST GONE - ONLY A FEW COPIES REMAINING!
The Cardboard Valise Ben Katchor Pantheon $23.75
($25.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Sound the trumpets and roll out the red carpet:  a new and long-awaited work – the first in almost eight years! – by MacArthur genius grant award-winning cartoonist, Ben Katchor is now on the Copacetic shelves.  Don your tux and come on down to participate in the gala unveiling of this hardcover volume that comes equipped with its own set of cardboard handles that make for both a witty Duchampian visual pun and an extension of Katchor's own aesthetic technique.  Despite his long absence form the realm of book publication, Katchor has not ceased producing his deeply personal weekly strips that employ his patented combination of brusquely penned ink-lines and lushly brushed ink-washes, and The Cardboard Valise is simply the fruition of one of these.  Katchor's work has as its aim to combat the alienating tendencies of contemporary urban life.  Towards this end, he has developed a strategy of defamiliarizing the urban environment by projecting our quotidian surroundings through a psychological medium – one that engages comics' combination of image and text to guide and mutually reinforce readers' perceptions – to filter out the incessant demands placed on us by the interfering objects of capitalist consumerism that incessantly obscure the true nature of our own creations.  This provides his readers with an unobstructed view that reveals the heretofore hidden humanity that fills our surroundings to overflowing but which we had been prevented from previously grasping.  Paradoxically, these newly revealed vistas appear at first  unfamiliar and strange – everything seems slightly off-kilter: where are we, exactly?  It is only gradually, after long immersion in Katchor's world, that their meaning and significance becomes clear, and we are able, however fleetingly, to enter into communion with our own artifice.  Those interested in obtaining some specifics as to how this is realized in The Cardboard Valise are hereby reffered to Sean T. Collins's review at the new and improved Comics Journal, here; while those who just can't wait to get their hands on it, can plunge right in and start reading it now, here.
Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman David Boswell IDW Publishing $27.50
($29.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Speaking of classics, here's another sui generis masterwork that belongs in every library.  When Reid Fleming first arrived on the scene, lo these thirty years ago (thirty years? how is that possible!?!), it existed at the cusp of the waning underground comix scene and the nascent direct market for alternative comics that was just starting to gain some traction.  It was just right there at the crossroads; if any comic book can be said to capture that moment, it's that first issue.  With Reid Fleming, David Boswell created a cartoon archetype that served – and continues to serve – as an anger fueled eulogy for the vanished world embodied by the figure of the milkman.  This massive hardcover volume collects the initial 1980 stand alone comic book – which was all that there was for the first five years of his existence, and that really says something about the character's staying power – along with what is arguably Boswell's masterpiece, Heartbreak Comics, which, naturally, stars Reid Fleming, and then the entirety of the Reid Fleming mini-series published by Eclipse Comics in the late '80s.  224 pages in all!  And there is a second volume in the works which will collect the remainder.  So, rejoice!
What It Is Lynda Barry Jonathan Cape $12.95
($24.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		What It is, the long awaited, all new, 208 page hardcover volume of heuristic metacomix by the one and only Lynda Barry, is both a beautiful and inspiring work of art and an insightful exploration of the creative process.  Her first new work since her 2002 masterpiece, 100 Demons, What It Is uses the language of comics to probe the secrets of creativity itself, which leads her deep into the caverns of philosophy, where, ever the intrepid explorer, Ms. Barry undertakes an especially thorough excavation of the cave of epistemology.  There in the murky darkness she discovers that memory and imagination blur and merge amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of our respective genetic heritages before condensing and collecting in placid prehistoric pools to mix with the ancient amoebas; in the process dissolving time itself.  The past, present and future come together -- an instant and an eternity stand as one in the revelation that it all starts with... The Image!  Lynda Barry, long considered among the major contemporary comics creators, has, with What It Is,  taken comics to a new place and created a work that can stand shoulder to shoulder in the pantheon with those created by Frida Kahlo, Jean Michel Basquiat, and Hayao Miyazaki, to name but a few of her new peers.  This book is full of surprises and delight.  There's really only one thing to say about this book:  "YES!!!"  If you still need convincing, then feast your eyes on this amazing (lucky)13-page preview and/or read our full length review.  PLEASE NOTE:  In this listing we are offering the Jonarthan Cape edition from the UK.  This edition – also a hardcover – is printed on firmer, heavier paper stock, giving the book more heft than the D & Q edition.  Not only that, but we were able to purchase an allotment at a special price and are passing on the savings to you!  While supplies last.
Hey, Mister: The Fall Collection Pete Sickman-Garner Top Shelf $5.95
($12.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		You want funny?  Look no further:  This book will make you laugh.  Like Peter Bagge's Hate, but smarter and more brutal in its judgments on this dysfunctional society of ours, and with a distinctive flavor all its own, this is a comic for people who see past the façade as a matter of course.  Hey, Mister takes sarcasm to new heights.  It makes us think of the Monty Python episode, the "Piranha Brothers," in which a fearful and trembling thug played by Michael Palin relates how Doug Piranha was the most terrifying gangster he had ever encountered because of the deft manner in which, "he used... sarcasm." And the bitterness, oh, the bitterness!  The Fall Collection is the Guernica of bitterness.  This volume is without doubt the best (and, sadly, the last; at least to date) Hey, Mister collection.  Work-a-day America has never been stripped so completely naked as in these pages.  Now available for an amazing price! 
Housebound Rick Geary Fantagraphics $11.95
($11.95 list)
Houseboundwithrickgeary
Read more and comment... 		Though he is better known now as the creator of a series of Victorian murder mysteries, back in the day Rick Geary was (more or less) the Richard Brautigan of comics.  He pioneered the genre of short, off-kilter stories that, by virtue of their peculiar slant on the events they portray, continue to provide readers with fresh perspectives on the mundane.  The stories contained in Housebound are, on average, over twenty years old, but they are as unique now as they were when he first laid Rapidiograph pen to paper. Quirky, entertaining and fun, this book is a one of a kind* treasure that is now out of print... but we still have a few left! (*Well, truthfully, it is one of two of of a kind:  the companion volume, At Home with Rick Geary -- with which, it should be noted, there is some overlap in material -- is every bit as wonderful, but it too is, sadly, long out of print and tough to find, although we are always looking for copies, and may have some at any given time, so check and see.)
Portraits from Life David Collier Drawn and Quarterly $8.88
($12.95 list)
Collierportraits
Read more and comment... 		This book presents the strongest of David Collier's work and is one of our perennial best-sellers here at Copacetic.  It is filled with extremely engaging stories of the lives of minor, obscure and offbeat Canadian figures.  Some of these are full fledged biographies, such as the fascinating account of Humphrey Osmond, the Canadian scientist who was an early researcher into psychotropic drugs and reputedly coined the term "psychedelic."  Then there's the life story of Ethel Catherwood, the Olympic high jumper known as the Saskatchewan Lily, who ended up obscure and reclusive.  A more tightly focused tale is that of "Grey Owl," an enigmatic British man who managed to convince those he came into contact with in the Canadian north that he was a North American Indian.  The acme of the collection is the tale of David Midgaard, a Saskatchewan man arrested as a teenager and imprisoned for decades for a rape and murder he didn't commit.  This is a gripping tale told in the inimitable Collier fashion, wherein he weaves his own life into the tale of another, and so really makes it hit home hard.  The stories in this volume were key to pioneering the comics journalism movement.  They amply illustrate why the most notable of the new comics journalists, Joe Sacco once said, "I don't think there's a cartoonist whose every new work I approach with such anticipation as David Collier."  RECOMMENDED!
What I Did Jason Fantagraphics $22.22
($24.99 list)
Whatidid
Read more and comment... 		Now's your chance to get – or give – the two works upon which rests Jason's US reputation – "Hey, Wait!" and Ssshhhh – along with the long out of print and up-until-now-mega-pricey, The Iron Wagon.  All three works in an attractive hardcover omnibus for significantly less than the retail cost of the original softcovers.  If there is still anyone reading this who has yet to discover the pleasures of Jason, this is the perfect place to start. 
The Wrong Place Brecht Evens Drawn and Quarterly $18.88
($24.95 list)
Wrongplacebig
Read more and comment... 		This is a graphic novel where much of the meaning and significance is manifested in and through the artist's method.  Evens has developed a unique comics language involving the transparency of watercolor that you can get some idea of here, but only some, as the pages they chose for this preview only hint at what is to come in this dazzling 184 page work.  What you can see is that Evens's figures possess varying degrees of solidity and translucency, giving them at times a vaguely wraithlike appearance which works to embody and communicate his themes of urban ephemerality, revealing to his readers the flitting souls of his characters as much as their corporeality; or, if not souls, then perhaps the fleeting electro-chemical manifestations of personality interacting with those of other beings as well as their shared environments .  This is perhaps most effectively done in a central passage of sexual congress which employs his technique to its fullest extent and gives us yet another example of the inherent capacity of comics to convey aspects of experience that no other medium is capable of.  Recommended!  Now at a special price. 
Tel-Tales #1 Dan Zettwoch Self-published Tel-Tales $3.00
($3.00 list)
Zettwoch_tel-tales1_cover
Read more and comment... 		Dan Z has done it again!  The mega-master of industrial art comics has given us a perfect blend of form and content in Tel-Tales.  This pint-sized wonder is based on a story by Dan's dad, Don "Toots" Zettwoch that tells the tale of the good ol' days of telephone call switching that involved actual human beings – as well as the "ancient & mysterious 8-Board" – that existed before the days of fully automated digital switching, not to mention cell phones, FOIP and Skype, which are putting the entire infrastructure of plain old telephone calling into the dumpster.  And that's just where the Bell System punched cards that are used here as the cover were likely headed before rescued by the Zettwoch Comics Co. and put to such perfect use.  Just take our word for it:  THIS is a comic book.  BACK IN STOCK!  We now have received a stock of the second printing of this swell mini.  Please note that the card stock cover of this second printing is off white, not the green that is pictured; it is the same in all other particulars.
Birchfield Close Jon McNaught NoBrow $18.00
($18.00 list)
Birchfieldclose
Read more and comment... 		McNaught's contribution to the aforementioned A Graphic Cosmogony, "Pilgrims," was one of the real standouts, and his Birchfield Close is a masterpiece in miniature. There is a lot going on in this slim, 5" x 7" hardcover.  First and foremost, there is a wholly successful evocation of the modern condition that reveals a heretofore unrecognized potential for visual poetry in suburban tract housing. This is no small achievement.  It is accomplished through a highly disciplined use of the two-color palette in combination with a real tour de force in layout.  Connoisseurs of the comics grid will find themselves returning to this work over and over again simply to marvel at its majestic overall form, as well as the subtle rhythms that are delicately woven throughout.  Birchfield Close is a veritable definition of "deceptively simple."  What at first glance appears a bunch of squares and rectangles filled with rudimentary drawing, will, when given the attention it is due, come alive and fill the reader with wonder.  Check it out at Mr. McNaught's page devoted to it. 
A Graphic Cosmogony Stuart Kolakovic, Mikkel Sommers, Alex Spiro, Paul Gravett and more ... NoBrow $38.00
($38.00 list)
Graphiccosmogony
Read more and comment... 		<<•>> edited by Alex Spiro; introduction by Paul Gravett <<•>> art by Stuart Kolakovic, Mikkel Sommers, Brecht Vandenbroucke, Luke Best, Rob Hunter, Jon McNaught, Ben Newman, Andrew Rae, Luke Pearson, Jack Teagle, Jon Boam, Jakob Hindrichs, Clayton Junior, Daniel Locke, Isabel Greenberg, Mike Bertino, Nick White, Rui Tenreiro, Sean Hudson, Luc Melanson, Katia Fouquet, Yeji Yun, Matthew Lyons & Liesbeth De Stercke  <<•>>  The fine folks at the London-based NoBrow Ltd. have produced their first anthology, and it's a doozy!  Editor, Alex Spiro has assembled twenty-four artists and, with a nod to The Book of Genesis, asked each of them to "take on seven pages to tell their tales of the creation of everything."  As those who are familiar with the NoBrow works on display here at Copacetic already know, their publications are finely crafted and produced in an engaged, hands-on manner, in keeping with the company's stated aim "to place a renewed focus on quality in print."  The company maintains a special focus on hand-separated planes of flat color that gives their entire catalogue a wholly unique feel, and now, with A Graphic Cosmogony, they have produced an amazing 176 page hardcover volume – by a large margin the most ambitious assemblage they have yet to produce – that will pop your eyes out and knock your socks off!  It's hot off the press and it's here.  Check it out.
Capactiy Theo Ellsworth Secret Acres Capacity $17.77
($20.00 list)
Capacitygn
Read more and comment... 		BACK IN PRINT!  Here it is 2008's book of the year, now back in print with an new cover. This hefty 336 page tome collects all seven issues of Mr. Ellsworth's fantastic self-published series of comics of the same name, (these have been big sellers here at Copacetic, but most, if not all, of them are now out of print) PLUS well over 100 pages of new -- and amazing -- material.  This is a veritable jackpot of a book, and we commend the fine folks at Secret Acres for taking the chance on Theo and publishing it.  It is packed with page after page of the most energetically imaginative pen and ink drawings we've ever seen.  There's a hint of Moebius here, but really, when you get right down to it, this book makes us think that Ellsworth's body, despite residing in the northwest of the USA, has been occupied by a spirit from gothic Europe; probably that of a monkish scribe who produced illuminated manuscripts that contained detailed architectural renderings... and this spirit is pushing itself into our world through Theo's skillful hands, manifesting itself here in these fantastic pages of comics, which, the more you look at them the more they really do seem to start to come alive and enter into the mind and spirit of the reader.   We strongly encourage you to visit  www.artcapacity.com to help prepare yourself for the experience.  Theo Ellsworth's talent is clearly working at maximum capacity.
Wild Kingdom Kevin Huizenga Drawn and Quarterly $14.95
($19.95 list)
Wildkingdonbig
Read more and comment... 		And here's another reason to get up in the morning:  a new release by Kevin H. This one is fairly convoluted in its conception and execution, but therein lies part of its appeal.  Wild Kingdom had its humble beginnings in Super Monster 12 that was first published way back at the dawn of the millennium.  This material was then bolstered and slightly reconfigured for the February 2006 release of the fourth issue of Or Else, his since discontinued Drawn & Quarterly series.  And, now with Wild Kingdom, the material at last receives its apotheosis.  The core meaning of Wild Kingdom is surrounded by a dense underbrush of irony that must be overcome by the reader.  In addition, a multiplicity of signification strategies are employed that may throw careless readers off the scent.  Only those capable of sustained, dedicated tracking will be able to bag the prize at the center of the Wild Kingdom.  Get a head start, here.
Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez Fantagraphics Love and Rockets $11.99
($14.99 list)
Loveandrocketsv3-3
Read more and comment... 		Break out the champagne, it's here!  The third annual installment of the latest incarnation of the greatest comic book series of our times:  Love and Rockets.  This is the purest manifestation of the Perfect Sphere of True Comics that we mere mortals are likely to encounter here on planet earth.  Two stories each by both Jaime and Gilbert, who fairly evenly divide the issue between them.  We'll certainly have more to say about this issue before too long.
John Carter of Mars: The Jesse Marsh Years Jesse Marsh Dark Horse $26.95
($29.95 list)
Johncarterjessemarsh1
Read more and comment... 		One of the great masters of comic book art, Jesse Marsh is best remembered as the long-running artist on Dell's Tarzan comics (Marsh drew the first 153 issues, one of the longest unbroken runs in the history of comics).  Here at Copacetic, while we do, of course, have a great and abiding respect for Marsh's work on Tarzan, it is his modest three-issue run on that other Edgar Rice Burroughs creation, John Carter of Mars, that has long been our favorite of his works.  Marsh really shines here, with page after stunning page of fabulous work.  He manages to combine a 'fifties SF sensibility with pop abstractions derived from modern art and his own classic comics language that he developed on Tarzan for a career high work that is magnetically attractive; you can get lost in the pages.  This full color hardcover from Dark Horse contains good quality scans of every page of the original comic books, along with the front and back covers – and, thankfully, inside front and back covers as well.  Our only criticism is Dark Horse's continual reliance on glossy coated stock.  C'mon guys, wake up!   These works were originally printed on newsprint.  When you're printing scans of original comic book work, it needs to be printed on flat, uncoated, off-white stock.  Dark Horse is clearly doing the work a disservice by printing the interior pages on glossy white stock.  But this is a mere quibble next to the easy availability of this classic that this edition has now made possible.  Enjoyment of this classic is now only a couple clicks away!  Marsh's work was a fixture in the household of los hermanos Hernandez when they were growing up, and its influence is quite visible, in their work, especially that of Gilbert, whose line owes quite a bit to Marsh's (Gilbert's long focus landscapes and skyscapes are also very much indebted to Marsh's example), so it is quite fitting that the forward to this volume is by Mario Hernandez, the eldest, who would have likely been the one to have first brought these comics home and introduced them to his bros; and its inclusion more than makes up for the aesthetic damage of glossy stock.  Here's hoping that this book is the success that it deserves to be, that it sells out and requires a second printing, and that the powers that be at Dark Horse wise up and select a more suitable paper stock for the second printing.  This work is good enough that it would be worth buying again if they do!