The Copacetic Comics Company Buenaventura Press

Buenaventura Press

Consistently producing high quality work to the highest of standards, Buenaventura Press releases are always worth looking into.

Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
Boy's Club #3	Matt Furie	Buenaventura Press	Boy's Club	$4.44 ($4.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Solipsistic stories for stoned slackers.
The Aviatrix	Eric Haven	Buenaventura Press		$4.44 ($4.95 list)
Read more and comment...
Injury #3	Ted May	Buenaventura Press	Injury	$4.44 ($4.95 list)
Read more and comment...
I Want You	Lisa Hanawalt	Buenaventura Press		$4.44 ($4.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Have fun with bodily functions in these deftly delineated comics by this year's Ignatz winner for Outstanding Mini-Comic, Lisa Hanawalt.
The Gigantic Robot	Tom Gauld	Buenaventura Press		$12.95 ($16.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	by Tom Gauld A meditation on the ephemerality of existence that tries to have it both ways, as only comics can. Preview it HERE.
The Complete Jack Survives	Jerry Moriarty	Buenaventura Press		$29.75 ($34.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Begun thirty years ago, Jack has at last found a permanent luxury dwelling in this sumptuously produced (by Buenaventura Press) oversized hardcover book that will be treasured by comics aesthetes everywhere. Jerry Moriarty, who has the courage to admit that, "When I started out, I didn't know what I was doing," took a chance and headed into unknown territory, taking a painterly sensibility rooted in the depression-era painting of Hopper, Sheeler and Burchfield, and grafting it straight onto his own hardwired, homegrown comics sensibility. Without taking the time to worry what it all meant or where he was going, he just struck out for the territory and made it all his own. Take a tour.
Kramers Ergot #6	Sammy Harkham, C.F., Paper Rad, Marc Bell and more ...	Buenaventura Press	Kramers Ergot	$34.95 ($34.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Edited, as always, by Sammy Harkham -- this time around with an assist by co-publisher Alvin Buenaventura -- this now seemingly biennial publication continues to live up to the promise made with the fourth and fifth volumes. The format follows that of the last volume: a flat matte finish (this time sans texture) flexi cover fixed to a sturdy Smythe sewn binding that holds the contents firmly in place. And what contents! Many of those talents that readers have come to associate with Kramers Ergot are here again, and have submitted work that is as engaging as ever. Sammy Harkham, C.F., Paper Rad, Marc Bell, Souther Salazar, Ron Regé, Jr., Matthew Thurber, Dan Zettwoch and Elvis Studio are joined by Vanessa Davis, Tom Gaud, Martin Cendreda, Bald Eagles and a handful of others. Also, KE Alum Gary Panter finds himself under the same covers as former fellow Raw artist, Jerry Moriarty, who is given plenty of space to present his idiosyncratic Hopperesque visions for the first time (we've seen) in many years. In addition, with this issue Kramers Ergot adds a curatorial component to its offerings for the first time, as readers are given a rare look at two great historical figures of the comics world: we get a healthy sampling of a late sketchbook by the Dutch comics artist, Marc Smeets, which is preceded by "an incomplete appreciation" by Chris Ware; and an amazing reproduction of the early and highly influential manga, Norakuro by Suiho Tagawa. All in all, it seems once again to be an essential read for anyone involved in the contemporary comics scene. Here is a preview of the front cover along with 10 sample pages.
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.
Destined For Dizziness	Souther Salazar	Buenaventura Press		$5.00 ($5.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The inaugural volume of the Buenaventura Press line of comics, Destined For Dizziness is really more of a children's book than a comic book. It has a nice, very light touch that just skims the surface of the pages, like a breeze, by that breeziest of comics creators, Souther Salazar.
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.
Kramers Ergot 7 Tour in Pittsburgh - 12/4/08	Sammy Harkham	Buenaventura Press		$0.00 ($0.00 list)
Read more and comment...	The Copacetic Comics Company presents The Kramers Ergot 7 National Book Tour at The BrilloBox 4104 Penn Ave. Pittsburgh PA 15224 Thursday, December 4, 2008 5:00pm - 10:00pm Please Note This event is open to all ages from 5pm - 9pm Over 21 only after 9pm OBVIOUSLY, THIS EVENT HAS PASSED. WE'RE LEAVING THIS UP AS PART OF THE ARCHIVE. The Copacetic Comics Company is pleased as punch to announce that we are sponsoring the Kramers Ergot 7 national book tour here in Pittsburgh. Confirmed Guests include Kramers Ergot editor and contributor, Sammy Harkham as well as Kevin Huizenga, John Pham, Ron Regé, Jr., Matthew Thurber and Pittsburgh's own Frank Santoro. We also plan to have on hand a contigent of local talent including Chris Cornwell, Jim Rugg and Tom Scioli as well as local publisher Unicorn Mountain. Watch this space for further announcements as Kramers Ergot publisher, Buenaventura Press, as well as Copacetic are working to bring more talent to this event. 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 commisioned 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. A mere 200 copies of KE7 are being advance shipped for this tour. Each will come with an exclusive print by Sammy Harkham that will only be available with those copies of the book purchased on the eight city tour (or directly from Buenaventura Press). We have been allotted only 20 copies, so we encourage you to reserve a copy now. A book this big and this beautiful does not come cheap, however, and we know not everyone will be able to afford the $125.00 retail price. We are offering a 10% discount (which works out to $112.50) on all copies that are pre-paid by Sunday, November 30, 2008. We encourage anyone who is sure they want a copy to take advantage of this offer, as doing so will guarantee you a copy at the event (and, of course, this would also ensure that you get a copy even if, perish the thought, you were unable to attend the event). Plenty of other related comics by Kramers contributors will be on sale, as well as new self-published local comics, at far more modest prices (including many for as little as $1 - $5), so rest assured that people of all means will be able to participate in this event.
Kramers Ergot #7	Dan Zettwoch, Frank Santoro, Chris Ware, Kevin Huizenga and more ...	Buenaventura Press	Kramers Ergot	$125.00 ($125.00 list) OUT OF STOCK!
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.)
Yeast Hoist #12	Ron Regé	Buenaventura Press		$5.35 ($5.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Go Ron Ron, go go Ron Ron, go Ron Ron, go go Ron Ron. General zaniness from Rege's sketchbook combined with comics and fully worked out drawing make for one more issue of a truly one-of-a-kind comic book. Get with the program: "stop thinking - start sleeping - stop sleeping - start living." Freaky Styly.
Private Stash: A Pin-Up Girl Portfolio by 20 Cartoonists	Adrian Tomine, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez and more ...	Buenaventura Press		$22.00 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This one is an attempt to be the last word in fetish object. Playing on the trope of arrested adolescent sexuality stereotypically identified with the bagging-and-boarding fanboy set of which more than a few of these participants are graduates, Private Stash starts out with a squarebound translucent case that contains -- once you've struggled to remove it from this secure enclosure without damaging it -- a clever two-layer illustrated wraparound slipcase portrait of all twenty contributors by Rick Altergott (displaying his Mort Drucker and Wally Wood chops to full effect) which opens to reveal a 20 panel accordian-print that opens (to over ten feet!) to reveal the wet-dream girls of a fairly astounding array of talent: R. Crumb, Dan Clowes, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, Peter Bagge, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Tony Millionaire, Richard Sala, Ivan Brunetti, Ron Regé,Jr., Dan Zettwoch, Rick Altergott, Jonathan Bennett, Sammy Harkham, Tim Hensley, Mitch O'Connell and Archer Prewitt (It's too bad they couldn't get Chris Ware on board with this one, but then again, his fantasy might be too much for the rest of us to handle...).
Elvis Road #1		Buenaventura Press		$22.00 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	by Xavier Robel & Helge Reumann Robel and Reumann, known collectively as Elvis Studio, have with Elvis Road produced a true one-of-a-kind item: a 9" x 264" (that's 22 feet!) comic book panel in which everything happens at once. When the entirety of the "story" is laid out in a single image and the mind has to pick and choose on its own, the reader can't help but recognize that the process of creating a story out of an assemblage of visual information is transformed. While, at least in theory, the entire spectacle as presented to the reader is intended to be seen as occurring in a single instant, the reader will almost certainly find him or herself processing the image into some form of narrative as it is simply impossible to achieve a simultaneous apprehension of the image's entirety the way one can and does when reading the intellectually bite-size pieces presented in standard comics. Elvis Road enables -- one might even go so far as to say forces -- the reader to invent a new approach to reading the image, as the methods developed to read a standard comic book will be insufficient here. The temporal dimension necessarily becomes opened to the reader, who can and must move forward and backward, left and right, up and down through the image, in the process assigning a temporal order. This in turn will allow the reader an opportunity to examine and reevaluate just how the distinct order and layouts of panels that constitute standard comic book language represent a digestion of visual experience, and to ponder that it may very well be just this compartmentalization of experience into discrete units that forms our sense of time as a narrative. In other words, Elvis Road is a meta-narrative in comics. It achieves, through the authors' choice of presenting an entire "saga" in a single image, an auto-critique of standard comics' narrative forms. In addition, it harkens back to the tapestry, which is, arguably, one of the tributary streams that served as a source for the mighty river of comics; and by doing so hints at further, overlooked possibilities for comics in the future.
Hunter & Painter		Buenaventura Press		$4.44 ($4.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This 24-page horizontal format (9 1/2" x 4") comic by the idiosyncratic -- and British -- Gauld is set 40,000 years in the past, but is on our shelves in the present day.
Comic Art #9		Buenaventura Press	Comic Art Magazine	$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The best magazine about comics ever published is back with another amazing jam-packed issue. Edited by comics aficionado extraordinaire, Todd Hignite, this 208 page signature-bound squareback is produced and printed to the highest of standards. Each and every article, interview, and feature centers on or is accompanied by excellent, high-resolution reproductions of original art, comics pages, prints, letters, photographs, and more; each a pleasure to behold. This issue spans continents as well as centuries as we are treated to a truly eclectic assemblage of top comics talent. Jerry Moriarity (Raw, Kramers Ergot, SVA) is visited by publisher Alvin Buenaventura; fellow NY hepster, KAZ, is profiled by Ben Schwartz; Tom de Haven goes long on Chester Gould's "Plainclothes Tracy;" Thierry Smolderen explores Lyonel Feininger's "Lost Continent;" the work of definitive Tarzan comics artist, Jesse Marsh, is examined by comics historian, Ron Goulart, and discussed by none other than Gilbert Hernandez and Adrian Tomine; Jeet Heer pens an in-depth piece on New Yoker cartoonist Gluyas Williams and his relationship with E.B. White... and there's plenty more, it's too much to list, but here's a preview). We can't sign-off on this issue, however, without mentioning the three one-page strips by Copacetic favorite, Dan Zettwoch, which features his dad's strips for the church newsletter(!). And then there's the issue's bonus book, which might just be the best thing about the whole issue. It's an 80-page paperback book that comes shrink-wrapped together with the magazine, it's written and illustrated by Ivan Brunetti, it's titled, Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, it is described as a "classroom in a book," it represents the distillation of Mr. Brunetti's 15-week college course -- and it's yours free with Comic Art #9! Is that a deal, or is that a deal?

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