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Title Creator Publisher Series Price
Milk and Cheese: Dairy Product Gone Bad Evan Dorkin Dark Horse Milk and Cheese $18.88
($19.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		O, the mayhem! the brutality! the sheer unadulterated violence! the carnage! the lunacy! the unbridled ferocity in the service of adolescent petulance! and, most of all, the gut-busting laughs that all this will mercilessly shake out of the reader!  All this can now be yours in this massive, durable, oversize, 240 page hardcover volume that collects it all in one place to have and hold forever more – all for a shockingly low price (that will be sure to spike higher should this treasure go out of print; so don't delay).
The Collected John G. Miller: 1990-1999 John G. Miller Braw $20.00
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Read more and comment... 		The comics contained in this 8" x 12" 162 page softcover import collection emanating from the UK are straight up genre comics drawn in an ultra high contrast fashion with a punky lo-fi edge.   Maintaining a common touch throughout, Miller mocks authority in any and all forms.  The stories are formulaic, but full of deconstructive twists and turns that result in the normal results being turned on their heads.  Youthful exhuberence triumphs over rules and rigidity. Silly and adolescent, yes – but also winkingly knowing and fun!
Summer Blonde Adrian Tomine Drawn and Quarterly Optic Nerve $17.77
($19.95 list)
9781896597492
Read more and comment... 		This is the hardcover edition.  Collects Optic Nerve 5 - 8.  Each issue is a stand alone story.  Tomine's best collection?  Maybe...
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."
Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Volume One: Through the Wild Blue Yonder Walt Kelley Fantagraphics Pogo $35.00
($39.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		forward by Jimmy Breslin; introduction by Steve Thompson    Tis the season of classic comics reprints, for sure!  First we have the complete Carl Barks Library getting under way, then we have the Simon and Kirby Crime, and now we have the first volume in Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips.  (Intriguingly, the material collected in all three of these books centers on the year 1949; hmmm... seems worth pondering.)  This project has long been in development, and more than once delayed, but it realy is here, and it looks like it was worth the wait!  What we have here is a massive, 290 page, oversize, horizontally formatted hardcover with an embossed cloth cover and a lush wraparound dustjacket.  It collects the daily strip from it's start on May 16, 1949 through to the end of 1950, as well as the Sunday pages from their start on January 29, 1950 through to the end of that year, with the Sundays in fantastic full color, scanned from the original pages and then "lovingly and painstakingly restored by hand and computer."  And, as if that wasn't enough, as an added bonus we also get the complete  "beta" version of the strip that ran in the New York Star from October 4, 1948 through January 28, 1949. 
Simon & Kirby Crime Jack Kirby, Joe Simon Titan Books $44.44
($49.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Kirby fans (and everyone else, for that matter), hold onto your hats!  Kirby's work here is the most dynamic and powerful work of the first half of his career – some might even say of his entire career! – and will knock your socks off!  Clear your mind of any preconceptions and prepare yourself for the dynamic action of Headline Comics, Justice Traps the Guilty and more.  While certainly not complete, Simon & Kirby Crime provides a very healthy portion of the classic crime comics produced by Jack Kirby with Joe Simon from 1947 through 1955.  These are great stories with art that really puts you back in the day, providing an uncanny sense of the seamy side of post-WWII life.  But most of all, it is the amazing daring of Kirby's art here that will impress.  The level of pure formal abstraction, the way he breaks down pages – splashes (and double-page splashes) as well as his riffs on the standard six-panel grid – and, especially, what he manages to accomplish within each panel – the incredible bravura compositions and black placements that are at times so intense as to seem to almost prefigure Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell – this is what astonishes.  Yes, the paper stock of this volume, while flat, is a tad too reflective, and, yes, the colors are as a result a bit too bright to accurately capture the darker tone of the original comics, but these are mere quibbles next to the work itself on display here.  Really, they're that good.  Do yourself a favor and get your mitts on this one.
1-800 Mice Matthew Thurber PictureBox $19.75
($22.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		This swellegant hardcover volumes collects all five issues of the 1-800-Mice comic book series that has many longtime readers here at Copacetic; but that's not all!  Those lollygaggers among you who have been putting off their partaking of this fine work are rewarded for delaying your gratification with an all-new, never-before-seen concluding chapter that appears here for the first time (the rest of us longtime devotees would have probably bought this book anyway, but now there's simply no getting around it).  We'd say more, but anything we might have to say seems superfluous after reading these testimonials:  "Mr. Thurber has invested everything in his demented opus, and the payoff is rich with big laughs and a palpable sense that his world of mice and man-tree love persists far beyond the borders of its panels." -- Daniel Clowes  • " Matthew Thurber uses the lowly conventions of the comic-book to express the narrative freedom of the unconscious mind.  He has singlehandedly revived the surrealist program of revolutionary politics through dreamwork.  What more can you ask for in a comic-book?" – Ben Katchor • Bonus:  comes complete with an illustrated dramatis personae, to help you keep track of the massive cast of characters!
Everything, Volume 1: Blabber Blabber Blabber Blabber Lynda Barry Drawn and Quarterly $22.22
($24.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Having, in What It Is and Picture This, given us her latest and greatest, Lynda Barry now takes us back to her (artistic) beginnings – the years 1978-1983 – and gives us a guided tour from her current, older and wiser vantage point.  It pretty much goes without saying that  all Lynda Barry fans will find this volume a treasure.  In addition to including the entirety of her first published (and looong out of print) book collection, Girls + Boys, Blabber Blabber collects over 100 pages worth of her earliest comics work in book form for the first time!  The format of this, the first volume of Drawn & Quarterly's "Everything Lynda Barry" series, preserves that of What It Is and Picture This, and it seems likely that subsequent volumes of the series will continue to do so as well.  The archival work is presented here cocooned in a design that is a product of her current sensibility and that includes comics 'n' collage introductions and annotations produced specifically for this volume.  As a result, the entire feel of this book is very much a piece with those preceding it and allows new arrivals to the world of Lynda Barry to feel right at home.  And, in a moment of copacetic synchronicity, the opening epigraph to this work is taken from Gahan Wilson's classic of childhood angst, Nuts, the re-release of which we celebrated in last month's listing.  To wit:  "The hardest part about growing up was trying to figure out what was growing up and what wasn't, and you were never sure at any point whether or not you got it right."
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!
Freddy Stories Melissa Mendes Self-published $9.00
($10.00 list)
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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.
Nuts Gary Groth, Gahan Wilson Fantagraphics $17.77
($19.99 list)
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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. 
The Best of Harry Lucey, Volume One Jaime Hernandez, Harry Lucey IDW Publishing Archie $22.75
($24.99 list)
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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.
The Man Who Grew His Beard Olivier Schrauwen Fantagraphics $17.77
($19.99 list)
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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".
Hark! A Vagrant Kate Beaton Drawn and Quarterly $17.77
($19.95 list)
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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.
Berlin: City of Stones Jason Lutes Drawn and Quarterly Berlin $15.95
($19.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Collecting the first eight issues of the ongoing series.  Get a head start by reading this PDF preview.
Troop 142: A Graphic Novel Mike Dawson Secret Acres $16.75
($20.00 list)
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Read more and comment... 		The popular web comic, Troop 142 at last makes the leap to the printed page with the help of the intrepid small press comics publisher Secret Acres.  Troop 142, as is often – but certainly not always – the case with web comics, benefits from being collected all at once under one cover, giving the reader both opportunity and impetus to read all the way through the entirety of this story about one week spent at Pinewood Forest Camp, New Jersey, with The Boy Scouts of America Troop 142.  Dylan Horrocks states that it, "dig(s) deep into the dark side of teenage - and adult - masculinity to reveal the brittle, wounded humanity at its heart."
Pure Pajamas Marc Bell Drawn and Quarterly $20.00
($22.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		There's a little bit of everything and something for everyone in this fulsome, full-size hardcover volume that collects odds and ends from the last ten years of Mr. Bell's illustrious Canadian comics career, in both black and white and full color.  Bell's comics strongly evoke the glory days of R. Crumb's early psychedelic comics as well as those of fellow Canadians Julie Doucet and Chester Brown.  But the comparisons stop there, as Bell's work is a wholly original synthesis of these sources and much more.  Anyone not already familiar with Marc's work should take a gander at some of his work here.  All the rest of us already know it's the cat's pajamas.
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
The Best of Archie Comics Harry Lucey, Dan DeCarlo, Frank Doyle, Bob Bolling and more ... Archie Comics $8.88
($9.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		While this 400 page digest size volume most certainly does not live up to its title, it is the best anthology Archie Comics has managed to publish in as long as we can remember – and possibly ever, considering how poor their track record is in this particular department – and it is especially significant in that the publishers have finally recognized the bare minimum of their responsibility to the people who built their business and has in this book published artist and writer credits for all the stories.   Beginning in 1941 with the very first Archie story by Bob Montana and Vic Bloom from Pep Comics #22, The Best of Archie Comics continues on, decade by decade, through the subsequent seventy years, taking us all the way up to 2011.  For us here at Copacetic HQ, the glory days of Archie Comics will always be the 1950s through the early 1970s, when Harry Lucey and Dan DeCarlo ruled the roost, and, for a few years at least, Bob Bolling and Bill Woggon were given free reign on Little Archie and Katy Keene, respectively.  There is a generous selection of both Lucey and DeCarlo here, along with what is reputed to be Bolling's own personal favorite Little Archie tale, "The Long Walk," from Little Archie #20, and a modest sampling of Woggon's work, and so we won't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who would like to be introduced to the world of Archie Comics.
Citizen Rex Gilbert Hernandez, Mario Hernandez Dark Horse $17.77
($19.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		The other Hernandez brother, Mario, busts out with brother Beto and pens a fantastic fifties-style sci-fi fable that focuses on a highly stratified, mediated, fabricated and policed society that put us in mind of a futuristic synthesis of Latin and Anglo America – which, come to think of it, may very well be how things play out. In other words: this work of old school comics that echoes the science fiction comic books of the 1950s that nourished the growing minds in the Hernandez household could tell The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal a thing or two about the shape of things to come.  Citizen Rex is also a frantic, fast-paced and fun read packed with detail and nuance, that, while completely zany, will, nevertheless reward close reading.  Hardcover!
Queen of the Black Black Megan Kelso Fantagraphics $17.77
($19.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Fantagraphics brings back into print this collection of Megan Kelso's early work that was originally published by small press pioneer Highwater Books way back in 1998.  Queen of the Black Black collects Kelso's Girl Hero series, six issues of which were released between 1992 and 1997, along with two 1998 stories including the title tale.  Kelso charts the ups and downs of growing up a girl and building an original, independent female identity in life and comics.
The Incal Moebius, Alejandro Jodorowsky Humanoids $44.95
($44.95 list)
OUT OF STOCK!
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Read more and comment... 		Perhaps the single greatest science-fiction-adventure bande dessinée series of all time, the six-book series that was originally published in France throughout the 1980s has at last been collected in its entirety in a single hardcover volume for a price that works out to less than $7.50 per book.  Massively influential (see Brian Michael Bendis's introduction cum rant), The Incal has informed many a popular culture work, across mediums:  films, television series, and books, in addition to countless comics, manga and graphic novels  have been influenced and/or informed by this Jodorowsky-Moebius masterpiece.  While the page-size is here slightly reduced from the original, the magnificent colors – along with their registration and reproduction – are of high quality and enable the reader to plunge right into the definitively fantastic Moebius art that propels the twists and turns of the epic Jodorowsky plot in this now definitive English language edition.
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.
Big Questions - S/N hardcover Anders Nilsen Drawn and Quarterly Big Questions $64.95
($69.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Deluxe, Signed and Numbered, Hardcover Edition (of 1000) Please note that this edition – in addition to possessing a signed and numbered tipped-in plate – includes the entirety of the standard softcover edition, plus 3 appendices that comprise an additional 55 (or so) pages that are not in the softcover.  What you get is:  the extra, non-essential stories from Big Questions #1 & #2; all the covers of the original series – including an unseen (by us, at any rate), unused (to the best of our knowledge...) extra cover for #5; "bird strips" from other publications that did not appear in the original Big Questions series.
Big Questions Anders Nilsen Drawn and Quarterly Big Questions $37.77
($44.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		The tiny seed that was planted in the back of Mr. Nilsen's mind during the course of an artist workshop exercise that took place at the D.H. Lawrence Ranch in Taos, NM in 1996 has now at last reached its maturity in this sequoia-like 592 page tome that collects the entire continuity originally published in the (mostly) long out of print series.  The first six issues were self published before Drawn & Quarterly – the publisher of this collection – picked it up and added the series to their then burgeoning but now defunct series of regularly published pamphlet comics.  Big Questions defies easy categorization, and many have written much about the original issues  (including, in brief, us). We'll try to have something intelligent to say shortly on the event of its book publication, but for now will cede the floor to Anders himself in this interview posted on CBR on 12 August where he talks about his comics career and answers questions Big and small.  The uninitiated are encouraged to read this brief, yet poignant PDF preview.
A Single Match Oji Suzuki Drawn and Quarterly $22.22
($24.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		A Single Match is a hardcover collection of eleven psychological tales, originating from the early days of the gekiga movement in Japan.  Suzuki's work originally appeared in the consciously avant garde monthly manga anthology, Garo, which was founded in 1964.  Drawn & Quarterly has, in this new volume of historically important manga, continued with its recent – and irritating – trend of providing no background information whatsoever regarding either the material's original publication or the artist's life and career development, other than the line on the back cover blurb implying that it was originally published in Garo, and the most cursory of bio paragraphs.  It is crucial to developing both an understanding of the history of the form in general and the development of the artist in particular to provide some background on the artist and of the publications in which the work originally appeared, as well as the dates of original publication; especially when dealing with an artist as obscure and offbeat as Suzuki, so we hope that D&Q will wake up to the fact that it is incumbent upon them to provide this.  Ironically, they do provide information in exactly those books where it's less needed; in the more widely recognized classics, about whih there is already extant information on in English (such as Tatsumi's; and see below).  It's difficult to really give the work its due in a written description, so at least we an be grateful that D&Q has provided this PDF preview.  So check it out and see what you think.  Anyone in the know about the sources of this work and the life of the artist, is hereby invited to send that info this way!
Eye of the Majestic Creature Leslie Stein Fantagraphics $17.17
($18.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		Here we have the work of another long suffering self publishing comics creator, but this time she gets the chance to step out in style with the full-blown Fantagraphics treatment.  Eye of the Majestic Creature collects the first four issues of this eminently readable series.  Clean, clear, concise pen lines render equally clean, clear and concise cartoon tales.  Here's what some of her peers have to say:  "Leslie Stein's comics inhabit a charming and semi-autobiographical... yet surreal insular world where her best friend and closest confidant is an acoustic guitar.  What's not to relate to?" – Peter Bagge; "In the early 20th century, a beautiful cartoonist, Marcel Duchamp, pretended to be a marginally attractive woman and spent considerable time watching dust accumulate,  Early in the 21st century, a beautiful cartoonist, Leslie Stein, pretended to be a funky dweeb and spent considerable time counting sand.  Catch my drift?" – Gary Panter
The Finder Library, Volume 1 Carla Speed McNeil Dark Horse $22.75
($24.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		OK:  any reader who enjoys both world-building science fiction and comics who has yet to experience the wonder that is Carla Speed McNeil's Finder should simply stop reading this now and go out and buy this 664 page mega-collection that collects the first 22 issues of this long running series.  These works were originally collected in four volumes – Sin-Eater 1 & 2, King of the Cats and Talisman – with a combined price of $69.80 and that was a great value, so, basically, this new volume is practically giving it away!  Do yourself a favor and head on over to this page, where you can learn more and read a 28-page excerpt from the early pages of this book that reveals a clear Dave Sim influence.  McNeil's work has constantly evolved over the years since the inception of Finder in 1996. McNeil has developed her own clear comics voice; she has absorbed a wide array of techniques and styles that will be familiar to readers of Joe Sacco, Gilbert Hernandez, and Alison Bechdel.  And then there are the characters!  The series is anchored by a female-friendly (he'd better be, considering he was created by a woman) bad boy.  As it develops, he is brought into contact with a a wide array of fully formed characters that successfully combine realism and fantasy in delivering to the reader an intriguing host of aliens, humans, half-breeds and mutants. 
I Will Bite You Joseph Lambert Secret Acres $12.75
($14.95 list)
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Read more and comment... 		This Vermont resident (native?) has been quietly building an impressive body of hard-to-get-a-hold-of self-published works that are now, at last, herein collected in a single volume published by the fine folks at Secret Acres.  A Center for Cartoon Studies alum, Lambert has developed a strong, recognizable style.  He is not, however, content to play the same song over and over.  Rather, he has put his chops in the service of a restless intelligence and has produced so far a nice batch of formal and thematic explorations that will reward engaged comics readers everywhere.  Take a gander at his online comics work, here. 128 pages • 2-color throughout, except for 1 full-color signature.  Recommended.
Orc Stain, Volume One James Stokoe Image Comics Orc Stain $16.75
($17.99 list)
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Read more and comment... 		The far out fantasies reminiscent of 1980s 2000AD are spiced up with the colors and visions of Metal Hurlant era Mobius and the high energy irreverence of Jamie Hewlett's Tank Girl in this unique work, created, written, drawn, lettered and colored in a frenzy of auteurism by James Stokoe.  Anyone looking for a good, strong comics buzz should consider checking out this premiere collection of the series published (surprisingly) by Image Comics.