The Copacetic Comics Company Pantheon

Pantheon

Well, their name pretty much sums it up, doesn't it.

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Title	Creator	Publisher	Price
Habibi	Craig Thompson	Pantheon	$31.50 ($35.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Craig Thompson's long awaited follow up to Blankets – one of the most widely and loudly lauded graphic novels in history – is now weighing heavily on the shelves here at Copacetic. A sprawling, multi-layered, multi-faceted, multi-pronged work, Habibi is part history lesson, part tutorial, part travelogue, part anthro/socio/psychological study, part sermon, and all love story. Thompson clearly had outsized ambitions for this work, likely necessitated by the high expectations surrounding any follow up to Blankets. It's always an additional challenge for creators to follow up a highly praised work. Should they try to compete with their big hit? should they use this moment of high regard to do their secret project that they had always wanted to do, but could never hope to get green lighted before? or should they just pretend that nothing's changed and just do what comes naturally? In the creation of Habibi, it seems that Thompson took all three approaches and melded them into an organic whole. In other words: Habibi tries to have it all and do it all; at times it seems that its contents may overflow. Learn more in our full page review. In any event, if the length of the lines of those waiting to buy a copy of Habibi and get it signed by Craig Thompson at SPX are any indication of the demand for this book, then it's safe to say that its publisher, Pantheon Books, will probably get over its grumpiness over how much longer it took Craig to finish the book than originally expected (2007) when they paid him his advance way back in 2005. At least part of the reason it took him so much longer to finish the book is that it is another mammoth tome – weighing in at 674 pages it's close to 100 pages longer than Blankets, which was, at the time of its publication, the longest, not-previously-serialized graphic novel ever published.
Mister Wonderful	Daniel Clowes	Pantheon	$18.88 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	It's been so long since this was serialized in the New York Times, that we'll bet some of you had forgotten about it – but that's all part of the master plan. This laminated, horizontally formatted hardcover just released by the industry leading Graphic Novel division of the eminent Pantheon imprint of the storied Knopf Doubleday publishing group of that pillar of publication, Random House, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG, is simply the next step in the inevitable domination of the globe by Daniel Gillespie Clowes. By insinuating himself at the lowliest point in the media food chain, Clowes has, with this aptly named work, been able to surreptitiously release a virus of comics irony that will slowly but surely work its way up to the top, wherein it will catalyze a linguistically encoded polymerase chain reaction that will initiate a resequencing of heretofore normative power relations the end result of which will be a catapulting of comics to its rightful place at the center of the palace of wisdom, with Clowes himself firmly ensconced on the throne. So, if you want to find a place for yourself in this coming new world order, you are hereby advised to purchase and study this essential tome.
The Cardboard Valise	Ben Katchor	Pantheon	$23.75 ($25.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Sound the trumpets and roll out the red carpet: a new and long-awaited work – the first in almost eight years! – by MacArthur genius grant award-winning cartoonist, Ben Katchor is now on the Copacetic shelves. Don your tux and come on down to participate in the gala unveiling of this hardcover volume that comes equipped with its own set of cardboard handles that make for both a witty Duchampian visual pun and an extension of Katchor's own aesthetic technique. Despite his long absence form the realm of book publication, Katchor has not ceased producing his deeply personal weekly strips that employ his patented combination of brusquely penned ink-lines and lushly brushed ink-washes, and The Cardboard Valise is simply the fruition of one of these. Katchor's work has as its aim to combat the alienating tendencies of contemporary urban life. Towards this end, he has developed a strategy of defamiliarizing the urban environment by projecting our quotidian surroundings through a psychological medium – one that engages comics' combination of image and text to guide and mutually reinforce readers' perceptions – to filter out the incessant demands placed on us by the interfering objects of capitalist consumerism that incessantly obscure the true nature of our own creations. This provides his readers with an unobstructed view that reveals the heretofore hidden humanity that fills our surroundings to overflowing but which we had been prevented from previously grasping. Paradoxically, these newly revealed vistas appear at first unfamiliar and strange – everything seems slightly off-kilter: where are we, exactly? It is only gradually, after long immersion in Katchor's world, that their meaning and significance becomes clear, and we are able, however fleetingly, to enter into communion with our own artifice. Those interested in obtaining some specifics as to how this is realized in The Cardboard Valise are hereby reffered to Sean T. Collins's review at the new and improved Comics Journal, here; while those who just can't wait to get their hands on it, can plunge right in and start reading it now, here.
David Boring	Daniel Clowes	Pantheon	$19.75 ($21.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Dan defects to Pantheon with this tale of neurosis and decline.
X'ed Out	Charles Burns	Pantheon	$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Wow! When you least expect it, Charles Burns surprises us with a full color graphic album that grafts his by now easily recognized Burnsian concerns onto the bande dessinée format. It's a sort of Black Hole meets Tintin (In fact, the cover of X-ed Out is an homage to the cover of the Tintin album, The Shooting Star). How can you go wrong?
Bodyworld	Dash Shaw	Pantheon	$25.00 ($27.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Speaking of long awaited follow-up works, here we have polymath wunderkind, Dash Shaw's groundbreaking new graphic Novel, Bodyworld! A non-stop comics producer, Shaw had published a number of small press works over a roughly five year period before making a big splash with his 700 page graphic novel, Bottomless Belly Button, which went on to grab a lot of mainstream attention and had readers wondering where he would go next. Well, where he went was to the web, where he produced the full color Bodyworld at a furious pace. The hardcopy – and hardcover – edition is a revised-for-print presentation of his webcomics epic, Bodyworld is printed in a vertical format so as to translate the experience of reading and scrolling on the web. Read the original online here, and then check out the book and compare, and while you're at it you will experience living on the cusp of the digital age.
A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge	Josh Neufeld	Pantheon	$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Three years in the making, here is what is highly likely to be the definitive comics documentary of the great New Orleans flood of 2005. Heavily researched, it combines intimate human portraits with important details to create a close up and personal account.
Asterios Polyp	David Mazzucchelli	Pantheon	$26.95 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is perhaps the longest awaited work in the history of comics (No? Let us know what, in your estimation, beats it.). Over ten years in the making, Mazzucchelli's first ever solo graphic novel is also his first major work since his 1994 graphic adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass, a trailblazing, highly influential work which put him at the forefront of the then nascent "serious" graphic novel movement. David Mazzucchelli's work with Frank Miller in the mid-80s -- Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One -- made him a mainstream comics superstar, but then he walked away from it all to pursue his own calling of an independent, more thoughtful form of comics and became a legend in the process. And now here we are, over twenty years later with his most important work. Talk about anticipation! Mazzucchelli has spent the last decade pondering the possibilities and potentials of comics and Asterios Polyp embodies his findings. Metaphysical speculations that exploit the uniquely communicative linguistic capabilities that inhere specifically to the comics form combine with Mazzucchelli's own idiosyncracies, Eisnerian pathos, and a notable Japanese aesthetic, as well as explorations and deconstructions of the printing and production process that shows commonality with contemporaries Paul Hornschemeier (specifically The Three Paradoxes), Dash Shaw (particularly Bodyworld), and, especially, Frank Santoro (pretty much everything), all of which is woven together in a tale clearly inspired by classical Greek mythology, dramatics, and philosopohy that commands the reader's full attention, forcing perceptual and conceptual apparatuses into overdrive and demanding multiple readings.
Black Hole	Charles Burns	Pantheon	$27.75 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The dedication says it all: "This book is dedicated to Dean, Mark, J., Phil, Casey, Colleen, Vickie, Mike, Patty, Janet, Penny, Terri, Doug, Paul, Jan, Tom, Scott, Kurt, Ann, Kim, Diane, Sally, Kathleen, Mari, Libby, Jon, Jim, Pat and Pete. I never forgot you." Here is a man deeply marked by his formative years. Charles Burns has been painstakingly producing weirdly beautiful black and white comics since the late 1970s. By far the biggest chunk of this time -- just shy of a decade -- was spent on the single work we now have before us: Black Hole. It was originally serialized in a series of twelve comic books, begun by Kitchen Sink Press -- who went out of business mid-way through the series -- and then completed by Fantagraphics Books. Now, the entire series has been collected in this single hardcover volume by Pantheon Books, which is -- amazingly -- priced at less than half what you would have paid for the original comic books. Click on the cover image to read our full length review.
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (softcover)	Chris Ware	Pantheon	$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (JCTSKOE) is, first and foremost, the tale of the development of the American super-ego, it’s human cost, and its relationship to the comic book super-hero. Ware’s choice of the Chicago Exposition of 1893 to serve simultaneously as historical signifier and the origin of his narrative is key in this regard. It is with the exposition of 1893 -- most importantly, at least as far as JCTSKOE is concerned, in its design and architecture-- that the USA reveals its fantasy of, and implicit ambition towards, empire in the classical Greco/Roman mold. It was Walt Whitman’s fever dream made flesh-- or at least cast in stone. It was here, during the glory days of the American industrial revolution, the dawn of the age of Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller, that the mold for the twentieth century and the USA’s dominance of it was cast. It was here that America’s industrial strength super-ego was born, leading a generation later to the inexorable necessity of the comic book super-hero. It is in establishing this latter connection that JCTSKOE is a true intellectual trail-blazer, revealing previously uncharted areas of our nation’s unconscious.
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (hardcover)	Chris Ware	Pantheon	$31.50 ($35.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (JCTSKOE) is, first and foremost, the tale of the development of the American super-ego, it’s human cost, and its relationship to the comic book super-hero. Ware’s choice of the Chicago Exposition of 1893 to serve simultaneously as historical signifier and the origin of his narrative is key in this regard. It is with the exposition of 1893 -- most importantly, at least as far as JCTSKOE is concerned, in its design and architecture-- that the USA reveals its fantasy of, and implicit ambition towards, empire in the classical Greco/Roman mold. It was Walt Whitman’s fever dream made flesh-- or at least cast in stone. It was here, during the glory days of the American industrial revolution, the dawn of the age of Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller, that the mold for the twentieth century and the USA’s dominance of it was cast. It was here that America’s industrial strength super-ego was born, leading a generation later to the inexorable necessity of the comic book super-hero. It is in establishing this latter connection that JCTSKOE is a true intellectual trail-blazer, revealing previously uncharted areas of our nation’s unconscious.
Maus (two-volume slip cased edition )	Art Spiegelman	Pantheon	$25.00 ($28.95 list)
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Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District	Ben Katchor	Pantheon	$15.25 ($16.95 list)
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Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: Stories	Ben Katchor	Pantheon	$15.25 ($16.95 list)
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In the Shadow of No Towers	Art Spiegelman	Pantheon	$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Pulling this volume out of the box was a rare surprise: It is printed -- cover to cover -- entirely on heavy, glossy board; just like those board books for children, except much, much bigger. This volume measures over 10" x 14", yes, but each page is twice as large -- 20" x 14"! Spiegelman's hope is to evoke the glory days of the Sunday comics pages, but in a durable (nigh indestructible) edition; and to drive this point home, he includes some prime examples -- along with a brief, eloquent introduction -- from the earliest days of the newspaper era of comics in a very nicely done appendix. This is a one of a kind piece, not only of comics, but of 9/11 catharsis.
The Rabbi's Cat	Joann Sfar	Pantheon	$19.75 ($21.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The latest entry in Pantheon Books' burgeoning graphic novel line, The Rabbi's Cat is a very European book about Jews, Arabs, cats and God set in pre-WWII Algeria, that centers on a Rabbi, his daughter and their (sometimes talking, sometimes not) cat. Lushly illustrated and beautifully printed and bound in a large, full color, hardcover edition, this work is a fanciful and nostalgic recollection of a bygone era that successfully captures the gradual, deliberate pace and sumptuous feel of its characters' lives and by so doing reminds us of some of life's eternal verities.
Epileptic	David B.	Pantheon	$25.00 ($28.95 list)
Read more and comment...	How's this for value: the complete 360 page graphic novel in hardcover for the same price as the 160 page Book One in softcover issued by Fantagraphics a couple years back? Not only that, but this edition completes Kim Thompson's excellent translation that he started for Book One. Originally published in six volumes in France between 1996 and 2004, this edition represents the first time the complete story has appeared in English. As readers of David B.'s recently released Babel already know, he is a formidable graphic stylist with a strong and sure line and a great sense of how to use blacks to create a balanced page. Epileptic is the story of an idyllic childhood abruptly and traumatically shattered by the onset of a brother's epilepsy, followed by the ordeal that ensued and the intermittent retreats into fantasy that proved to offer respite. A stunning achievement and clearly one of the most important texts in contemporary comics, Epileptic is, on the one hand, a moving tale of one family's painful experience of raising an epileptic child -- the brother of the author -- and, on the other, is a brilliant parable of the history of Europe, in which the author's family stands as a synecdoche for the continent as a whole, with the brother's travails representing the tribal, ethnic and national obsessions which periodically erupt into the violent seizures of war. In crafting this work, David B. -- who was the winner of the 2005 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Artist -- created a rich and dense visual vocabulary that is truly unique and quite amazing to behold. This attractive hardcover edition is highly recommended for the discerning comics reader, or for an adventurous reader of contemporary literature who'd like to be introduced to the pleasures of comics. It prompted Joe Sacco (Palestine) to state that "David B. is clearly one of the best storytellers in the medium of comics," and inspired Jason Lutes (Berlin) to rave, "David B. works a real kind of deeply human magic on the page – something forged from black ink and a soul's struggle that marks Epileptic as one of the first truly great narrative artworks of the new millennium." – ALSO AVAILABLE IN SOFTCOVER
Gemma Bovery	Posy Simmonds	Pantheon	$17.95 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Long known to readers of the British newspapers, The Guardian (which, by the way, awarded their 2001 literary prize to Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware) and The Independent, which serialized this work, Posy Simmonds brings a sophisticated literary sensibility to the world of Comics. In Gemma Bovery, she reimagines Flaubert's Madame Bovary as it might be, should it unfold at the close of the twentieth century. It's also a piece of meta-fiction as well, with its own unique twist on the literary fashion set in motion by A.S. Byatt's Possession of having twentieth century lives intertwine with those of eighteenth century literary characters. In Gemma Bovery, Ms. Simmonds shows us how life can seem to be imitating art in the mind of one obsessed with a particular work -- in this case Madame Bovary -- and that, perhaps, it is possible that such an obesssion can lead, in actuality, to life being molded after art; and, then again, perhaps not. She's definitely studied the late work of comics master Will Eisner's later work, and this study has reaped substantial dividends for the reader. Simmonds' has concocted a unique blend of text, illustration and comics that manages to retain the best of both worlds and communicates a wealth of emotional terrain. Students of comics will be intrigued to discover which aspects of the storytelling process are parcelled out to the visuals and which to the text. This piece is quite worth a look, and we encourage you to seek it out. Gemma Bovery stands right at the intersection of the broad boulevard of purely prose literature and the freshly laid tar on the side street of comics lit and stands to appeal to adventurous readers going both ways.
Bat-Manga	Jiro Kuwata, Chip Kidd	Pantheon	$25.00 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	manga by Jiro Kuwata edited and designed by Chip Kidd This hefty, oversized softcover book is packed with full color scans of the actual cheap, pulpy, two-color pages of the original 1960s manga volumes in which these stories originally appeared. This strategy of representation draws the reader 40 years back in time and makes for an in situ reading experience that is very different from that of your standard manga reprint. To further draw the reader back, the editor and designer, Chip Kidd has included a gallery of Japanese Batman merchandise from the same era. Together this gives the volume the air of a catalogue for a museum exhibition that uses these Japanese manifestations of an American pop culture icon -- at the height of the Pop Art era, no less -- to portray the relationship between the two countries during this pivotal period in history. On the one hand there is the cultural hegemony of the US, but on the other, there is the Japanese transformation of American forms -- one that has accelerated of late as manga is now more widely read in the US than superhero comics. In other words, it's definitely a two-way street. Read more in Frank Santoro's Publishers Weekly review. retail price - $29.95 copacetic price - $25.00
Breakdowns	Art Spiegelman	Pantheon	$13.75 ($27.50 list)
Read more and comment...	This volume reissues the seminal, long out-of-print, and highly sought after volume which collected Spiegelman's trailblazing (pre-Maus)1970s work. These are the thoroughly original, self-aware comics about comics through which he forged a comics of deconstruction. This, in turn, led him, along with his wife, François Mouly, to pioneer a new comics aesthetics that forefronted comics' formal properties, consciously focused on the mechanics of production and that changed the face of comics in the 1980s: RAW. And there's more: this fabulous, oversize harcover volume includes a 20-page introduction in comics form in which Spiegelman takes the logical next step and deconstucts his own comics! This one is pretty much essential. NOW ON SALE FOR HALF PRICE!

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