The Copacetic Comics Company Collections

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Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
Undeleted Scenes	Jeffrey Brown	Top Shelf		$12.75 ($15.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Well, anytime anyone is on the subject of big fat little books filled with fun personal comics, it's almost inevitable that the conversation turns to Jeffey Brown, who has made this form his mainstay, and has developed one of the most recognized bodies of personal comics work around. Undeleted Scenes finds Mr. Brown back at Top Shelf Productions after a trio of books from mainstream book publisher, Simon & Schuster. The majority of the comics collected in Undeleted Scenes have been previously published, primarily in Minisulk, Feeble Attempts and Be a Man. There are also works that are a bit off the beaten path and so have likely been inadvertently passed over by many of Brown's fans, such as the pieces that originally apperared in Kramers Ergot #4, McSweeney's, Blood Orange, Tilt, Hobart, The Florida Review and Galago. In addition to all these, this 350 page collection contains a decent number of strips that have never been published before. There's something for everyone here!
BFF	Nate Beaty	Microcosm		$7.77 ($9.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Here's another great comics value: over 200 pages of a life lived in comics, BFF – Brain Fag Forever – is a an enjoyable grab bag of personal comics that has fellow artists singing its praises: "Nate Beaty's straightforward comics are striking in their variety and they form a captivating document of his growing skill and evolving soul." – Ivan Brunetti; "Nate breaks down the structure of the comics page the way he takes apart an old bicycle or a vintage laptop His seething psyche roils to the surface, whether he's slapping his inks down over a carefully observed landscape or painstakingly delineating how another relationship went wrong." - Sarah Oleksyk; "Oh, all these cartoonists look interesting... Wait, what? There is only one?" – Lewis Trondheim
George Herriman's Krazy Kat: A Celebration of Sundays	George Herriman, Patrick McDonnell, Peter Maresca	Sunday Press		$95.00 ($100.00 list)
Read more and comment...	<<•>> edited by Patrick McDonnell and Peter Maresca <<•>> Yes, it's true!!! Sunday Press, the fine folks who brought us the game-changing Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, and its myriad Sunday strip sequels have at last seen their way clear to produce an equivalent volume of that greatest of all( well, at least to us here at Copacetic) Sunday strips, the work that introduced poetry to comics: the one and only Krazy Kat, by George Herriman. Finally, KRAZY KAT as it was meant to be seen: 135 full-size Sunday pages from 1916-1944 Plus, dozens more early comics from George Herriman. Included in this splediferous 14 x 17-inch collection is a sampling of each of Herriman's creations for the Sunday newspaper comics from 1901-1906: Professor Otto, The Two Jackies, Major Ozone, and more, many of which have never been reprinted before. HERE are some sample pages, BUT the whole idea of this book is lost in reading them on a computer screen, so think twice before clicking over: you may want to wait for the real thing.
Prince Valiant, Volume Two: 1939-1940	Hal Foster	Fantagraphics	Prince Valiant	$25.00 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This one picks up right where the first one left off in bringing us what is likely to become the definitive version of the finest and longest running historical fantasy comic strip of all time. This eminently affordable edition leaps off the shelf and begs to be read. We're not giving you any preview of this one, as the art is simply too good to be subjected to a computer screen.
Blazing Combat (softcover)	Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood, John Severin, Alex Toth and more ...	Fantagraphics		$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	edited, and largely written, by Archie Goodwin Yes, you are correct: this is yet another softcover edition of a previously released hardcover from Fantagraphics. Featuring the art of EC (and Two-Fisted Tales) alumni like Wally Wood and John Severin, along with heavy hitters like Alex Toth and Gene Colan, this hefty softcover collects the entirety of Warren's Blazing Combat series that was originally published in 1965 and 1966. This hard hitting series took an unvarnished look at the hard realities of war just as the protests against the Vietnam were gaining traction and so is an important historical document at the same time that it offers up some spectacular comics work. See what mean by reading this 19-page PDF preview.
Abandoned Cars	Tim Lane	Fantagraphics		$16.99 ($18.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Here's another softcover edition of a previously released hardcover. Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars is a hardboiled, hard-drawn, hard-livin' look at the underbelly of America that deserves a look, and the new, attention grabbing cover for the softcover works hard to get you to do just that. We'll do our part by offering up this major league 16-page PDF preview, and referring you to our review of the hardcover.
Meatcake	Dame Darcy	Fantagraphics	Meatcake	$19.99 ($22.99 list)
Read more and comment...	This is the softcover edition of the long out-of-print, hard-to-find, and (now) super-pricey hardcover that collects 240 pages of the best of the first ten years of Meatcake comics by the one-and-only pop-art polymath and , Dame Darcy! If you ain't hep then you'll want to dive into this whoppin' 20-page preview of her pen-and-ink visions of gaunt and haunted beings, taunted by their inner sexual frustrations and lost chances.
King of the Flies, Volume One: Hallorave	Pirus, Mezzo	Fantagraphics		$17.17 ($18.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Fans of Charles Burns's epic masterwork, Black Hole, who have been wondering if anything would ever come along that would that was nourished by the fecundity of that uniquely powerful work, should be at the very least curious to look at this work from Germany which explores the grimy underbelly of contemporary German suburbia employing a visual vocabulary that is very much drawn from Burns's work, most notably Black Hole. Read the first chapter and see what you think.
The Search for Smilin' Ed	Kim Deitch	Fantagraphics		$15.00 ($16.99 list)
Read more and comment...	A new book by Kim Deitch is always a cause for celebration and the release of Smilin' Ed is certainly no exception. This graphic novel at long last collects the entirety of the Smilin' Ed saga from the pages of the 1990s anthology, Zero Zero, along with an ALL-NEW chapter. A true comics powerhouse, Kim Deitch has spent the better part of five decades forging a mythography of American entertainment folklore in comics form. It is a veritable Yoknapatawpha County of the collective unconscious, and The Search for Smilin' Ed is the latest installment of this modern masterwork. Please do yourself a favor and read the first ten pages, and then, if you feel like delving deep into the significance of this work, go right ahead and read the entirety of Bill Kartopolis's introduction.
Wally Gropius	Tim Hensley	Fantagraphics		$17.00 ($18.99 list)
Read more and comment...	If ever there was a comic book character that embodied Art Spiegelman's definition of comics as "the bastard offspring of art and commerce" then Wally Gropius is him. Hensley is clearly an intellectual who is employing the language of comics with a specific aim in mind. He has something to say and has managed to effectively leverage the capacities of the medium to his advantage in delivering his message. Wally Gropius is an obvious success as a logically consistent piece of work – but it is definitely not a work for everyone. The degree of archness (archity?) embodied in these full color pages is at times almost overwhelming. Yet, we have no problem recommending that copacetic readers take a stab at this smartly designed, well executed, and surprisingly affordable, oversize hardcover volume which collects the entirety of the Wally Gropius stories that have appeared in MOME over the last several years, along with – we believe – a few that haven't. Go ahead and sample a story with this PDF download. And then, those who would like to further explore the ramifications of this work are hereby encouraged to read the discussion that Dan Nadel's (obscenely titled) appreciation of this collection at ComicsComics got going (start with Dan's piece, and then keep reading the [14 as of this writing] responses that follow). This is a book that will definitely give you something to think about!
Whirlwind Wonderland	Rina Ayuyang	Tugboat Press, Sparkplug Comic Books		$12.75 ($15.00 list)
Read more and comment...	An ex-pat Pittsburgher, Rina Ayuyang revisits many chapters of her eventful life through the avenues of memory and depiction. There is a special focus on family and work in the pages of this new collection, which also pays a pen-and-ink visit to her old stomping grounds here in Pittsburgh. Jointly published by Portland publishing powerhouses Sparkplug Comic Books and Tugboat Press, Whirlwind Wonderland assembles the self-selected "best of" Ayuyang's self-published series, Namby Pamby, work that originally appeared in a variety of anthologies, and all new work that appears here for the first time. This 128 page collection includes an 8 page color section along with 120 pages of black and white art. Ms. Ayuyang not long ago finally made it back to town in person, and gave a well-received presentation at The ToonSeum, and stopped by our shop as well. The curious among you may learn more about it here, on her blog.
Curio Cabinet	John Brodowski	Secret Acres		$12.75 ($15.00 list)
Read more and comment...	We're glad to report that, balancing out the massive outpouring of classic comics collections, there is also a healthy influx of new, small press and self-published works out this month as well, demonstrating that the riches of comics past are not crowding out the healthy spouts of new comics growth. John Brodowski's weird and wonderful – and largely wordless – self-published comics have developed a small but faithful following here at Copacetic, and we are pleased to be able to offer these no-longer-available issues in this single volume to what we hope will be a wider audience. These are comics that are extremely difficult to write about. What, exactly, is going on in these deftly pencilled pages? Well, what we can say is that the unique pleasure that the reading of this work affords is precisely the evocation of this mystery.
Giant-Size Little Lulu, Volume One	John Stanley, Irving Tripp	Dark Horse	Little Lulu	$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This hefty 650+ page book brings back into print the first three volumes of Dark Horse's collected Little Lulu in one big book. Here we have the entirety of the Dell Four Color, Little Lulu one-shots along with the first five issues of the stand alone title. If you (or anyone you know) missed out the first time around, now's your chance to get started with one of the most lauded kids comic book series around.
John Carter of Mars: The Jesse Marsh Years	Jesse Marsh	Dark Horse		$26.95 ($29.95 list)
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!
The Culture Corner	Basil Wolverton	Fantagraphics		$19.99 ($22.99 list)
Read more and comment...	This 169-page, vertically formatted, full color hardcover volume is wacky and wonderful and Wolverton through and through. Format fiends and practicing artists will relish this chance to see over 100 examples of a master working in the relatively rare half-page format. Originally published in the pages of Whiz Comics (home of Captain Marvel) and several other Fawcett Comics titles, from 1944 through 1952, Culture Corner is a conceptual, idea-centered strip, that occupies a place in Wolverton's oeuvre that is analogous to that which "Hey, Look!" occupies in Kurtzman's. The challenge was to repeatedly present a humorous concept month after month in a specifically ascribed format. Culture Corner took modern manners as its taking off point and then gets going and gets goofy. And it's all here – and then some! Culture Corner not only collects the series in its entirety, but, offers up a truly amazing bonus feature of including the original pencil roughs for nearly every one of the published strips AND an incredible treasure trove of an additional 41 pencil roughs for strips that were rejected by the publisher (why? who knows! see if you can figure it out...). Plus an introduction by Basil Wolverton's son, Monte that lays out the history of the strip and helps to puts it all in context of Wolverton's career and comics history.
Captain Easy, Volume One	Roy Crane	Fantagraphics	Captain Easy	$35.00 ($39.99 list)
Read more and comment...	What do Milton Canniff, Alex Toth, Hergé, Frank Santoro and a whole heck-of-a-lot of other cartoonists all have in common? A solid appreciation of the genius of Roy Crane, that's what. In the family tree of comics, one of the sturdiest and vital branches is that of Roy Crane. A natural story-teller and fluid draughtsman who knew how to lay out a page like nobody's business, Roy Crane originated the adventure comic strip in 1924 with his Wash Tubbs daily strip (a full decade before Terry and the Pirates). Populated with thoroughly likable, humble, human heroes, the Wash Tubbs daily comic strip, and its later outgrowth, the Captain Easy Sunday pages established Crane at the forefront of the cartoonists of his day. Crane achieved a magic balance between realism and cartooning that went a long way towards defining the visual identity of comics in the twentieth century, and Captain Easy is his masterpiece. This wonderful, oversize, full color, hardcover volume presents the first two years – and then some! – of this classic, from its very first strip, 7/30/33 through to 12/1/1935. And, best of all, this is only the first volume of a promised complete collection, which will run through four volumes! Five full adventures are herein assembled – "Gungshi," "The Slave Girl," "The Sunken City," "Pirates," and "The Princess." Learn more about Roy Crane, Wash TUbbs and Captain Easy by reading this excellent article by R.C. Harvey.
Krazy & Ignatz 1916 - 1918	George Herriman	Fantagraphics	Krazy & Ignatz	$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This month we have an embarrassment of riches in the comics classics department, and the lead off can be none other than this absolutely essential volume. Here it is: the first three years of George Herriman's splendiferous Sunday pages for the one and only Krazy Kat! With this volume, Fantagraphics launches its third and final leg of collecting the entirety of Krazy Kat Sunday pages. Due to the fact that the first nine years of the run had been collected in a series of nine volumes jointly published by Eclipse Books and Turtle Island Press roughly twenty years ago, Fantagraphics Potentates, Kim Thompson and Gary Groth decided it was best to pick up the run after that point and then, if the series met with success (which it, of course did) then they would circle back and start over from the beginning and collect those first nine years. And, so here we are. And what a glorious place to be!
Alex Toth in Hollywood, Volume Two	Alex Toth	Pure Imagination		$22.22 ($25.00 list)
Read more and comment...	More classic Toth from his work on the legendary late-'50s and early-'60s Dells. On hand we have four western tales from Roy Rogers, Sugarfoot, and Wagon Train, "Gale Storm," an excellent full-length, women-centered, hi-jinx adventure from Oh! Susanna (FC 1105), an underwater adventure from Sea Hunt, and a comedy sketch from The Danny Thomas Show one-shot (FC 1180). The highlight of this collection is, however, a set of five tales taken from Toth's early-'60s run on 77 Sunset Strip. Here we have the treat of an extended run of Toth art in a contemporary urban setting, replete with cars, girls, teen hoodlums and tough guys in suits. What more can you ask for!
The Book of Grickle	Graham Annable	Dark Horse		$16.25 ($17.99 list)
Read more and comment...	200 pages of oddball cartoons by noted animator Annable. While Graham pays the bills doing animation work for the likes of Chuck Jones, LucasArts, TellTale Games and Laika Animation, he has spent much of his free time over the last decade and a half creating his unique, gag-filled, cartoony comics. Now's your chance to see what he's been up to. Read a brand new (30 March 2010) four-part interview with Graham Annable on The Daily Cross Hatch, here (we've linked you to Part Four because it's the easiest way to access the first three parts, all of which are linked to near the top of the page after a brief introductory paragraph).
High Soft Lisp	Gilbert Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$13.99 ($16.99 list)
Read more and comment...	And for any Love and Rockets fans who thought things were getting a little too Jaime-centric there, we now present the latest in the original series of trade paperback volumes collecting the work that originally appeared in comic book form. High Soft Lisp collects work that originally appeared in both the second volume of Love and Rockets, as well as from Gilbert's solo title, Luba's Comics and Stories. Collectors should take note of the fact that the indicia states that "a few pages have been added, and some have been altered" in the service of creating a more unified feel. And readers should also take note that Gilbert's hormones were, apparently, in overdrive during the period when this work was created, as there is quite an abundant amplitude of sexual activity on display here as Gilbert puts Fritz & Co. through the paces in his attempt to delineate the heartbreak that is immanent in every act of sexual congress that occurs in a world where all is surface, where what you see – and only what you see – is what you get; a world where everyone is living in their own personal movie and every life is merely a role.
Penny Century	Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$14.99 ($18.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Well, talk about an embarassment of riches! Not only have we been treated to the long awaited Art of Jaime, but now we also have the latest in the splendiferous series of trade paperback volumes that, since 2007, have been repackaging the classic work of both Jaime and Beto. Penny Century is the fourth Jaime volume and the first to present his work that appeared after the conclusion of the initial seminal run of Love and Rockets. The book opens with the one of kind classic of comics choreography that is Whoa Nellie!, Jaime's 68 page ode to women's wrestling. Then we are treated to the super fabuous experience of the Maggie and Hopey Color Fun one-shot in glorious black & white. The bulk of the book collects the titular seven-issue series in its entirety (yes?), followed by the "secret origin" of the lead character, "Bay of Threes," from the fifth issue of the second volume of Love and Rockets. 248 pages of Jaime Hernandez in fine form. Is there really anything else that needs to be said?
Almost Silent	Jason	Fantagraphics		$19.99 ($24.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Here is a perfect embodiment of the well worn phrase, "All things come to he (or she, of course) who waits." This chunky 302 page hardcover omnibus collects four – count 'em! – previously issued and out of print Jason softcovers, and sells for just a hair over half the combined price of the softcovers! So, those who didn't manage to get these the first time around, are hereby rewarded for their procrastination (or, in the case of those who are arriving late to the party, it's a variation on "the last will be first.") The four volumes collected are: Tell Me Something, You Can't Get There From Here, The Living and the Dead, and – the Copacetic Favorite – Meow, Baby! All are in glorious black & white, with the exception of You Can't Get There, which has an added color (an olive-tinged goldenrod). We are especially happy that Almost Silent enables us to be able to once again offer Meow, Baby! This is the work in which Jason really struts his stuff by plugging his patented comics language into a veritable panopticon of forms, from the classic three-panel gag-strip, through an assortment of one-pagers, two-pagers and four-pagers, all the way through to a TinTin-esque novella. Meow, Baby! offers the perfect opportunity to really study Jason's working method, and have a great time doing it, as this is some of his best (and funniest!) work. Tell Me Something is a "silent-film" treatment of Jason's favorite theme, sex and death, this time around seasoned with crime and marriage. You Can't Get There From Here is Jason's morbidly funny twist on the Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein relationship. And, finally, The Living and the Dead is, yes, you guessed it, Jason's zombie book. And there you have it. Wotta Deal!
Copper	Kazu Kibuishi	Scholastic		$11.75 ($12.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Kazu Kibuishi is the creator of the much acclaimed Amulet series as well as the editor for the equally acclaimed Flight comics anthology series. His work has a loyal following here among readers of all ages. The Flight anthology has a strong appeal to teen to young adult readers and Amulet has long been the natural go-to choice for fans of Jeff Smith's Bone looking for a follow-up reading experience, and is of late building a new base of readers all on its own. Now we have a new collection of his web comic, Copper, about a boy and his dog. This square format (9" x 9") full color collection of lively short tales leap off the page. There's definitely a (subdued, more reflective and less manic) Calvin and Hobbes flavor to the strip, and, like Calvin and Hobbes, Copper is a work that really can appeal to all ages. There's no need to take our word for it, however, as you can read it all online. The book contains a nifty bonus: a 10-page behind the scenes, step-by-step look at the creation, execution and production of the strip that will be of great interest to many an aspiring comics creator. Anyone interested in thoughtful, well crafted, kid-friendly comics should definitely be look into Copper.
Afrodisiac	Brian Maruca, Jim Rugg	AdHouse Books		$12.75 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Well, here's a work that sets the table for multi-course feast that will appeal to folks of different stripes for different reasons. First and foremost, it is the most ample display to date of the pop culture prowess of the Pittsburgh-based artist/writer team of Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca, who here have given a virtuoso performance. Afrodisiac is an homage to the last gasp of traditional comic book values; specifically, those that were embodied by the comic books of, roughly, 1972 - 1985. These were the final years of the newsstand comic book market – its decade of irrevocable decline. Beginning in 1986 it was permanently eclipsed by the direct market, a turn of events which not only forever altered the perception and reception of comic books, but simultaneously led to a a substantial and equally permanent change in their values and production. The work contained in this compact, full color, hardcover volume demonstrates a deep intuitive understanding of the the tropes and formulas of traditional newsstand comic books, as well as, and perhaps most significantly, the role played by the wide variety of production and reproduction processes and techniques through which the raw language of comics passes en route to becoming the actual physical end product comic book that transmits its content through the readers' sensory apparatus, and thereby promulgates its meaning to the end consumer: human consciousness. Conscious manipulation of the denotative capacities of production processes has a history that goes back at least thirty years, to Art Spiegelman's work in Breakdowns, and it continues to be employed successfully in works such as Paul Hornschemeier's The Three Paradoxes. Afrodisiac is, however, unique in that, here, this conscious manipulation is the driving force behind the entire project, and is encoded in the texts as well as the images, with the character of The Afrodisiac acting as a cypher – one that is simultaneously a celebration and an elegy – for the uncritical creation of unabashed power fantasies that was no longer possible in the wake of The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen. Jim Rugg is a one-man production house and he has put the pedal to the metal in his reclamation of a panoply of production processes in this pandemonium procuring panegyric to the blaxploitation genre (that was itself an embodiment of the last gasp of the classical Hollywood values that vanished in the wake of the blockbuster onslaught of Spielberg, Lucas & Co.). It is here, in this nostalgic conflation of blaxploitation's own uncritical creation of unabashed power fantasies with those of comic book superheroes, by, let it be said, a couple of middle-class white guys, that another layer of signification transpires. Certainly, an exploration of the text's Playing in the Dark is warranted, and an old Lou Reed song may come to the mind of readers of a certain age; and, the fact that the power fantasy on display in these pages is of a distinctly sexual nature and is employed in the domination and exploitation of women cannot be ignored. Yet, all is rendered with a clear sense of humor, and where level, intellectually engaged heads prevail, there are sure to be some interesting and potentially valuable correlations made (cultural anthropologists, please take note). In other words, Afrodisiac is one of the densest texts one is likely to come across; and while many will doubtless find it a source of uncritical enjoyment, those who do so will be doing themselves a disservice and missing the work's essential character. To get a head start processing this sucka', download this PDF preview.
Crossing the Empty Quarter	Carol Swain	Dark Horse		$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Carol Swain has quietly been amassing a substantial and significant body of work in her native England for approximately a quarter century, building a small but significant following among the comics cognoscenti here in the States, who have been admiring and enjoying her work in dribs and drabs as it has made its way over here in numerous anthologies, one previous collection – Way Out Strips – and two graphic novels – the just released Giraffes in My Hair, done in collaboration with Bruce Paley, and Foodboy – most published by Fantagraphics Books. Now Dark Horse Books has stepped up to publish a quite substantial collection of her short stories, 38 in all – 29 in black & white and 9 in colour – most of which are executed in her texture-accenting colored pencil technique which has won her many a convert, and many of which have not been previously available in the USA. This 200 page hardcover is a rare treat that is filled with unique, heartfelt work that hits home. Get a feel for it with this 20-page online "flip-book." You'll be glad you did.
Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Volume One	Steve Ditko	Fantagraphics		$34.95 ($39.95 list)
Read more and comment...	edited by Blake Bell <<•>> This is it! The motherload of classic early – and rare! and expensive! (take from us, we know) – Ditko comics from 1953 to 1955 is now available in this readily affordable (well, at least when compared to the originals) 240 page hardcover volume from Fantagraphics Books. Primarily produced for the then respectable Charlton Comics, but with a handful executed for Prize, Ajax, Gillmor and Timor – these are comics! Presented here in high quality reproductions taken from full color scans of the original comics, this is how they are meant to be seen. All we have to say right now is, "Yes, yes, yes! Read these great comics." (OK, we also have to say that all fans of Gilbert Hernandez should be taking an extra hard look at some of the comics contained in this volume, as close examination will reveal that therein lies some of his primal inspiration as a cartoonist.)
The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.	Dash Shaw	Fantagraphics		$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	The wunderkind of comics strikes again with this unique book that is as visually intriguing as it is intellectually challenging. It intermeshes comics – most of what is collected here originally appeared in the pages of MOME – with storyboards and production sketches for some animations that Shaw produced, in collaboration with Jane Samborski, for IFC. Starting with the animation-cell-like dustjacket that overlays an illustrated cloth hardcover, and proceeding through a variety of paper stocks, this full color collection by the author of the much heralded Bottomless Belly Button will take you on a ride that makes you think.
No Cartoon Left Behind	Rob Rogers	Carnegie-Mellon University Press		$35.95 ($39.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Here it is, the big book of editorial cartoons by the resident cartoonist at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the past quarter century. This is an especially nice book as editorial cartoon collections go. It is a wallopin' 380 10" x 12" pages printed on semi-gloss stock. It opens up with five chapters that give a brief overview of Rob's development as a cartoonist and then heads in for twenty thematically united chapters of cartoons that take us on rollercoaster ride of the last twenty five years, through the prism of his editorial lens. Especially interesting is the chapter, "Holy Cow Tipping," which includes a number of examples of the kind of venomous and vituperative responses his cartoons sometimes receive from the Post-Gazette's readership as well as several cartoons that were either killed by the editors of the paper or deemed by Rogers himself to have been a mistake. This chapter provides a fascinating behind the scenes glimpse at the world of editorial cartooning that is the icing on this birthday cake of a book.
Like a Dog	Zak Sally	Fantagraphics		$18.88 ($22.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Long suffering indy comics – and, indy music (he was a member of the rock trio Low for many a moon) – creator, editor and publisher steps into the Fantagraphics spotlight with this rugged yet strangely elegant hardcover collection that gives us – his not quite so suffering fans – a chance to read the vast majority of his hard to find and largely out of print work, including, most notably, the first two numbers of The Recidivist (the third is still, as of this writing, in print and available from Sally's own imprint, La Mano). Visceral, gripping, dark, and, most importantly, good, these are comics worth reading (and to help induce you to take the plunge, we're offering it at a special price).
Red Snow	Susumu Katsumata	Drawn and Quarterly		$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Canadian publisher, Drawn and Quarterly extends their manga winning streak with this excellent hardcover collection of ten short stories. Susumu Katsumata is yet another of the manga maestros who are woefully under-recognized here in North America that D & Q has taken upon themselves to introduce to what they hope – and so far has been – an appreciative audience. Katusmata's work is unique in that it falls into the category of gekiga – the grittier form of manga pioneered by Tatsumi and others – yet, unlike the vast majority of those practicing their craft within this form, Katsumata's tales are set in rural pre-modern Japan, giving his work some parallels with that master of Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa. Includes an interview with and biography of the author.

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