The Copacetic Comics Company Kevin Huizenga

Kevin Huizenga

Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
The Comics Journal #300	Kevin Huizenga, Art Spiegelman, Howrad Chaykin, Ho Che Anderson and more ...	Fantagraphics	The Comics Journal	$12.75 ($14.99 list)
Read more and comment...	This is, reportedly, the last issue of the Journal in it's current format. After this it will become a hybrid publication: updated daily online with the news, reviews, and opinion pieces that have been Journal mainstays for many a decade now, and then, a semi-annually published deluxe book-like edition that sounds like it's taking its cue – at least somewhat – from Comic Art Magazine. That said, this format is going out with a real BANG! Its 286 pages are packed with some of the greatest comics conversations you are likely to find under one cover anywhere! Check it out: The ball starts rolling with a whopping 32-page exchange between none other than Art Spiegelman and Kevin Huizenga – this one alone is worth the price of admission; this is then folowed in due course by conversations between Jean-Christophe Menu and Sammy Harkham; Frank Quitely and Dave Gibbons; David Mazzucchelli and Dash Shaw; Alison Bechdel and Danica Novgorodoff; Howard Chaykin and Ho Che Anderson; Denny O'Neil and Matt Fraction; Jaime Hernandez and Zak Sally (!); Ted Rall and Matt Bors; Jim Borgman and Keith Knight; and Stan Sakai and Chris Schweizer... whew! So what are you waiting for? You know you can't pass this one up!
Ganges #3	Kevin Huizenga	Fantagraphics	Ignatz	$7.25 ($7.95 list)
Read more and comment...	It's time for comics connoisseurs to crank up their cogitation once again, as a new issue of Ganges is in stock and on sale here at The Copacetic Comics Company. And the verdict? Kevin Huizenga once again delivers the goods! This time around we have the inner workings of an agitated mind – that of Glenn Ganges, to answer your question – at the edge of sleep, visually embodied as its own cartoon being, distinct and separate from – if in many respects identical to – the body housing this mind. All readers who have ever had a rough time falling asleep and have had their mind wander to and fro seemingly of its "own" accord will have plenty to relate to here, and there are indeed many comic moments in this comic book, BUT there is also much food for thought, along with a poetic evocation of middle-American suburban landscapes as dreamscapes that shows Huizenga slowly feeling his way towards integrating some weightier emotional content into his analytics. In dissecting the mechanics of consciousness on the precipice of sleep, as the waking mind gradually lets go of sensory input and transitions to a period of internal synaptic data transfer, Huizenga once again strives to put the language of comics to novel uses. The layers of consciousness are first depicted and then explored as metamorphic strata composed of distinctly variant degrees of abstraction; memories transform into imaginings which then turn in on themselves in auto-analyses all prompted by the slightest shifts in the tectonic plates of self-awareness. This is a comic that not only can, but demands to be read over and over again. There is so much going on here that each reading will turn up something that was missed before. Here is work that is powering comics forward, and that should not be missed by anyone who want to see where it's going.
Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror #15	Dan Zettwoch, C.F., Jeffrey Brown, John Kerschbaum and more ...	Bongo		$4.44 ($4.99 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	Just roll this one up and you've got the perfect stocking stuffer for the heppest of your pals. What makes this Simpson's comic book different from all other Simpson's comic books? Well, this 48 page (no interior ads!) full color comic book "starring" the Simpsons is written and drawn by full fledged members of The Kramers Ergot Gang, Tim Hensley, Matthew Thurber, Kevin Huizenga, Jordan Crane, Ted May, Sammy Harkham, Will Sweeney, Jon Vermilyea, Ben Jones, John Kerschbaum, Jeffrey Brown and C.F., and features a cataclysmic cover by none other than dazzlin' Dan Zettwoch - 'nuff said!
The Best American Comics 2009	Doug Allen, Peter Bagge, Gabrielle Bell, Matt Broersma and more ...	Houghton Mifflin	Best American	$20.00 ($22.95 list)
Read more and comment...	edited by Charles Burns Well, Crumb is a tough act to follow, but we'll give it a shot with this star-studded anthology filled with the best and the brightest from the last twelve months of comics, as judged by Charles Burns. In a book like this, we feel that the contributor list says it best: Doug Allen, Peter Bagge, Gabrielle Bell, Matt Broersma, Daniel Clowes, Al Columbia, Robert Dennis Crumb, Sammy Harkham, Tim Hensley, Gilbert Hernandez, Kevin Huizenga, Ben Katchor, Kaz, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Michael Kupperman, Jason Lutes, Tony Millionaire, Jerry Moriarty, Anders Nilsen, Gary Panter, Laura Park, Mimi Pond, Ron Regé, David Sandlin, Koren Shadmi, Dash Shaw, Art Spiegelman, Ted Stearn, Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, Dan Zettwoch. 'Nuff said. Well, actually, we can't help but add that while the material contained in this anthology is absolutely fabulous, the quality of its reproduction is, mysteriously, not up to the same standard as the three previous volumes in this series, which were excellent in that department. This shouldn't stop anyone from picking up this fine volume, but it is worrisome. Let's hope that this was a one time aberration and that next year we'll find the fine folks at Houghton Mifflin have figured out what went wrong and put things in the production department back on track.
Rumbling, Chapter 2	Kevin Huizenga	Self-published		$3.00 ($3.00 list)
Read more and comment...	This new self-published release marks the terminus of a round-trip of sorts. Customers of long-standing will recall that Huizenga burst into Copacetic consciousness with the startlingly original work contained in his self-published series, Super Monster, which climaxed with the 14th issue, the one-of-a-kind masterwork entitled Gloriana Comics (which was reprinted as Or Else #2, see below). It was not long after the publication of this issue that Huizenga was "signed" by Drawn & Quarterly, who went on to publish several new pieces in D & Q Showcase #1, a continuing series, Or Else - which combined material from Super Monster with newer material -- and then released a hardcover collection, Curses, which pulled this and other material together. Huizenga's work has/is also been/being published by Fantagraphics (Ganges) and Buenaventura (Kramers Ergot, Fight or Run) as well. Yet, while his star was rising over the field of contemporary comics, he continued to self publish smaller, more personal / less accessible works such as untitled, Sermons and New Construction. Now, a combination of market realities, personal preference and artistic aims has brought about the cessation of Or Else and the bringing forward of Huizenga's self-publishing efforts. Rumbling, Chapter 2 continues the "adaptation" (really, a massive inflation [reinflation?] of a work "from which all the air has been removed" – Manganelli's stated aim in creating one hundred novels each of forty lines) of Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels (#44) by Giorgio Manganelli that began in Or Else #5. Rumbling, as we stated in our review of the first part, imagines a United States embroiled in a sectarian struggle which has metastasized into armed military conflict that simultaneously harkens back to the religious wars of pre-Enlightenment Europe as well as the present armed struggles in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. It works to imagine how these wars might come about and what they might look like if they occurred on US soil. This continuation is bracketed by a dense two-page lead-in that offers a different sort of speculation: that concerning a look back from the future brought about by the future imagined in Rumbling and the consequent technological evolutions that occur and how they in turn reformat consciousness; a sort of flash-forward within a flash-forward, or a speculation within a speculation... Intellectually digesting the contents of this issue involves a fairly advanced level of abstraction in order to successfully process. And a knowledge of the history of religious conflict certainly wouldn't hurt. That said, Rumbling furthers Huizenga's unique employment of the language of comics to craft a hueristic exposition on the centrality of process in the contemporary historical dialectic. In addition, by crafting narratives which delineate the steady erosion of our human being that is effected by the merciless march of history and so provide a cautionary tales by which to avoid the worst of it, while simultaneously trying to win back the heart of the matter by insinuating a morally guided reason inside the machine, Huizenga strives to remind us that there are many possible worlds and it's up to us which one we choose to live in.
Kramers Ergot #5	Chris Ware, Kevin Huizenga, Gabrielle Bell	Buenaventura Press	Kramers Ergot	$29.75 ($34.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	Well, it's here. And what is the verdict? Success! KE5 is, in every way, a suitable successor to KE4. We feel quite confident in stating that everyone who enjoyed and/or appreciated KE4 will get at least as much out of KE5. Not only that, we'll go a step further and proclaim that many of those readers who were intrigued by KE4, but found it a bit "too out there" for their tastes, have an excellent chance of finding that KE5 -- with its addition of stand-out work by Gabrielle Bell, Kevin Huizenga, Chris Ware, and Dan Zettwoch -- has much to offer them, and represents a broader spectrum of comics than its predecessor. In addition, any fans of autobiographical comics may find that they have finally met their match in David Heatley's massive/micro magnum opus.
New Construction #2	Kevin Huizenga, Dan Zettwoch, Ted May	Self-published		$3.00 ($3.00 list)
Read more and comment...	The St. Louis comics gang gets together to show us how it's done in this compendium that puts key aspects of their working processes on display. Of special interest to current comics practitioners.
New Construction #1	Kevin Huizenga	Self-published		$2.00 ($2.00 list)
Read more and comment...	The comics creative process examined, deconstructed and reconstituted; sort of.
Sermons #2	Kevin Huizenga	Self-published		$3.00 ($3.00 list)
Read more and comment...	More comics, sketches, notes, etc. drawn in church.
Sermons #1	Kevin Huizenga	Self-published		$1.00 ($1.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Comics, sketches, notes, etc. drawn in church.
Or Else #3	Kevin Huizenga			$3.00 ($3.50 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	This issue contains eight short pieces and one extended piece, "I Stand Up for Zen." It's 44 pages of comics in the small mini-comic format -- of which Huizenga is the uncontested master -- used for the twelfth and thirteenth issues of Huizenga's self-published series, Super Monster, where most of these pieces originally appeared -- although they have all been reworked for their appearance here. Each of the short pieces engages the combination of image and text in its own way, each reaching towards evoking a specific interior state. "I Stand Up for Zen," the twenty-page centerpiece of the issue, provides a one-of-a-kind outline of the mechanics of decision, demonstrating how a single decision can and does reach into the core of an individual's being; how a decision exists in a specific moment yet, simultaneously, how this moment connects one's past and future and determines his or her identity.
Untitled	Kevin Huizenga			$1.50
Read more and comment...	Remaining true to his indy roots, Kevin H. has found the time and energy to produce a new mini despite his spate of successful forays into the world of publisher supported comics such as his contributions to Orchid, Kramers Ergot #5, D & Q Showcase #1 and the latest, his new ongoing series Or Else (see above). It is the agonizing over coming up with the title for this series -- and by doing so to get the project under way -- that is the subject of this 40-page mini. Untitled provides its readers with a creative look at the creative process, with a primary focus on the decision making at its core. Anyone who has tried his or her hand at self-publishing will find much to relate to here. This work is not a typical autobiographical reminiscence of creating a comic, however, but is instead a raw, stripped bare look at the guts of the process itself, albeit formally tidied up for publication. Having developed and come into the full possession of his creative powers almost entirely within the mini-comic milieu of self-publishing, Kevin Huizenga developed an understanding that there is an intimacy to work that takes this form that really can't be found anywhere else, and with Untitled he amply demonstrates that his understanding is undiminished by his recent successes elsewhere.
Or Else #2	Kevin Huizenga	Drawn and Quarterly	Or Else	$5.95 ($5.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	This issue is a (only slightly) revised edition of Huizenga's mini-comic masterpiece, Super Monster #14: Gloriana Comics, possibly the greatest mini-comic ever published. If you missed it, now's your chance to rectify that particular situation and get your hands on one of the most important comic books of the twenty-first century. Here's what we had to say about SM #14 when it originally appeared: "At the center of Huizenga’s work there lies evocation. Every piece of work he has produced works towards the evocation of a moment or feeling or sensation or thought or idea or, in his best work, all of these together at the same time. Huizenga’s dominant style is rooted in the clean-line school; something along the lines of Roy Crane via Hergé via Scott McCloud, and with what seems to be more than a passing familiarity with Jaime Hernandez’s work. But he brings many diverse influences which he both layers over and integrates with this base. Huizenga is also a highly-skilled observer and recorder of the world around him. He incorporates pen and ink sketches of still-lifes, landscapes, and, although to a lesser extent, portraits. In this he is one of the few people working in comics to pick up on what Frankie Sirk and Sirk Productions have been laying down in their publications of the last five years. In addition, he is capable of using the computer here and there to achieve and/or enhance specific effects. He also isn’t afraid to take chances, as he demonstrates in employing the formal techniques of traditional Chinese painting to evoke the lost patrimony of a Chinese baby put up for adoption in SM #9 (now reprinted in Or Else #1, retail price - $3.50 copacetic price - $3.00). Super Monster #14, more properly titled Gloriana Comics, marks a breakthrough for Huizenga. All the various methods and modes that he has been engaged with through the previous issues finally gel and really come together here. Any doubts you might have as to whether self-published "mini" comics could ever reach their full potential will be eliminated once and for all once you've read this. Let's hope that he manages to hold onto the creative advances achieved in the making of this work and continue on from here."
Ganges #1	Kevin Huizenga	Fantagraphics	Ignatz	$7.25 ($7.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This comic book, the latest addition to the burgeoning Ignatz Comics line from Coconino Press and Fantagraphics Books, asks the question, "Is it possible to intelligently examine domesticity in a comic book?" The five all new pieces in this deluxe magazine format edition by one of the strongest talents on the comics scene today provide the answer, and the answer is, "Yes." All five pieces focus on the quotidian reality of Kevin Huizenga's graphic alter ego, Glenn Ganges, and his wife, Wendy. Thoughts, concepts and stories are converted to images in Huizenga's trademarked fashion, and combined with text and dialogue commentaries to create a dialectical rendering of the tension between subjectivity and objectivity and various attempts -- characterized by their youthful callowness and longing curiosity -- at locating a harmonious balance between the two. Underlying it all is Huizenga's perennial concern with time. Specifically, with the irreconcilable divide between our individual, human, subjective experience of time, and its universal, inhuman, objective reality. Recommended.
Or Else #4	Kevin Huizenga			$5.00 ($5.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	This issue of Or Else checks in at a big 100 pages. It's squarebound and the page size is now "digest size," which is larger than the last two issues, which were "mini comic" size. The theme this time around seems to be nature in society, a sort of turning of the tables. One of the classic themes of literature has always been "man vs. nature." But, in today's day and age, it seems, this battle has been won, that it's "old hat." It's more like "nature vs. man" with nature as the challenger, or nature in the world of man, struggling for a place in a world gone man! There is in this issue, as in all issues of Or Else, plenty of food for thought, a feast in fact!
Or Else #5	Kevin Huizenga	Drawn and Quarterly		$4.44 ($4.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This issue finds Mr. Huizenga at his most archly wry. Indeed, we'll go so far as to say that should the day dawn when there is a dictionary of comics, we are wholly confident that the first entry under "arch adj." will be Or Else #5, and that it will be followed by a note stating, "*see wry." There is more than a smidgeon of despair on hand here as Huizenga confronts America today and does his best to translate it in to comic book form. There seems to be a deliberate lack of focus to this issue, as though Huizenga is trying to say, "Don't kid yourself into thinking you can get a handle on it. The world's a mess and all we can hope to do is just hold on." The overall structure of this issue is an amalgamated parody of contemporary mainstream American print media, from The New Yorker to Time Magazine to academic journals to evangelical religious pamphlets to comic books. There are moments that we got the feeling that Huizenga was angry at himself for making comics when there is so much wrong in the world; that he was attacking himself (and even his friends) for being complicit in the mindlessness of contemporary society. But it is precisely comics that all of us who visit this page use to help us come to grips with our surroundings, and here Huizenga is as strong as ever. The centerpiece of this issue is the 24-page "Rumbling," which is, according to the credits, adapted from Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli (translated by Henry Martin). This story "stars" Glenn Ganges and imagines a religious war -- something along the lines of the current Sunni-Shiite conflict raging in Iraq -- taking place here in the good ol' USA. It is, evidently, "2B" continued. The most intellectually stimulating part of the issue is, "Which Sentences Are we Diagramming," which is a fascinating look into a visualization of grammar employing the language of comics. Not to be missed!
Fight or Run	Kevin Huizenga	Buenaventura Press		$3.55 ($3.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Yes, you read that correctly: it's back-to-back Huizenga -- two new releases for November 2008 (the other being Or Else #5). Well, this one's not entirely new. Fight or Run, published by Buenaventura Press, is a collection of short strips that work to create a sort of comics shorthand for the language of game theory. The strips that embodied the initial foray into forging this language first appeared a few years back in the Fantagraphics anthology, Blood Orange, which ran for four issues (we should have a few copies still floating around here, if anyone is interested). We enjoyed those strips at the time, but then forgot about them. Huizenga, clearly, did not. He continued to plug in variables and hammer away at the possibilities until it reached critical mass. The end result on display here is a synthesis of the language of comics, the mind-set engendered by years of video-gaming (which, in turn, is influenced by the history of role-playing games), and the basic principles of logic which leads to a laconic distillation of the decision making process that can be enjoyed for a quick laugh, studied for insights into how to enhance one's own decision making, and pondered over to reflect upon the nature of thought. Fight or Run is Huizenga's most purely formal work yet. In some respects, the work here reminds us of a rigorous take on Harvey Kurtzman's seminal "Hey Look!" strips, updated for the 21st century. On the other hand, it can be seen as taking Brian Chippendale's Ninja, and paring it down to its core essentials. Whether the reality regarding these comparisons is either, and, or neither, Fight or Run is a success on its own terms and should be considered essential reading for anyone interested in expanding the possibilities open to comics.
Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories: Volume Two	Maurice Vellekoop, Carol Tyler, Harvey Pekar/R.Crumb, Kevin Huizenga and more ...	Yale University Press		$25.00 ($28.00 list)
Read more and comment...	edited by Ivan Brunetti It's too early to say for certain, but this follow-up to Brunetti's already classic 2006 anthology, also published by Yale University Press, might just be even better than its precursor. One thing's for certain: Brunetti has held onto -- and further refined -- his editorial vision of arranging the work contained in this volume in an organic sequence, deftly managing to map out the similarities between artists so that each piece flows smoothly into into the other, creating an amazing sense of an innate connectivity between all areas of comics here on display. This book is a powerful ally in the struggle to bring the light of comics to those poor souls still dwelling in the darkness. It's the perfect choice to turn on a friend or relative to the joy, beauty and pleasures of our favorite medium. Hold onto your hats, here's the contributor list: Daniel Clowes, Saul Steinberg, Sammy Harkham, Chris Ware, R. Sikoryak, Michael Kupperman, Drew Friedman, Mark Beyer, Mack White, Jayr Pulga, Renee French, Kim Deitch, Richard Sala, J. Bradley Johnson, Archer Prewit, Anonymous (utility sketchbook), HJ Tuthill, Milt Gross, Bill Holman, Harvey Kurtzman, R.Crumb, Basil Wolverton, Art Spiegelman, Jess, John Hankiewicz, Tim Hensley, Bill Griffith, Richard McGuire, Gilbert Hernandez, Jim Woodring, David Collier, Eugene Teal, Charles Burns, Karl Wirsum, Gary Panter, Paper Rad, Fletcher Hanks, CF, Charles Forbell, Ron Rege, Jr., Winsor McCay, Matthew Thurber, Souther Salazar, Kevin Scalzo, Megan Kelso, James McShane, Laura Park, Vanessa Davis, Onsmith, Joe Matt, Jeffrey Brown, Martin Cendreda, Dave Kiersh, John Porcellino, Carrie Golus/Patrick Welch, Jessica Abel, Cole Johnson, Lynda Barry, Debbie Drechsler, Diane Noomin, Aline Kominsky-Crum, Ariel Bordeaux, Chester Brown, Anders Nilsen, Joe Sacco, Phoebe Gloeckner, Elinore Norflus, Brian Chippendale, Leif Goldberg, David Mazzuchelli, Jerry Moriarty, Ben Katchor, Frank Santoro, Dan Zettwoch, Kevin Huizenga, Harvey Pekar/R.Crumb, Carol Tyler, Maurice Vellekoop, Seth, Adrian Tomine, Jaime Hernandez & David Heatley. It's simply amazing. Comics Power! PLEASE NOTE: We feel compelled to mention that this volume includes several pieces that contain quite explicit sexual content; and while this content represents only a miniscule fraction of the total, it nevertheless renders this volume fit for ADULTS ONLY.
Kramers Ergot #7	Gabrielle Bell, Rick Altergott, Daniel Clowes, Sammy Harkham and more ...	Buenaventura Press	Kramers Ergot	$125.00 ($125.00 list)
Read more and comment...	It's here! All we can say right now is, "WOW!" Sammy Harkham, Alvin Buenaventura and their cohorts have raised the bar once again with what must be considered as one of the most singular books in the history of comics. This volume of Kramers rolls back the hands of time by publishing a book that reproduces that magnificent size of the original Sunday comics of 100 years ago that we have been reacquainted with through the efforts of Sunday Press and their mind-boggling Little Nemo collections. Team Kramers has connected the dots and realized: "If they did it then, there's no reason why we can't do it now!" This volume presents all new work created specifically to be reproduced in the full-up, full-color, big-daddy, 16" x 21" format that will recapture the wonderful amazement of the glory days at the dawn of the comics era. The equally amazing renaissance that comics is currently undergoing will likely come to be symbolized in some fashion by this very volume. Kramers Ergot 7 is, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular works of comics ever published. Measuring a staggering 16" x 21", and containing all new, never before seen work that was commissioned specifically for this giant-size format, we will see today's top comic creators pulling out the stops for this rare chance to produce comics work on this scale. Here's a l of contributors: Rick Altergott, Gabrielle Bell, Jonathan Bennett, Blanquet, Blex Bolex, Conrad Botes, Shary Boyle, Mat Brinkman, John Brodowski, Ivan Brunetti, C.F., Chris Cilla, Jacob Ciocci, Dan Clowes, Martin Cendreda, Joe Daly, Kim Deitch, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Leif Goldberg, Matt Groening, John Hankiewicz, Sammy Harkham, Eric Haven, David Heatley, Tim Hensley, Jaime Hernandez, Walt Holcombe, Kevin Huizenga, J. Bradley Johnson, Ben Jones & Pshaw, Ben Katchor, Ted May, Geoff McFetridge, Jesse McManus, James McShane, Jerry Moriarty, Anders Nilsen, John Pham, Aapo Rapi, Ron Rege Jr., Xavier Robel, Helge Reumann, Ruppert & Mulot, Johnny Ryan, Richard Sala, Souther Salazar, Frank Santoro, Seth, Shoboshobo, Josh Simmons, Anna Sommer, Will Sweeney, Matthew Thurber, Adrian Tomine, C. Tyler, Chris Ware, and Dan Zettwoch. WOW! (This is no longer available from the publisher and we are almost out of our stock. As a result, we are no longer offering any discount. Sorry.)
Blood Orange #1	Kevin Huizenga	Fantagraphics		$5.55 ($5.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	Here it is, the first issue of the new anthology title from Fantagraphics that we've been patiently awaiting. Edited by Chris Polkki, this issue features work by a host of talent including Rick Altergott, Michael Kupperman, Lauren Weinstein, David Collier, Marc Bell, Ron Rege Jr., John Hankiewicz, Kevin Huizenga and many others. Don't miss this one!
Drawn & Quarterly Showcase #1	Kevin Huizenga, Nicolas Robel	Drawn and Quarterly	Drawn & Quarterly Showcase	$14.95 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is the first in an ongoing series designed to showcase up and coming talents in the world of comics and graphic story-telling. Published by independent comics stalwart, Drawn & Quarterly Publications, this first issue was originally intended to feature three tales. Anders Nilsen, however, bowed out of this issue as his story ended up being too long (!); so we still have something more to look forward to. As a result the book sports a new, lower price: $14.95 instead of $18.95. Not to worry, however: the work that is presented here is more than enough to put this series on solid footing. The volume opens with a multi-layered contribution authored by a long time stalwart of self-published comics, St. Louis based Kevin Huizenga: A triptych featuring his fictional stand-in, Glenn Ganges (“like the river”) in which the central tale, 28th Street, a loose, offbeat adaptation of the Italian folk tale, “The Feathered Ogre,” is bookended by a pair of tales which, while sharing with 28th Street the identical locales and cast of characters, are more purely realist, with the latter, The Curse, being identified in the sub-title as being “based on a true story.” Despite these intra-textual shifts in generic conventions, each of these stories segues smoothly into the next, with the finished product reading as an organic whole. Huizenga has, over the years that he has been laboring in the comics field -- primarily on that barely arable north forty which is tenanted by the itinerant laborers of the self-publishing, mini-comics community -- developed an extremely dense visual style, filled with a wide variety of idiosyncratic techniques that he employs with great dexterity. More than perhaps any other comics artist of his generation, Huizenga is constantly at work figuring out new elements to expand the visual vocabulary of comics, and in the three tales here he shows no sign of letting up in this developmental drive. In the lead story, he employs free floating images and text within certain panels to represent those moments when thought becomes untethered and a free associating meandering of consciousness occurs as parts of the mind disengage from the matters at hand and drift. The narrative context within which these moments take place provides the thoughtful reader with insights into a connection between doodling and daydreaming in human neural wiring. In the third tale he inserts into word balloons a variety of combinations of text, mathematical formulas, small, simple abstract line drawings, and even cartooned images -- all printed in the single additional color with which all three stories are printed (a light olive drab) rather than the standard black in which all other text is printed -- to convey the songs/sounds made by starlings, which, as the supporting text points out, are gifted mimics, in order to represent to sources of their “language.” Yet, despite all this seriousness of purpose, Huizenga's work retains a playful element. His style is firmly grounded in the classic cartooning school of comics, with obvious precursors being E.C. Segar, Roy Crane and Hergé among countless others. And in The Curse, there is a fairly obvious reference to a specific work by Crumb. Readers who would like to explore Huizenga's work further are strongly encouraged to learn more here. Serving to balance the relentlessly analytical style of the Huizenga triptych is the tale by Canadian-Swiss artist Nicolas Robel that follows, 87 Blvd des Capucines. (We feel compelled to interject the observation that both this tale and the central Huizenga tale, 28th Street, employ a combination of street name and number in the title, suggesting a hard-boiled "just the facts ma'am" type of tale, which in fact turns out in both cases to be entirely belied by the story which follows. Was there any editorial direction on this, or was it pure coincidence? In either event this duplication serves to reinforce the suggestion of a nascent feeling that the hard reality of our lives is but a thin veneer overlaying the hidden mysteries of our actual being.) This tale is essentially an emotional one. Robel employs a visual vocabulary that appears to be made up of equal parts of David Sandlin, Julie Doucet, Debbie Dreschler and Ron Rege (but, of course, may not, in actuality, be) to convey the interior life of a twenty-something women forced to realize that the traumas of her past continue to inhabit her present as she reaches a crucial transition point: moving to a new apartment. Perhaps it's her first, perhaps she's moving in with a boyfriend. It's hard to be sure, and the vagueness on this point seems to be a deliberate attempt to universalize this particular dilemma so that it may serve to represent a broader category of personal development milestones. The art is very dream-like at times and works well in supporting the narrative's task of diagramming a relationship between mind, body and spirit and then situating this trinity into a schematic of the material world. While the artist Nicolas Robel is, presumably, male, the story is nevertheless primarily concerned with capturing the interior life of its female protagonist. This aspect of the story also serves as a counterweight the essentially masculine concerns addressed in Kevin Huizenga's work, providing the anthology with at least a sort of gender balance, if only on the narrative plane. The stories in this volume work together with the common cause of pushing the reader to recognize that life is lived on many different levels simultaneously and continuously. In the due course of our daily lives we are rarely, if ever, aware of this fact. To the degree that it is the function of art to confront us with this ever present yet ever hidden reality, these tales can be judged a success. To the extent, however, that the work can be said to provide readers with intellectual and creative tools to further develop their abilities to form constructive relationships with these multiplicities, Huizenga's work stands alone. All in all, this premier issue of Drawn & Quarterly Showcase, despite the lack of the initially expected work of Anders Nilsen, is a very promising start for what we can only hope will be a long running series.
Ganges 2	Kevin Huizenga	Fantagraphics	Ignatz	$7.50 ($7.95 list)
Read more and comment...	It's been almost a year (more?) since we've seen anything new by Kevin H. (not counting the self-published mini, Sermons #2), so it was with no small trepidation that we cracked open the second issue of Ganges. which is the 27th in the Ignatz series. What surprises will it hold? Well, we certainly don't want to rob you of this experience, so we're not going to go into too much depth here, but we will say this much: This issue has a bipartate structure. The opening section is a bravurra performance on Huizenga's part, in which he takes on a challenge that is dear to many cartoonists of his generation (Brinkman, Chippendale and Paperrad foremost among them): that of portraying the inner vision of the inveterate videogamer. Huizenga ups the ante here by going one step further and attempting to depict the ideational transformations that are brought about by continual gaming. Employing a (nearly)purely visual approach that is in places reminiscent of the work of Jim Woodring and Ron Regé, Jr., he presents his vision in such a way as to imply that these transformations may involve actual organic restructuring -- although this latter implication is somewhat undercut by the conclusion of the piece, which is not so much a story as it is an experiment in visualization. The following part, "Pulverize," which takes up 2/3 of the issue, is a more mundane piece. Another of Huizinga's fictionalized, semi-autobiographical accounts of the type that dominated the first issue of Ganges, it provides an enjoyable, straightforward account of time spent working in a dotcom startup that involved a lot of after hours videogaming. Here, however, it serves the additional (one might even say primary) function of providing the "real world" context -- the objective outer vision -- for the subjective inner vision of the opening pages that precede it. Suffice it to say there's plenty of food for thought here; the only question is, will it be enough to sustain readers until the next Huizenga release?
Curses	Kevin Huizenga	Drawn and Quarterly		$17.95 ($21.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The much anticipated first collection by up-and-coming-new-comics-champ, Kevin Huizenga is at last on our shelves. Its arrival may, however, signal the end of Huizenga's status as an up-and-comer, and initiate his ensconsement in the ranks of established contemporary masters of comics. This volume brings together a wide range of Huizenga's work from a wide variety of sources. It starts off with a little known (well, not to long time Copacetic customers) gem from the Orchid anthology published by Sparkplug Comics, titled, "Green Tea." It is adapted from a classic Victorian horror story of the same name by Sheridan Le Fanu, but is given the inimitable Huizenga treatment and stands as an original work. Following this there is: the trilogy that first appeared in Drawn and Quarterly Showcase #1; almost the entirety of the now out of print first issue of Huizenga's ongoing solo title, Or Else; a 2-pager originally done for Time Magazine; and the full color story, "Jeepers Jacobs," originally executed for Kramers Ergot 5. Anyone not already familiar with these works is heartily encouraged to consider this a great opportunity to read some excellent comics delivered in a fine package for a reasonable price. If you're looking for comics by Huizenga, and you haven't already purchased these works in their original manifestations, then this is the book for you!

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Fri & Sat	11 - 7
Sun	12 - 4