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Alison Bechdel




Title Creator Publisher Series Price
The Best American Comics 2011 Alison Bechdel Houghton Mifflin Best American $22.75
($25.00 list)
Bestamercomics2011
Read more and comment... 		  edited by Alison Bechdel   This year's volume gets off to a good start with Bechdel's own illustrated introduction wherein, in addition to introducing the work that follows she meanders autobiographically and waxes philosophical in and about comics.  It must mean something that this year's volume is the first in which there was a substantial amount of work that we here at Copacetic were not previously familiar with.  It seems that we can no longer keep up with all the deserving work out there.  As it doesn't feel like we're reading any less, the only conclusion to draw is that there's even more good work out there than we can keep up with.  A good sign, indeed!  The contributor list includes the essential work by those key artists whose work over the past year it is the first and foremost responsibility annual "best of" collection to present: Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, Joe Sacco, three of the best cartoonists of our times, did some of the best work of their career over the past year, and it is duly represented by excerpts here.  Dash Shaw's Bodyworld also receives a massive excerpt here (second in length only to Sacco's), and there are about a half dozen additional excerpts, most notably from Kevin Huizenga, Jeff Smith and Ken Dahl.  Then there are the short pieces, from all over, many of which – for the first time, as we noted – were new to us.  Included under this category are David Lasky and Mairead Case's "Soixante Neuf," Michael DeForge's "Queen," (how did we miss this one?), cover artist Jillian Tamaki's "Domestic Men of Mystery," Eric Orner's "Weekends Abroad" and Angie Wang's sumptuous "Flower Mecha."  Other great short pieces that we had already read and were glad to see here, include stories by Gabrielle Bell, John Pham, Joey Alison Sayers (from Papercutter, our favorite comic book anthology series), Noah Van Sciver, the webcomics sensation Kate Beaton and Paul Pope.  And we can't leave without mentioning the six-page "Anatomy of a Pratfall" by Peter and Maria Hoey from their self-published comic book series, Coin-Op.  This is a strongly Joost Swarte-inflected piece that would have been at home in Raw Magazine back in the day; it also reminds us, in its complexity, of some of Michel Gondry's more adventurous music videos.  We weren't hep to Coin-Op before reading this year's Best American.  Now we are; that's the idea.
The Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life and Death Alison Bechdel, Jaime Hernandez, Todd Hignite Abrams ComicArts $35.00
($40.00 list)
Jamieartbig
Read more and comment... 		<<•>>  introduction by Alison Bechdel  <<•>>  YES!  It's here: a dream come true.  Designed by Jordan Crane, and perfectly printed on high quality flat white stock, every page of this oversize hardcover book is a wonder.  Where to start with a book like this?  Well, first off, there are the page after flawless page of full color reproductions of Jaime's black and white (and color) original artwork – including many pieces of unpublished art, several of which are real eye-openers!  Then there is the uncovered cache of rare ephemera like punk rock fliers, early L & R ads, and local and national magazine covers.  Also unearthed are drawings from Jaime's childhood years, including those that cover Jaime's Oxnard High School Pee-Chee folder, amongst which is one of the first ever depictions of Maggie!   Best of all, there is a veritable family scrap book worth of photos documenting the Hernandez clan's development from its earliest days (Jaime in diapers!) on up through the halcyon days of punk rock splendor and beyond that will have long time Love and Rockets fans dewy eyed more than once.  AND, this book isn't just about the art, it's also about the man behind the art.  It's full of choice quotes from Jaime and others in his circle, all of which go a long way towards shedding light on the particular nature of his genius.  Our favorite so far is this gem of Jaime's, in response to the suggestion that he build on his popularity to step into the mainstream:  "That's not the next step.  Love and Rockets is the last step.  I 'made it' when we did the first issue.  Everything else  – The New York Times, even making a movie – is lesser than Love and Rockets, as far as I'm concerned, and everyone else should treat their work that way.  If it's your own work, it should be treated as the last thing, not the first thing."  Amen to that.  Written and curated by Comic Art Magazine founding editor, Todd Hignite, this massive hardcover volume builds on and extends Comic Art's tradition of high standards in writing, graphic design and production.  Hignite's introduction, craftily employing Jaime's New York Times serial "La Maggie la Loca" as both its jumping off point and visual foil, is a model of concise clear prose in the service of promoting an ideal.  The body of the book constructs a well rounded portrait of the artist that will stand the test of time.  We'd say more, but we're all too busy poring over the pages and dabbing our eyes...
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For Alison Bechdel Houghton Mifflin Dykes to Watch Out For $22.22
($25.00 list)
Essentialdykes
Read more and comment... 		Now there's no excuse.  Fence sitters can no longer complain about the format or the price or the confusing order of the previously issued  volumes of Alison Bechdel's seminal strip.  To celebrate it's 25th year, Houghton Mifflin has released this hunky hardcover edition.  Weighing in at 392 pages, it contains a very substantial serving of the extant DTWOF strips, making it much more than your standard "best of" collection.  Even longtime fans of the strip (like us) who own all the individual volumes will be hard pressed to resist this volume.  Format fiends may find that they prefer the balance of the squarish, vertical presentation of the strips as single-pages, over their previous horizontal formatting as side by side two-pagers.  And then there's the irresistible icing on the cake:  the all-new, never-before-seen, 12-page strip that serves as the introduction.  It is the long awaited (at least by us, anyway) "secret origin" of Dykes to Watch Out For, telling the story of Ms. Bechdel's gradual realization and embrace of her latent, long-repressed desire to be a professional cartoonist.  What's that?  You say you're not a lesbian and so why should you read this?  Well, listen up -- here's why:  DTWOF is the best ongoing continuity comic strip of its time.  The characters that populate this volume are pen and ink creations that live, breath and grow in concise single page strips that precisely capture the underlying humanity that we all share and in the process have defined an era.  Yes, it helps if your politics are towards the left of the political spectrum, but even this is not a prerequisite to enjoying the pleasures of this cartoon text (the Norman Rockwell homage of the front cover serving as ample testimony to this fact).  Open yourself up to opportunity and you'll make some new friends.
Fun Home (hardcover) Alison Bechdel Houghton Mifflin $17.95
($19.95 list)
Funhome
Read more and comment... 		Fun Home is as forcefully felt a memoir as any yet published in comics, but it quite possibly can lay claim to being the single most thoroughly thought out as well. The deeply healing catharsis that Bechdel achieves here is enabled to no small degree by her extensive use of literary reference. She draws on a full complement of her artistic forebears to create an elaborate intertextual support narrative in a manner that is akin to that which her father employed in his painstaking restoration of the gothic revival mansion which is the central setting for the story. Sound interesting? Read our full length review.
Fun Home (softcover) Alison Bechdel Houghton Mifflin $11.85
($13.95 list)
Funhom
Read more and comment... 		(softcover edition) Well, it's hard to imagine that any Copacetic customers missed this one the first time around, but you never know.  There may be a few of you out there lurking in the shadows who have been patiently waiting to pounce on the softcover once it arrives.  Well, if so, then those of you did will be happy to know that your wait is over.  Now available in softcover is the most heralded comics memoir since... well, ever (yes, there's Maus, of course, but, properly defined, it isn't really a memoir).  We've long been fans of Ms. Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, and we gave Fun Home an enthusiastic review as soon as it was published, but even we were surprised by how this book took the country by storm.  According to one of the many back cover blurbs, Fun Home was made the "Best Book of the Year" by no less than 23 major newspapers, including The NY TImes, The LA Times, The Times (London), The Guardian (UK), and even Time and People magazines!  It seems like people were lining up to sing the praises of this book.  And well it should be.  Our surprise -- and a quite pleasant one it is, we hasten to add -- is that a work of comics dealing with an inter-generational saga centered on gay and lesbian sexual identity would be the recipient of such accolades.  Times they (still) are a'changing, indeed.