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comics

Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
Redbird Comics & Stories #1	Dan Zettwoch	Self-published		$3.00 ($3.00 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	The first issue of Redbird shows that Dan Zettwoch is probably too smart for his own good. He is a skilled practitioner of the comic book form, who possesses an understanding of its many aspects: those that are abstract -- the elements of conception -- as well as those that are concrete -- the elements of production. "Still Life," the twenty-page lead story which takes up the bulk of the book, at first glance appears to be a catalogue of crude humor that was delineated with difficulty; and it is -- but only on the surface. To understand and appreciate what Zettwoch has unleashed here, closer examination is required. Once this extra investment of time and attention is made, the payoff is immediate. Right from the start -- with the visual pun of literally embodying the "table of contents" -- it becomes apparent that a sophisticated creativity is at work. Intellectual and visual syntheses are everywhere. Juxtaposition and montage provide an extra layer of meaning that is superimposed upon and yet still manages to combine and interact with the darkly satiric central narrative of the relationship of art to society in America today. We feel compelled to note, however, that this may not be the comic book for you: it's definitely a bit on the "guy" side; it's filled with cultural references that not everyone will appreciate; and some of the humor is sophomoric. Yet it is clearly a finely crafted labor of love that will provide returns well in excess of the meager investment required to purchase it to those readers who are willing to make the effort to tune in to the signal from which this comic book is broadcasting. Dan Zettwoch has an intuitive grasp of the innate idea of the comic book as an objective realization of the uniquely American character of mind that has been brought into being by the century long free reign of mass production driven market forces. In Redbird he has consummately constituted his highly idiosyncratic vision.
An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories	Ivan Brunetti	Yale University Press		$25.00 ($28.00 list)
Read more and comment...	edited by Ivan Brunetti Published by Yale University Press, this awesome anthology is a worthy successor to McSweeney's 13 as the must have comics collection of the foreseeable future. Editor, Brunetti goes all out to offer us a (OK, well, his) canonical assemblage with the 400 pages of comics here on display, where it is the form itself that is always at the heart of the work represented. The work we find here -- while, of course, being comics -- is also, at some level, telling us something about comics, and this latter value-added feature can be attributed in no small part to Brunetti's editorial approach in assembling this work, which he clearly views as an organic whole. Each artist represented in this collection has a distinct and original approach to the medium that embodies their personal interaction with the comics form as well as -- and this is where this anthology is unique -- with each other piece in the book. This book is organized around the principal of association. The pieces are grouped in clusters that are related in a wide variety of ways, from the form and content of the work to the geographic region and ethnicity of the creators. Brunetti tips his hand right at the outset by starting with the raw, unbridled, free-associative works of Marc Bell, Sam Henderson, Mark Newgarden, Kaz, Tony Millionaire and Bill Griffith (who all, with the exception of Bell, have NYC connections as well). This approach yields many surprising and unexpected connections as well as much that that proceeds in due course.
The Book of the Leviathan	Peter Blegvad	Overlook Press		$11.77 ($23.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Leviathan arrives in the USA at last, in the form of The Book of Leviathan, published by Overlook Press. Everyone who is serious about exploring the more far-flung and adventurous realms of comics, enjoys graphic intellectual stimulation, or appreciates a healthy sense of the absurd has an excellent chance of finding what they are looking for in The Book of Leviathan. This is a truly one-of-a-kind item. The Book of the Leviathan employs a wry wit with dextrous aplomb at every turn. Right from the initial impression -- the overall book design, with its ruby edged pages, making it resemble a accountant's ledger -- the reader is put in the position of having to ask questions, such as, in this case, "What exactly are we keeping track of here?", and then later, once we've gone a few pages into the book, "What, in our lives and most especially in our early, childhood years, goes into the plus columns and what goes into the minus?" and, finally, "Will it all add up in the end?" Most readers confronting Blegvad's work for the first time will find themselves mysteriously compelled to grab the first person who happens by to share their enthusiasm: "Hey! This is really different. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this before." Some readers may find themselves somewhat unsettled at first, if only from the sheer unfamiliarity of Blegvad's narrative strategies. In the end, however, all readers that prevail will come away from The Book of Leviathan with a deepened appreciation for the unknown corners of our lives, and a sense, finally, of the ultimate incomprehensibility of being.
Drawn & Quarterly Showcase #5	Anneli Furmark, Amanda Vähämäki, Edward Bak (T.)	Drawn and Quarterly		$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	by Anneli Furmark, Amanda Vähämäki, and T. Edward Bak We listed this last month, but in our haste neglected to write it up, a gross oversight on our part, as you will see... This volume has a special Scandinavian focus, with two of the three comics works originating in the somber lands of the midnight sun. A melancholy northern mood pervades the entire collection, including its centerpiece, the contribution of the lone North American, T. Edward Bak. The Partisan -- his first fully developed work since Service Industry, the work for which he is best known -- is a complex multi-layered work that (or, at least, so it seems to us) seeks to expiate regret connected to a failed relationship, one in which it was realized too late that the priorities in the relationship weren't what they should have been. Bak's artwork continues to be inventive and varied, employing bold scratchboard as well as pen and ink and delicate watercolors, each chosen to best express the needs of each particular aspect of the tale. Preceding The Partisan, is the collection opener, Inland by Anneli Furmark. This piece is built upon a series of subtle revelations that create a gradual portrait of a set of interlinked relationships. A deliberate, minimal palette color-codes the action which unfolds in an efficient sequence that establishes a complex interplay of personalities with surprisingly little exposition. And, finally, there is the grande finalé, the untitled piece by Amanda Vähämäki. Born in Tampere, Finland in 1981, Vähämäki has a true gift when it comes to color. Her keen observation is matched by her finely tuned execution. It is our considered opinion that never before in the history of comics have the nuances of the widely varying shades in which the sky above appears been better captured than here in this story; all rendered with colored pencils, no less. It is a highly imaginative tale of a pair of adolescents carving out a new, private world for themselves amidst the public, old world around them. And while we can't help but focus our praise on Amanda's amazing color-centric talent, this should in no way be interpreted as any sort of slight against any of her other skills. The characterization on display is quite strong, both in the narrative development and in the physical renderings. There is a nearly seamless visual integration of the characters into their surroundings that functions on a narrative level as well. This piece is simply a pleasure to behold. You will find yourself going back to its pages again and again to bask in their beauty.
DC: The New Frontier - Volume One	Dave Stewart, Darwyn Cooke	DC	DC: The New Frontier	$17.95 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	What was the best superhero comic book series of 2004 is now set to be the best superhero trade back collection of 2005. It's hard to sing this work's praises without lapsing into a sort of rabid, gushing fanboyese, but we'll try. With The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke -- with the very able assistance of Dave Stewart -- has flawlessly executed his vision of a classic American masculinity and completely delivered the goods. The series is, technically, a piece of historical fiction, as is takes place primarily during the decade long gap between the Golden Age and Silver Age of superhero comics -- roughly 1946 to 1956 -- before bringing us to the edge of the "new frontier" as defined by President Kennedy. This period is known, in comic book collector circles at least, as the Atomic Age. Cooke works to imagine the "real" lives of the superheroes during this historical era where superheroes were – with the notable exception of the holy trinity of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman – absent from the American scene. In so doing, the story captures that transition from the values of the WWII generation to that of the generation that follows: Not the "Greatest Generation" but not yet the "Baby Boomers" either, this was the generation that fell in the gap, but nevertheless managed to change the direction of our culture. The New Frontier presents us with the Super Hero -- specifically, the DC superhero -- version of this generation and this period. But it is more: Like its excellent (and now criminally out of print) predecessor, The Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules by James Sturm, Guy Davis, R. Sikoryak and Craig Thompson, The New Frontier is a work of metacomics. At precisely the same time that it is a swashbuckling adventure yarn, it provides a psychological deconstruction of the adventure narrative. At the same time that it presents us with vision of a time when men were men and women were women, it asks us to ask what this means. At the same time that it is a flat out masterpiece of graphic narrative it is an homage to the heroic comics creators of the Atomic Age: Jack Kirby and Alex Toth first and foremost among them, but also, close behind, Wally Wood, Johnny Craig, Bob Powell, Joe Kubert and many more. When you read this book you really can have your cake and eat it too. And the colors, oh, the colors: the color is alchemically integrated into the very fabric of the meaning of this work. How messrs. Cooke and Stewart managed to collaborate at such a deep level on what has to be one of the most intuitive of tasks -- that of breathing the life of color into the strength of pen and ink lines -- will probably remain forever a mystery; but what a glorious mystery it is. Simply put, DC: The New Frontier is a prime example of something that is unbelievably good -- you just can't bring yourself to believe that anything could be as good as they say until you finally experience it yourself. That said, the caveat must be made that readers lacking a grounding in the conventions of superhero comics might have difficulty plugging in. But, hey, we say that even then it's worth the try, if you're willing.DC • 192 pages • full color
Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman	George Herriman, Patrick McDonnell	Abrams		$18.88 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Where to begin with such a book. It is clearly and definitely the best book ever done on Krazy Kat, which is, at least in our estimation, the greatest of the classic newspaper comics. Ergo, it is, Copacetically speaking, one of the single best volumes of comics ever produced. In other words, it wins the Desert Island Award™: If there were one comics related book to take to a deserted island, this might very well be it. And as if that weren’t enough, it has now been reissued in an economy softcover edition that’ll only set you back a double sawbuck. Think of it-- a lifetime of pleasure and consolation for what it would cost you to spend a few hours in a bar. And they say there is no God. For sheer aesthetic achievement, narrative inventiveness, psychological incisiveness, cultural significance, and creative ebullience, Krazy Kat, the masterpiece in comics that George Herriman produced on a daily basis from 1913 through 1944, cannot be beat. This volume provides a judiciously selected, finely reproduced and intelligently arranged collection of George Herriman’s work accompanied by an engrossing account of his life and career.
The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories	Jiro Taniguchi	Fanfare/Ponent Mon		$19.75 ($21.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Oh, happy day! 240 pages of new (to non-Japanese readers) work by the manga master, Jiro Taniguchi, whose one-of-a-kind The Walking Man, is one of our all time favorites here at Copacetic. Of the six stories contained in this volume, all but one deal with variations on the "man vs. nature" theme. The first two, the titular lead off and "White Wilderness", are both derived (although, in the case of the former, it seems possible that the derivation is apocryphal) from the work of Jack London, and take place in the deep Yukon wilderness of a century ago. "Our Mountains" is also a tale of winter, snow, mountains and predatory animals, but his one takes place in pre-WW II era Japan and involves a one-on-one with a bear. After these three rugged and manly tales, the collection takes a surprising turn with "Kaiyose-Jima," a tale of a lonely 9 year-old boy summering in a quiet fishing village in the middle of the Showa era (late 1950s) Japan. He is befriended by a teenage girl who was left orphaned after her parents perished at sea, but is herself fearless, in contrast to the boy's fearfulness. "Shôkarô", is the lone story not set in the great outdoors. It is, in fact and intriguingly, the exact opposite, taking place almost entirely indoors, in the claustrophobic atmosphere of an odd apartment block that was a converted brothel. It is the (autobiographical?) tale of a budding manga artist working on getting his start, and contrasts the artist's cramped domicile with his vivid imagjnation, his neighbors to himself, and ultimately his life and his art. The collection closes with "Return to the Sea", which is less a tale of man vs. nature than an attempt of man to conect to nature in the form bowhead whales. We are filled with awe at the amazing level of artistry demonstrated in this tale, including what must be the greatest pen & ink renderings of whales in the history of comics. This tale takes back across the Bering Straight to the coast of Alaska and brings us once again into contact with an ancient legend dealing with death and rebirth, and makes for a fitting and hopeful conclusion to the collection. You don't come across ones this good very often, Recommended!
The Ganzfeld #3	Peter Blegvad	PictureBox	The Ganzfeld	$11.77 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The Ganzfeld is a true one-of-a-kind publication and #3 is by far the best issue yet. It shouldn't really be under the comics listing, but as it is truly uncategorizable, this is as good a spot as any. The editors once again bring together a unique group of designers, illustrators, cartoonists, and artists in a coherent, strongly designed format. It features a unique collaboration between Rick Moody and Fred Tomaselli; a new picture story by designer Geoff McFetridge, and even an illustrated essay by Alfred Hitchcock. Lengthy comics and picture stories are contributed by an international group, Renée French, Ron Rege, Jr., Blexbolex, Brian Ralph. The major highlight of the book is Peter Blegvad's contribution: a highly innovative piece that is a stellar work of genius. Really, it's that good. No one compares to Blegvad. He's in a class by himself here. (If you aren't familiar with Peter Blegvad's work, do yourself a favor and check out The Book of Leviathan.) The Ganzfeld #3 also puts the spotlight on history: profiles include the inventor of the Macy's Parade Balloons; a special 40-page section devoted to the art collective The Hairy Who, and articles on Bruegel and deep space photography. Also: humorous picture stories on color theory, where we go when we die, and the lost genre of blank books. And much more, all bound together and accentuated by impeccable graphic design.
Blankets	Craig Thompson	Top Shelf		$25.47 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The tale Blankets tells is in most respects a classic coming of age story, but the place -- emotional as well as geographical -- that it is coming from may not be familiar territory for many readers: an abnegating Christianity built on self-denial ensconced in the harsh northern environs of Wisconsin and Michigan. Yet there can be no doubt that the core questions and values dealt with in Blankets are certainly universal ones. Craig Thompson has clearly devoted himself to a serious study of Will Eisner's late work -- from A Contract With God to the present -- and this study has really paid off here. The pacing, the placement of blacks, the expressive use of brush technique, and the close attention to the nuances of facial expression all exhibit great strength and serve as expertly formed buttresses to the story which he wants to share with us. And lest there be any doubt on this account: it is a story well worth sharing. It is a story filled with many moving moments, each building upon one another -- almost imperceptibly at first -- before slowly but surely accumulating force, until, when you've finally finished the book and put it down, you realize that its made quite an impression, that is has bored more deeply into your consciousness than you had at first realized, and that now you have to deal with it. Before you can put it to rest, you have to think about it, and you have to draw your own conclusions. If you fail to make a conscious effort to come to terms with it, the spirit that inhabits Blankets will haunt you until you do.
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.
Stuck Rubber Baby	Howard Cruse	Paradox Press		$13.50 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Stuck Rubber Baby is one of the few graphic novels that really and truly succeeds as a novel on the novel’s terms. It is an extraordinarily complex and rich tapestry of characters deftly woven into the fabric of a specific time and place: a mid-sized community in the deep south during the civil rights era. While this book was originally released in 1995, its recent reprinting makes it appropriate to revisit it at this time. Please click on the image at left to read our full length review.
The Little Man: Short Strips 1980 - 1995	Chester Brown	Drawn and Quarterly		$13.50 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	There’s no one quite like Chester Brown. This is probably a good thing. Nevertheless, he is one of the handful of certifiable masters to have worked in comics during the last two decades; and while Dave Sim can take rightful credit for being, along with his estranged former spouse, Deni Loubert, the progenitor of the modern comics movement in Canada, it is Chester Brown that is the single most important figure to have emerged out of this movement thus far and it is Brown’s work that has had and will continue to have the greatest impact on both his compatriots and the medium as a whole. The Little Man is the best single-volume compendium of his work. Collecting work spread out over the span of the first fifteen years of Brown’s career, this pert little book packs a hefty punch. The bulk of the material is culled from Yummy Fur, the comics series which established Brown's reputation and with which he is still most closely associated in the comics world. Click on the image at left to read our full length reveiw.
McSweeney's #13	Lynda Barry, Adrian Tomine, Seth, Kim Deitch and more ...	McSweeney's	McSweeney's	$20.00 ($24.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Finally, it's here: the most anticipated release of 2004 (so far). Striving for objet d'art status, McSweeney's 13 comes as close as any comics release to attaining it. Starting with a dust jacket that folds out into a two sided comics poster: the outer side featuring a dense full color, 360º narrative by editor and comics fiend, Chris Ware; the inner side featuring a vaguely ceremonial (think Mayan) worshipping of the idols of comics by Gary Panter. But there's more: tucked into the folds of this dust-jacket-cum-suitable-for-framing-wall-art are two mini-comics commissioned especially for this issue; one -- in full color -- by Ron Rege, Jr., and the other in B & W (as it should be) by long time mini-master, John Porcellino. And that's just the dust jacket! Moving on to the front and back binding plates (the hard covers beneath the dust jacket), we have a hundred or so images culled from a 1936 guide to cartooning separated by a lavishly embossed spine. The end papers are by Ivan Brunetti, and feature a wallpaper of minimalistic renditions of his personal comics and cartoon hall of fame. And, finally, there is the contents of the book itself. The subject of much speculation as to whether it would be reprints or newly commissioned work, the answer is... Both! About half and half, depending on how you look at it. Here's how it breaks down: Some of the work has appeared in non-comics periodicals, but is collected herein for the first time. Under this category are Mark Beyer, Ivan Brunetti, Kaz, Art Spiegelman (although his pieces are being reprinted everywhere at this point) and some of the pieces by Chris Ware. Straight out reprints are the inclusions by Charles Burns (although the frontispiece is new), Chester Brown, Debbie Drechsler, Jaime and Gilberto Hernandez, Mark Newgarden, Archer Prewitt, Joe Sacco, Richard Sala (newly colored, however), Seth, and Adrian Tomine. New to us -- and therefore, we imagine, new to you as well -- are the works by Lynda Barry, Jeffrey Brown, Dan Clowes, David Collier, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Julie Doucet, David Heatley, Ben Katchor, Joe Matt, Richard McGuire, Gary Panter, some of the Chris Ware, and of course the aforementioned dust-jacket and minis. In addition to all this contemporary work, there are selections of classic and archival work sprinkled throughout: First and foremost among these is a 15-page spread on "the inventor of comics," Rodolphe Töpfler, and his first appearance in America, introduced by Chris Ware; an 80% reproduction of an original 1922 Mutt and Jeff daily strip by Bud Fisher that takes four pages to display (which gives you an idea of how big they drew comics back then!); and a nine page spread on George Herriman, introduced by Tim Samuelson and featuring Herriman's last Krazy Kat dailies, also reproduced from the originals. And, as if this weren't enough, there are two appreciations by Chris Ware, one of the abstract-expressionist-turned-representational-painter-with-a-personal-affinity-for-comics-iconography, Philip Guston, and the other of Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz. In addition there is a critical appreciation of comics from John Updike, and nostalgiac/elegiac remembrances of comics related experiences by Glen David Gold, Malachi Cohen, and Chip Kidd. The volume opens with a preface from Ira Glass, followed by an introduction by Chris Ware, who, when all is said and done, is clearly more than simply the editor of this work. This is a great piece, especially when you consider it's primary purpose: preaching to the unconverted, those countless, teeming millions out there in America and beyond who don't locate the foundation of their identity in comics. With this volume, McSweeney's begins a new ambitious distribution arrangement with Publisher's Group West in the USA and Penguin Books in the UK; thereby bringing their publications before a great many more potential readers. They couldn't have chosen a better volume to initiate this venture. Let's wish them luck.
Ethel & Ernest	Raymond Briggs	Alfred Knopf		$17.77 ($21.00 list)
Read more and comment...	This book is perhaps the single most touching and heartfelt graphic novel ever produced. The story of the author's parents and, beginning about half way in, the author's own as well, Ethel & Ernest presents a beautiful miniature of a couple's life together that is at the same time a definitive tale of 20th Century working class Britain. Yes, the book is not free from sentimentality, but has anyone ever produced a work about one's own parents that is? and not only that, the sentiment in Ethel & Ernest is of the highest order. The only work produced in comics that is even remotely comparable to this is Will Eisner's late work, especially A Contract With God. It is a sturdy work that is built to last; capable of being enjoyed over and over again. Raymond Briggs is one of the most widely acclaimed children's book authors in Britain. His most famous book, The Snowman, has been adapted as a half-hour television special which occupies roughly the same spot in the British national consciousness as A Charlie Brown Christmas does in the American. While there are dozens if not hundreds of interesting and worthwhile autobiographical comics currently on the market, the vast majority are produced by people in their twenties and thirties. Raymond Briggs is in his sixties, and Ethel and Ernest offers us the benefits of his maturity: artistic, intellectual, emotional and philosophical. It is an offer well worth accepting. Here are reviews from Salon and Rational Magic.
One Hundred Demons (hardcover)	Lynda Barry	Sasquatch Book		$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Lynda Barry's art has never been more rich and satisfying than it is in One Hundred Demons, the landmark 2002 book which represented a formal and stylistic breakthough not only for Ms. Barry, but for the world of comics as well. The work she has created for this beautifully printed volume features a layered bricolage that is undergirded by confident brushwork and an intuitively intimate color sense. All of it is solidly welded to an amazing and joyful sense of play in the service of a universalized personal revelation. Taken together, it makes for an unforgettable reading experience. No one has ever done a better job of conveying the bittersweetness of growing up than Lynda Barry. No one has more fully employed the medium of comics to portray childhood and adolescence than Lynda Barry. No one has bored more deeply into personal pain to find the joy that is buried hidden within. One Hundred Demons is a masterpiece that anyone who remembers what it was like to be a child growing up will instantly appreciate. Anyone who has forgotten will be powerfully reminded. As we age our childhood recedes, growing ever dimmer in the distance; yet our characters -- which were forged by those experiences that took place during that childhood -- tend to remain relatively fixed despite the increasing distance from those formative years. In One Hundred Demons, Lynda Barry demonstrates again and again how our past is always there, hovering just below the surface of our conscious thoughts, pushing our buttons and directing our courses of action, regardless of whether we are aware of or oblivious to this fact. To see what all the fuss is about, get a preview of the material on-line from Salon.com. While the hardcover is now out of print, we still have a good stock of copies available at this time.
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.
Fun Home (hardcover)	Alison Bechdel	Houghton Mifflin		$17.95 ($19.95 list)
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.
Black Hole	Charles Burns	Pantheon		$22.22 ($24.95 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.
Black Hole (softcover)	Charles Burns	Pantheon		$16.25 ($17.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Those few unfortunate souls among you who strayed and so failed to get a hold of this singular, epic and amazing comics masterwork now have now been given a second -- and less expensive -- chance. Make sure you take it. To learn more, click on the cover image at left to read our in depth review.
Whatcha Mean What's a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics	Raina Lee, Allison Cole, Dave Kiersh, Martin Cendreda and more ...			$11.69 ($12.99 list)
Read more and comment...	This is a nifty guide to zinemaking and zinestering that is a great primer for anyone who is getting started -- or even thinking of getting started -- down the road of making a zine, whether it be comics or otherwise. It's purposefully designed to be exactly the kind of guide that the authors wished they had when they started out. In covers the practical ins and outs such as formats and print-marriage set ups, the pros and cons of various drawing tools and printing methods, and a wide array of binding methods that one might never think of on one's own. But there's much more as the authors bring in a bevy of talented cartoonists, zinesters and self-publishers to offer their artistic, poetic, historical and technical perspectives, encouragements and insights. Among those creators featured are John Porcellino, Ron Regé, Jr., Souther Salazar, Dan Zettwoch, Martin Cendreda, Dave Kiersh, Allison Cole and Raina Lee. All in all this book has a great feel and is sure to be enjoyed even by those who are well on their way down Zinester Avenue. And it's bargain priced to boot!
Amor Y Cohetes	Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$13.55 ($16.99 list)
Read more and comment...	It's hard to believe, but with this volume, the seventh in the new format, the repackaging of the first volume of Love and Rockets is now complete! While the first six volumes gave us the massive mythologies of Hoppers and Palomar, this issue collects all the odds 'n' ends and bric á brac that the fertile imaginations of los Bros unleashed when they were kicking back; as well as the story that started it all back in Love and Rockets #1, Gilbert Hernandez's BEM. Let us rhapsodize for a moment: It was with BEM that Gilbert Hernandez -- comics' own St. George -- slew the dragon of derivative, formulaic heroic fantasy comics by ripping out its heart and laying it bare. BEM demonstrates once and for all that the success of the formula is based on keeping fear alive, that the hero and the villain are, unwittingly perhaps, complicit in an illicit pact to keep the reader enthralled with the eternal recurrence of evil. BEM pulls back the curtain and reveals formulaic heroic fantasy comics as Ouroboric circles devoid of any real hope, real progress or real growth; promising salvation but delivering the damnation of addiction with an empty formula expertly designed to keep readers coming back for more with the dangled promise of the imminent unveiling of a mystery that not only is there no intent to deliver on, but as BEM finally and brilliantly reveals, there is not even the capacity or ability on the part of the danglers to do so in the first place for the simple reason that the creators of this formula are themselves as equally trapped within it by their fealty to the profit motive -- unable to see outside the borders of their own fear and need and so drawing in the hordes to feed their own cravings (Love and Rockets: it's not just a comic book series, it's a hermeneutics.). We'll be the first to admit that anyone coming to this story now, over 25 years after the fact -- and especially those who were never themselves in the thrall of superhero comics in the first place -- will have a hard time fully appreciating the importance of this story, but that's no reason not to try. The revelation of BEM cleared the way for a whole new approach to comics: the way that Love and Rockets went on to pioneer. Comics have never been the same since.
The Playboy	Chester Brown	Drawn and Quarterly		$11.75 ($12.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This classic memoir of Chester's high school obsession with Playboy magazine disabused Hugh Hefner of his notion that Playboy magazine was just good clean fun, but only for the five minutes or so it took him to put it out of his mind. Other, more engaged thinkers will hold onto this impression a bit longer. It's hard for most to realize in this day and age when the high school memoir is a major staple of the comics – or should we say, graphic novel – market, but when the comics that make up this volume, and its companion piece, I Never Liked You, were first serialized in the pages of Yummy Fur, they were like nothing anyone had ever read before. Chester's acute perceptions of and brutal honesty about his adolescence surpassed that of even the master of confessional comics, R. Crumb. The only true precursor to these works is Justin Green's seminal underground comix masterpiece, Binky Brown and the Virgin Mary. But, as good and revolutionary as Justin Green's work indisputably was, it was Chester Brown's work that created the template for today's spate of confessional comics.
I Never Liked You	Chester Brown	Drawn and Quarterly		$15.00 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	One of the best – and almost without doubt, the most painfully sad – graphic memoir ever penned. The urtext of adolescent alienation. An undisputed masterpiece. Recommended to all serious comics readers as well as anyone who needs help in facing up to painful and unhappy memories.
The Awake Field	Ron Regé	Drawn and Quarterly		$6.75 ($7.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Wow, a double dose of Ron Regé, Jr.! (along with YH #12, which was released simultaneously) This one is technically Yeast Hoist #(lucky)13. It is a beautifully drawn, designed and produced square format volume. Printed in two colors with a full color flexi cover and endpapers this book is an aesthetic treat and a bargain to boot. Ron Regé, Jr. is channelling the spirit of the 20th century American painter, Charles Burchfield into 21st century comics. Like Burchfield's paintings, Regé's comics in this volume fill the viewer/reader with a sense of wonder at the impossible beauty and strange otherness of nature. His work really puts you there, it communicates, it catalyzes neurons to fire in new patterns that trigger new thoughts and new ways of seeing the world as an... awake field. There's nothing out there in any medium to compare to Regé's work here. We say: a must!
Dr. Id: Psychologist of the Supernatural	Adam McGovern, Paolo Leandri	Indie Ink Studios		$2.50 ($2.95 list)
Read more and comment...	When we first listed this title on our new arrivals page it sold out in the blink of an all-seeing eye, so we contacted the publisher and secured a supply of this Copacetic Certified Instant Classic™ sufficient to add it to our ongoing offerings. With Dr. Id, co-creators McGovern and Leandri have put a sophisticated spin on the iconic Lee and Kirby formula to give us a series of psychologically astute tales that are simultaneously fantastic fun. Seven tales -- both tall and short -- make up this cosmic compendium of cryptic capers -- elegantly unravelled by the piercingly perceptive analytical intelligence of the suave and debonair Dr. Id -- all rendered in a cataclysmic Kirby style that will have True Believers reaching for their hankies. As an added bonus, we're treated to a copy of the Doctor's dossier to clue us in to his highbrow history. This is a comic book. All we have to say is, "Be there or be square!"
The Spirit #12	Darwyn Cooke	DC		$2.99 ($2.99 list)
Read more and comment...	While Darwyn Cooke originally planned for a two-year stint on The Spirit, circumstances conspired to cut his run short at the halfway mark. The evidence of this final issue -- an exigetical adaptation of Eisner's original Sand Saref story (the same story Frank Miller's upcoming movie is also using as it's core text) -- bears out that this is all it took for Cooke to bore right to the core of not just the character of The Spirit but of the spirit of the noir sensibility itself. Through his masterful employment of Eisner's late style (which Eisner himself used to portray the past; i.e. his own childhood during the depression out of which so many heroes emerged to collectively shake the country out of its torpor) in conjunction with his own, Cooke has managed to delineate how the fatalistic noir sensibility is connected to a personal feeling of discontinuity, particularly the sense of disconnection with childhood self: the "paradise lost" that Denny Colt's pre-sexual relationship with Sand represented. It is the trauma of sexualization (that is metaphorically represented in The Spirit #12 -- as it is in so many other myths -- by the death of the father) that separates childhood from adulthood and it is the "something" that is lost at that moment that the hero (here, The Spirit) is forever trying to recapture; but these attempts are always failures and it is the final resignation to the permanence of this "failure" to regain the "paradise" of unsexualized childhood that colors the noir sensibility. This quest to capture the sense of childhood innocence is amplified by the choice of medium: the fact of the story being told in comic book form implicitly links it to the very childhood innocence that the comic book symbolizes and so transforms this issue into a near perfect symbol of Paradise Lost. The Spirit #12 is not just a tough act to follow, it's impossible. retail price - $2.99 copacetic price - $2.99
The Acme Novelty Library	Chris Ware	Pantheon		$22.22 ($27.50 list)
Read more and comment...	This startlingly well produced Big Book, the latest from the greatest full grown adult comics whiz kid, that literary minded artistic genius and graphic technician extraordinaire who possesses what could possibly be the most divided consciousness in a fully-functioning adult in the known world -- yes, that's right, Mr. Chris Ware -- collects material previously presented in the comics periodical Acme Novelty Library #7 & #15 (AKA Acme Novelty Big Book of Jokes #1 & #2 ) published by Fantagraphics, along with plenty of finely crafted, bruising new work with which it has been seamlessly integrated, all bundled together in an extravagant and exquisite oversize hardcover edition published by Pantheon Books. It pretty much goes without saying that this exquisite hardcover edition is a must for anyone interested in contemporary comics. A contender for the most densely packed volume in the history of printing -- there are more drawings and more text squeezed into every nook and cranny than any other book we can think of -- this is work that will rend the senses and boggle the mind. It comes shrinkwrapped to insure that the deluxe package remains unscathed until its owner deigns to unwrap it. Click at left to read our feature listing to learn more.
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.
Travel	Yuichi Yokoyama	PictureBox		$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	While perhaps not as hotly awaited as PM2, this year's follow-up to last year's New Engineering (which was the amazing US debut for Japanese manga magician Yokoyama) is, for our money, the sequel of the year. Anyone wanting to see truly original, ground-breaking comics work need look no further than this unassuming volume. It may not seem like much sitting there on the shelf, but once you open it up and let its contents pour out as you pore over its pages you will find yourself taken out of your body and travelling to realms of mind over matter, racing at a pace you didn't know you were capable of. A very strong rhythmic component was already evident in Yokoyama's work in the short pieces collected in New Engineering. With Travel, a single piece of almost 200 pages, the rhythm has been intensified and become an indefatiguable beat that gives the impression that it might just be the pulse of the world. Every motion, no matter how mundane -- from the turning of one's head, to the stubbing out of a cigarette -- is rendered with a dynamism and a sense of urgency that focuses the reader's attention in a startling way and serves to bring alive every instant; "never a dull moment," indeed. You will go back to this book again and again trying to unlock its mysteries. This work conveys movement through space in time in sequential images that alchemically reflect the manner in which human consciousness is being reformatted by being enveloped in a landscape composed of ever increasing loads of information that must be processed at ever increasing rates of speed. This is all the more amazing given that this work is text free and entirely imagematic. It does, however, come equipped with an introduction by Paul Karasik and an appendix featuring commentary by Yokoyama himself. Recommended!
Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon History of Hiroshima	Keiji Nakazawa	Last Gasp	Barefoot Gen	$12.75 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is it, one of the most important comics works of all time, the complete ten-volume saga will now be presented in English for the first time, courtesy of Project Gen and Last Gasp. Barefoot Gen chronicles one family’s experience living in Hiroshima before, during and after WWII. This opening volume provides an emotionally moving chronicle of this family’s hardships during wartime -- hardships that were more severe than most due to the family's pacifism and anti-war stance. This book, however, will always be remembered most for its absolutely searing first-person account of experiencing the first atomic bombing. There is no other account in any medium that matches the power of Nakazawa’s. The experience of reading this book will be permanently imprinted in the memory of anyone who reads it; it is an unforgettable experience. Produced in the 1970s, Barefoot Gen precedes Art Spiegelman’s Maus by a decade, and in fact -- as Spiegelman’s introduction attests -- was both a catalyst for and a profound influence on that Pulitzer Prize winning work. Barefoot Gen almost single-handedly established the genre of comics-as-dramatic-history that has gone on to produce other great works in addition to Maus, such as the works of Joe Sacco (Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde) and Persepolis, among many others.
Ninja	Brian Chippendale	PictureBox		$34.95 ($34.95 list)
Read more and comment...	OK kids, the wait is over. This mega-blast of comics and more by Fort Thunder co-founder, Brian Chippendale is now on our shelves, and it's most definitely a book that stands out in a crowd. Five years in the making, it's Chippendale's first book publication, and he's gone all out to make it a debut to remember. It's a giant oversize (11" x 17") 144 page hardcover volume printed in black and white and full color where it counts. 80 pages are devoted to the titular graphic novel that is both an epic -- and deranged -- fantasy and an urban allegory. The remaining 64 pages are chock-a-block with drawings, collages, posters and more. While much is simply pen and ink and/or pencil, this is reproduced with full attention to all details and subtleties. Ninja is a sensual onslaught that will stagger your brain as it tries to take it all in. We found ourselves going back again and again to soak up the richness of Chippendale's imagery while simultaneously working to crack the riddles of his narratives. Published by the design wizards at Picture Box.
Love and Rockets #15 (volume two)	Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$3.60 ($4.50 list)
Read more and comment...	In case you wondering, we thought we'd take this moment to let you know that Love and Rockets is still going strong, with new issues appearing at a steady clip. And the work continues to be of the highest caliber, building, issue by issue, the most signifigant narrative structure on the contemporary comics landscape, as our in-depth look at "Saturday is Shatterday" from #15 amply testifies (click on image at left to read).
Maggie the Mechanic	Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$11.95 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	(Book One of the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Most frequenters of this space are hep to the wonder of Love and Rockets. However, there are still those who have yet to see the light. Are you someone who still hasn't managed to get around to reading the greatest comics ever produced? If so, all we've got to say is: if you haven't read the original run of Love and Rockets (in any one of its extant formats) and you are trawling the web looking for exciting new releases and looking through back issue bins at your friendly neighborhood comics shop for classics of the days of yore, then you are simply wasting your time -- the greatest comics that have ever been produced (and quite possibly that ever will be produced) are already right here, sitting, waiting, 24/7 on the shelf. Those unfortunates among you who have remained skeptical are now offered a new and better chance of getting in on what you've been missing out on in this new series of seven books that will collect the entirety of the first volume of Love and Rockets that was originally published from 1982 to 1996 in fifty magazine-size issues. These volumes are paragons of excellence in every way, including price point (muchos kudos to Jacob Covey for his sporty yet elegant design and to Paul Baresh for his stalwart, spit and polish production). Each book in this series contains approximately 250 pages of comics that will still be standing -- in one form or another -- long after every contemporary Ozymandias has fallen to dust. The odd numbered volumes, beginning with this one, Maggie the Mechanic, contain Jaime's contributions, while Gilbert's can be found in the even numbered editions, beginning with Heartbreak Soup (the seventh and final volume contains all the odds and ends by both Jaime and Gilbert). Well, what are you waiting for? C'mon already!
Heartbreak Soup	Gilbert Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$11.95 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	(Book Two of the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Most frequenters of this space are hep to the wonder of Love and Rockets. However, there are still those who have yet to see the light. Are you someone who still hasn't managed to get around to reading the greatest comics ever produced? If so, all we've got to say is: if you haven't read the original run of Love and Rockets (in any one of its extant formats) and you are trawling the web looking for exciting new releases and looking through back issue bins at your friendly neighborhood comics shop for classics of the days of yore, then you are simply wasting your time -- the greatest comics that have ever been produced (and quite possibly that ever will be produced) are already right here, sitting, waiting, 24/7 on the shelf. Those unfortunates among you who have remained skeptical are now offered a new and better chance of getting in on what you've been missing out on in this new series of seven books that will collect the entirety of the first volume of Love and Rockets that was originally published from 1982 to 1996 in fifty magazine-size issues. These volumes are paragons of excellence in every way, including price point (muchos kudos to Jacob Covey for his sporty yet elegant design and to Paul Baresh for his stalwart, spit and polish production). Each book in this series contains approximately 250 pages of comics that will still be standing -- in one form or another -- long after every contemporary Ozymandias has fallen to dust. The odd numbered volumes, beginning with Maggie the Mechanic, contain Jaime's contributions, while Gilbert's can be found in the even numbered editions, beginning with this one, Heartbreak Soup (the seventh and final volume contains all the odds and ends by both Jaime and Gilbert). Well, what are you waiting for? C'mon already!
Beyond Palomar	Gilbert Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$13.55 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	(Book Six in the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Wow! Fantagraphics isn't wasting any time in getting out the newly formatted editions collecting that classic among classics, the original first volume of Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez. Beyond Palomar contains all the twists and turns of "Poison River," perhaps the most complex of Gilbert's epics, along with his L.A.-centered "Love and Rockets X." There's not much more that can be said about these comics other than, "READ THEM!" It really doesn't get any better than this.
Perla la Loca	Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$13.55 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	(Book Five in the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Wow! Fantagraphics isn't wasting any time in getting out the newly formatted editions collecting that classic among classics, the original first volume of Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez. The unrelenting greatness continues with Perla la Loca presenting "Wig Wam Bam" and "Chester Square" along with a handful of minor gems, all by the one and only Xaime. Beyond Palomar contains all the twists and turns of "Poison River," perhaps the most complex of Gilbert's epics, along with his L.A.-centered "Love and Rockets X." There's not much more that can be said about these comics other than, "READ THEM!" It really doesn't get any better than this.
The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S.	Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$11.95 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	(Book Three in the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Yes! The next two volumes in the fantastic new packaging of the One True Classic of Modern American Comics have arrived ahead of schedule. We can hardly believe it, but are pleased to report that these two are, if possible, even more wonderful than the first two. The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. contains the long out of print Death of Speedy in its entirety along with so much more greatness that when contemplating the simultaneous release of these two volumes it is all we can do to keep from weeping in gratitude for such abundance.
Human Diastrophism	Gilbert Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$11.95 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	(Book Four in the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Yes! The next two volumes in the fantastic new packaging of the One True Classic of Modern American Comics have arrived ahead of schedule. We can hardly believe it, but are pleased to report that these two are, if possible, even more wonderful than the first two. Human Diastrophism contains the entirety of the graphic novel of that name along with many other classic shorter works including "Chelo's Burden."
Masterpiece Comics	R. Sikoryak	Drawn and Quarterly		$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Literally two decades in the making, here is a book that lives up to its name! There are levels of irony upon irony and then within and in between these there lurks hints and glimmers of more. There is militant subversion and blatant transgression of the exact same material for which is simultaneously exhibited the deepest respect and greatest empathy. R. Sikoryak is a truly singular master of comics who knows its classical forms and major practitioners inside out to a degree that is simply unparalleled. His work contained here will trigger a panoply of associations to anyone devoted to the form of comics and this is then squared for those who are on equally familiar terms with the literary classics that are adapted. Sikoryak's achievment in successfully splicing together classic literature and classic comics at the deep level of their respective genetic codes is such that the reading of this collection will, for some, spark a revolution in their perceptual apparatus that will topple the reigning dominant ideology and force a reordering of priorities. We have here the Book of Genesis as a series of Blondie Sunday pages; Dante's Inferno imagined as Bazooka Gum insert comics; Shakespeare's Macbeth as a Mary Worth sub-plot; Voltaire's Candide imagined as Ziggy; Marlowe's Faust as a series of Garfield dailies; Wuthering Heights as an EC horror comic; The Scarlet Letter as acted out by Little Lulu and Tubby; Kafka's "Metamorphosis" starring Charlie Brown; The Portrait of Dorian Gray as a sequence from Little Nemo in Slumberland; Waiting for Godot starring Beavis and Butthead; and, finally the piece de resistance, Crime and Punishment as a 1950s Detective Comics featuring Batman & Robin and the Joker followed by the encore of Camus's L'Etranger condensed into a series of Action Comics covers circa the same era. No self-respecting comics fan can hold their head high without having this volume in their library. Please take a moment to feast your eyes on this PDF sneak peek. And then take a few moments to read this 3-part interview with Sikoryak.
Asthma	John Hankiewicz	Sparkplug Comic Books		$14.44 ($17.00 list)
Read more and comment...	We've been big fans of the work of Mr. Hankiewicz for quite some time, and are thrilled to be able to offer Sparkplug Comic Books' massive new 108-page, 8 1/2" x 11" collection of his totally unique, perplexingly obscure, abstrusely enigmatic, elegantly rendered pen and ink parables and small tales. This work is frustratingly difficult to describe, and we're not going to try at this juncture. (OK, we'll give it a lame whirl: think of the precise, detail driven work of Charles Sheeler (got it?) and then add to this a blend of David Lynch, René Magritte and Franz Kafka, and then convert the whole shebang into a pen-and-ink graphic narrative, and perhaps you'll have an inkling) Suffice it to say that this is truly one-of-a-kind work on display here, and you owe it to yourself to at least give it a look whenever and wherever you get the chance to do so; and you can start now by checking out these sample pages. Recommended for all adventurous comics readers everywhere!
Luba	Gilbert Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$33.99 ($39.99 list)
Read more and comment...	At last! The second hardcover collection in the epic saga that began with the mammoth (and now, sadly, out of print) Palomar. Luba* is a massive 600 page hardback that collects the entirety of the three previously released softcovers, Luba in America, Luba: The Book of Ofelia, and Luba: Three Daughters, and then some. The combined retail price of these three softcover trades is $59.97 making the choice of this stunning hardcover a no-brainer for anyone who had yet to purchase this amazing material. And not only that, this time around the work is printed on non-reflective flat white stock yielding superior image quality, which it will make tempting to even those who already have the trades. Luba follows the the titular character along with a large supporting cast that spans three generations and the environs of Mexico and southern California. This is a series that is populated by some of the most colorful characters in the history of comics and that's saying something considering they're all printed in black & white. There are plot lines, actions, reactions and interactions galore. There is powerful social commentary side by side with action and laughs, and more insight into character formation and sexual development than you will find anywhere else. Act now to take advantage of our special price! (offer ends 20 June 2009) (However, there's no need to despair as the entirety of Palomar* is available in three excellent softcover volumes, here.)
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.
Birth of A Nation	Aaron McGruder, Reginald Hudlin, Kyle Baker			$13.95 ($13.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This wonderful political satire is now available in an attractive affordable softcover edition. Here's what we had to say about the hardcover edition: "This is hands down the most entertaining and insightful political satire to grow out of the mess that was the 2000 presidential election. Check it out: Fred Fredericks, idealistic mayor of East St. Louis, rallies his fellow citizens to the polls only to have them become the victims of a trumped up, bogus, mass disenfranchisement. As a radical form of protest Fredericks -- with the assistance of shady black billionaire and old friend, John Roberts -- decides to have East St. Louis secede from the union. Roberts opens an "offshore" bank (albeit in the heart of the USA) et voilá East St. Louis becomes The Republic of Blackland, the new Switzerland! Soon idealistic young militants, OPEC-funded hitmen, CIA operatives, tabloid reporters and AWOL black servicemen eager to protect and serve the new nation arrive in swarms. As one might expect, problems arise almost immediately. There's some real serious food for thought here, along with a love story, whacky antics, male bonding and more! Highly recommended." And here's a few other notable opinions the book has garnered since then: "Birth of a Nation is the wickedly funny marriage of The Boondocks, House Party, and The Battle of Algiers. Be prepared to laugh yourself silly while repeating over and over again -- 'how true.'" -- Julian Bond, chairman NAACP "Birth of a Nation is a brilliant, biting and witty commentary on the chaos of the 2000 election. Hudlin and McGruder have achieved that rarest of things: a political satire that is also an extremely important and moving work of literature, an achievement for any writer or any artist at any time. Birth of a Nation is a unique event in the history of American literature." -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. "Reggie and Aaron are doing to comic books what Public Enemy and NWA did to the music business." -- Ice Cube While we agree with all these comments we feel that Kyle Baker is not given the props he deserves: for our money his is the greatest contribution of all. I mean let's get real for a minute here: after you've read this book, try imagining it drawn by Aaron McGruder himself; or, say, Denys Cowan, or Ho Che Anderson, or any of the other many talented African American cartoonists and comics artists out there.... You can't. Only Kyle could have pulled this one off. So wise up people and give credit where credit is due! Birth of a Nation is a masterpiece for our times. NOW OUT OF PRINT - WE ONLY HAVE A FEW LEFT!
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.
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."
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
Epileptic	David B.	Pantheon		$16.00 ($17.95 list)
Read more and comment...	by David B. This comics tour de force, one of the greatest graphic novels yet produced, is now available in a fine, French-flapped softcover edition that's a true value. To learn more, read our full review that accompanied the release of the hardcover edition.
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.)
A Drifting Life	Yoshihiro Tatsumi	Drawn and Quarterly		$25.00 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	OK, this is the one you've been waiting for! Eleven years in the making, a whopping 840 pages in length, A Drifting Life is the graphic memoir of one of the all-time manga greats. Over the last several years, Drawn and Quarterly has been assiduously releasing Tatsumi's classic gekiga, in which he pioneered a street savvy, morally ambiguous form of comics that thrived on grittier material and was more ambivalent about the post-war boom in Japan. A Drifting Life chronicles the years 1945 through 1960, during which the author -- who was born in 1935 -- came of age, discovered his artistic talent and entered the competitive (and combative) world of manga. Personally compelling, narratively engaging, artistically challenging, A Drifiting Life also provides an informative look at the manga industry during the critical post-WWII years. Not to be missed. Be sure to take a look at this PDF preview. retail price - $29.95 copacetic price - $25.00
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?
What It Is	Lynda Barry	Drawn and Quarterly		$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	It's here! What It is, the long awaited, all new, 208 page hardcover volume of heuristic metacomix by the one and only Lynda Barry, is both a beautiful and inspiring work of art and an insightful exploration of the creative process. Her first new work since her 2002 masterpiece, 100 Demons, What It Is uses the language of comics to probe the secrets of creativity itself, which leads her deep into the caverns of philosophy, where, ever the intrepid explorer, Ms. Barry undertakes an especially thorough excavation of the cave of epistemology. There in the murky darkness she discovers that memory and imagination blur and merge amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of our respective genetic heritages before condensing and collecting in placid prehistoric pools to mix with the ancient amoebas; in the process dissolving time itself. The past, present and future come together -- an instant and an eternity stand as one in the revelation that it all starts with... The Image! Lynda Barry, long considered among the major contemporary comics creators, has, with What It Is, taken comics to a new place and created a work that can stand shoulder to shoulder in the pantheon with those created by Frida Kahlo, Jean Michel Basquiat, and Hayao Miyazaki, to name but a few of her new peers. This book is full of surprises and delight. There's really only one thing to say about this book: "YES!!!" If you still need convincing, then feast your eyes on this amazing (lucky)13-page preview and/or read our full length review.
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.
The Walking Man	Jiro Taniguchi	Fanfare/Ponent Mon		$15.29 ($16.99 list)
Read more and comment...	This 160-page french-flapped softcover volume collects eighteen zen-like tales of the "man who walks." Reflective, insightful meditations on the modern, suburban condition, these stories embody the soul of manga. While the landscape through which our hero walks is indisputably Japanese, the stories told and the lessons learned on his brief treks are indisputably universal. Taniguchi has managed a unique feat here. The comics work in The Walking Man is stripped of all extraneous elements. There is a near total absence of narrative in the pieces collected in this volume. With extraneous temporal distractions removed, the pure essence of comics remains and we are left face to face with a direct, graphic communication of the here and now. These are comics that dig deep into the mind and trigger a panoply of sensations: the heat of the sun on one's back, a cool breeze along the side of one's face, the smell of flowers, the cold, creamy taste of ice-cream, the hard exertions of a fast run, the overall feel of the encroaching darkness, the sounds of children laughing, water flowing, a passing train... all these sensations and more are triggered by the series of images that the reader is presented with as the pages are turned and the walking man goes on his way. To get a better idea, check out this preview. Recommended. And then, at any time before, during or after reading The Walking Man, we also recommend that you read the essay that laid the foundation for the philosophy (or, at the very least, its American branch) that suffuses this work, "Walking" by Henry David Thoreau.
The Quest for the Missing Girl	Jiro Taniguchi	Fanfare/Ponent Mon		$22.22 ($25.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Here's an item that we've had in stock at the store for awhile now, but failed to give it the attention that it deserves. And so now, in emulation of this fine work's protagonist, Takeshi Shiga, we are coming down from our mountain refuge to set things straight. This work is as excellent a piece of craftmanship as you are likely to find anywhere in comics today. Let's just come right out and say it: Jiro Taniguchi is the man. Divided into a meticulously planned and expertly paced thirteen chapters, this book presents a classic story arc involving an archetypal man of honor repaying a debt. The archetype to which Shiga belongs falls into the same category as Wolverine™ and The Punisher™: that of the emotionally wounded male unable (or unwilling) to commit to a loving, reciprocal, sexual relationship but ready, willing and able to commit everything to a heroic task to compensate for this lack and so close the wound. Shiga's character, abilities and environs are, however, endowed with a far, far greater degree of verisimilitude than those of any character on display in corporate-owned American comics; not to mention the fact that his actions show him to be possessed of a significantly greater moral acuity and personal virtue. The narrative follows the well worn path – defined by Raymond Chandler sixty years ago, when he wrote, "(D)own these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid" – of the virtuous civilian soldier, personally above reproach, who pushes his way through the morass of a contemporary urban environment, wherein he must make his way over, under, around and/or through a wall of lies – erected by the inevitably corrupt powers-that-be with the self-serving purpose of maintaining their unjust and clearly exploitative control of the society they share with the hero – and thereby reach the truth and bring justice. The Quest for the Missing Girl is so close to a perfect realization of this particular form that we might want to consider it a material manifestation of its Platonic ideal in comics. Taniguchi's attention to detail is such that gaijin readers will receive the added bonus of being taken on what amounts to a guided tour through a cross section of Japan that will provide them with a greater understanding and appreciation of its topography, society and character. We're not in the business of spoiling the immense reading pleasure afforded by a work such as this, so we will refrain from revealing any of the plot particulars, prefering instead to offer our assurances that you will not be disappointed. And, while we would be the first to concur that today the term "graphic novel" primarily serves to promote the marketing of comics in bookstores, should this term ever manage to cohere into an actual literary form, we feel confident that The Quest for the Missing Girl will fit the bill. Anyone wanting to know how it's done need look no further, this is quest's end.
The Book of Genesis, Illustrated	R. Crumb	Norton		$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Yes, here it is: the most talked about book in comics. Five years at the drawing board hath wrought Crumb's own pen & ink rendering of the West's origin myth. Crumb, as he warned and as we would naturally expect, hasn't pulled any punches and has illustrated this tale as written, warts and all. Crumb says it best himself in his introduction: "I, R. Crumb, the illustrator of this book, have, to the best of my ability, faithfully reproduced every word of the original text... Every other comic book version of The Bible that I've seen contains passages of completely made-up narrative and dialogue, in an attempt to streamline and 'modernize' the old scriptures, and still, these various comic book Bibles all claim to adhere to the belief that the Bible is 'the word of God' or 'inspired by God,' whereas I, ironically, do not believe the Bible is 'the word of God.' I believe it is the words of men. It is, nonetheless, a powerful text with layers of meaning that reach deep into our collective consciousness, our historical consciousness, if you will. It seems to be an inspired work but I believe that its power derives from its having been a collective endeavor that evolved and condensed over many generations ..." Every line in this book is hand drawn. The only mechanical text is on the copyright page, the inside jacket flaps, and the commentary in the addendum. It's the Bible! It's a comic book! It's Crumb! It is, in short, amazing. Dive right in with this preview. Update: Due to R. "crotchety oldster or painstaking perfectionist - you decide!" Crumb's insistence that this book be printed exclusively on one, specific paper stock which is manufactured only once a month and in quantitities that are unable to meet the demand for this book, we have been having a hard time tracking down enough copies. However, we just received a nice restock, so we are once again offering our standard Copacetic discount!
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.
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?
The Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life and Death	Alison Bechdel, Jaime Hernandez, Todd Hignite	Abrams ComicArts		$34.00 ($40.00 list)
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...
Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary	Justin Green	McSweeney's		$26.00 ($29.00 list)
Read more and comment...	introduction by Art Spiegelman <<•>> We were a tad skeptical when we first got wind of this re-issue of one of the undisputed classics of the underground era of comics that it would justify its hefty price tag: but all of our doubts vanished as soon as this splediferous volume emerged from the box it arrived in. This is a fabulous, gilded and embossed hardcover edition that is a whopping 10" x 14" and reproduces the entire original classic comic book directly from the black & white, pen & ink original, using full color reproduction. What this means is that you can really see the original art in all its imperfect glory: white-out, blue pencil, inadvertent stains – all are clearly on display, rendering the creative process visible, and allowing the reader to really see the art that brought this major comics milestone into being. As for describing the work itself, we'll hand that job off to these highly esteemed commentators: "Justin Green – he's out of his mind. I love every stroke of his nervous pen, every tortured scratch he ever scrawled. He was among the top storytelling artists of the first wave of 'underground' comics, a darkly humorous social commentator, and the FIRST, absolutely the FIRST EVER cartoonist to draw highly personal autobiographical comics. Binky Brown started many other cartoonists along the same path, myself included." – R. Crumb <•> "With Binky Brown, comics went practically overnight from being an art form that saw from the outside in to one that sees from the inside out. (Justin Green's) internal struggle can practically be felt in the drawings themselves, the style sometimes changing from panel to panel – sometimes even within the panels themselves – all in a effort to simply arrive at The Truth. Comics wouldn't be what they are today without this book, and this new edition places it in its proper place in the comics literary canon. Thank God for Binky Brown. And thank God for Justin Green." – Chris Ware <•> "I like it very much but I don't get the slang." – Federico Fellini <•> Is there really anything more left to be said? If those endorsements don't sell you, nothing will!
Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules	Guy Davis, James Sturm	Marvel		$12.59 ($13.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Back in print at last, Unstable Molecules is one of the best graphic novels Marvel has produced... well, possibly, ever, but, to hedge our bets, let’s say, "in quite awhile." In any event, it is like nothing Marvel has ever produced in the past. It is a textual analysis of comics done in comics, and it is one of the finest ever produced -- certainly the finest ever produced by Marvel! It should be considered in the context of Understanding Comics and Hicksville as much as the Fantastic Four. Telling the "true" story of the "real people" that the Fantastic Four were based on, this book is a work of metacomics and a dream come true for students of narrative theory at the same time that it makes for an enormously entertaining read. It explodes the text rather than simply deconstructing it. This is a one of kind feat that will probably not be duplicated any time soon. PLEASE NOTE: We are currently sold out of the book collection, so we are in its place offering complete sets of the original hard-to-find four-issue limited series for the same price, while supplies last! Don't miss it this time!
Driven By Lemons	Joshua Cotter	AdHouse Books		$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	This book took us quite by surprise, as it will anyone who has read or is even familiar with Cotter's previous and best known work, Skyscrapers of the Midwest. Skyscrapers, was a widely lauded work which originally appeared in a series of comic books before being collected as a hardcover graphic novel. It presented a relatively straightforward tale in which fantasy intertwined with reality that hewed closely to narrative norms. In other words, it is a work that in no way prepares any of its readers for the free flowing stream that is Driven By Lemons. Cotter, along with Adhouse Books publisher, Chris Pitzer, have here created a book that is, by all appearances, a facsimile of Cotter's 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" hardcover Moleskine sketchbook (although it is highly unlikely that it is actually a true facsimile, the conceit that it is is important to its meaning – Hold on a second there! According to this interview [which comes complete with a lengthy manifesto-like preamble by Cotter] it actually is a facsimile of his sketchbook, and he planned it all out in advance.). While some of the work it contains will be clearly recognizable to readers of Cotter's earlier work, most boldly charts new territory. In a nutshell, Driven By Lemons is a shining example of self-discovery through sketchbooking. Clearly, something has changed in Cotter's life since he completed Skyscrapers, and as he tried to adapt to his new environment – physical, emotional, psychological, or some combination of these – he kept a record of his travails in his sketchbook, tried to cohere it into some sort of narrative, and Driven By Lemons is the result. There is some truly adventurous comics work here; you can feel the inspiration. Make sure to crack this one open and take a look.
Hicksville	Dylan Horrocks	Drawn and Quarterly		$17.77 ($19.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Here at Copacetic Comics, we've long been fond of calling Hicksville "The Watchmen of small press comics." This is useful in that practically all comics readers are familiar with and have positive associations with The Watchmen, and we feel that Hicksville is a similarly ambitious, successful and important work, and so is one that we like to draw attention to, and comparing it to The Watchmen is a cheap and easy way to do so. Whether or not this is a good, right or fair thing to say in regards to to the themes and content of the respective works, we're not going to try to defend. The comparison's validity rests more on a historical point in that both are works whose central narratives, in addition to telling engaging stories, simultaneously serve to deconstruct the basis of the genres they are working in. For Watchmen it is that of the superhero, for Hicksville it is the genre of autobio comics and its rise out of the world of comics fandom. Now, back in print after a two-year hiatus, this new edition of Hicksville is, we feel, likely to be the definitive one, as everything about it feels just right. Most especially the significant addition of an all new, all comics introduction by Horrocks that he himself states (in this quite-worthy-of-reading Publisher's Weekly interview) is "one of the most frank and personal things I've ever drawn." This introduction is an important minor work in its own right and puts the proverbial icing on the cake of this seminal volume (preview it here). So, for any and all Copacetic customers who have yet to experience this comics masterwork, we say: now is the time.
American Splendor Presents Bob & Harv's Comics	R. Crumb, Harvey Pekar	Thunder's Mouth Press	American Splendor	$9.99 ($16.00 list)
Read more and comment...	What's new about this one is the price. We are now able to offer this classic 1996 volume that collects the entirety of R. Crumb's contributions to Harvey Pekar's trailblazing comics series at an amazing low price that we hope will be a boon to all of those who are watching their wallet yet have their eyes out for high quality comics. It really doesn't get much better than these titanic team-ups. These are the comics that put American Splendor on the map and transformed Harvey Pekar from just another working schmoe to an icon of the independent artistic spirit that inheres to the American working class. Yowza! Anyone who hasn't managed to get around to reading these yet is in for a real treat, and even those that have may want the chance to savor them yet again (and again, and again...). RECOMMENDED! Preview it, here.
Locas II	Jaime Hernandez	Fantagraphics	Love and Rockets	$33.99 ($39.99 list)
Read more and comment...	418 pages of the greatest comics of our time under one cover. This volume picks up, roughly, where Locas left off, and collects nearly all the standard comic book size formatted work that Jaime has executed since the conclusion of the original 50-issue run of the magazine size formatted Love and Rockets. Locas II bring together under one cover all six issues of the Penny Century series along with Jaime's contributions to the first nineteen issues of the twenty-issue run of the second volume of Love and Rockets. Not everything from this period is here, however. The most notable exclusion is the first work Jaime completed after the termination of L&R, vol. I, the three-issue mini-series, Whoa, Nellie! As it was only tangentially connected to the Locas storyline, it is not collected here. Also not included are numerous short strips – mostly one or two pages in length – that appeared in the aforementioned issues of Penny Century and L&R, vol. II, but are not related to the Locas continuity, as well as the full color, novella length work that originally appeared (slightly abridged) in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and subsequently appeared in Love and Rockets, Volume II #20. (Completists take note!) That said, what you are getting is a big book filled with the best of the best, all laid out in a mammoth narrative arc that continues to build on the magnificent structure of past work in creating the most richly complex and deeply human work in the history of comics.
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!
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.
Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea	George McManus	IDW Publishing	Library of American Comics	$44.44 ($49.95 list)
Read more and comment...	McManus is a Copacetic Favorite and one of the all time greats, the founder of the (co-opted by the Europeans) Ligne Claré (clear line to us Yanks) school of art now most closely associated with Hergé. All hail the Library of American Comics series currently being published by IDW for not only bringing this classic strip to a new generation of readers, but for producing in the process what might very well be the best single collection of the work of George McManus ever released! This collection presents several distinct continuities – including what may be the single most famous, the cross country tour (that includes a stop in, you guessed it, Pittsburgh, PA) – all from the glory days of the strip: the late 1930s - early 1940s. Humor abounds in the domestic comedy plot lines that both prefigured and influenced the sit-com format that has been a staple of television programming from the days of I Love Lucy through to The Simpsons: all these shows have roots in Bringing Up Father. But the true joy of this strip is in the quality of the line. The comics heir to the high value placed on line by the fin de siclé Art Nouveau movement – as well as the Art Deco movement that came in its wake – McManus, along with – during the latter part of his career – his able assistant Zeke Zekley, crafted a drawing technique that provided all necessary visual information in the outline -- no messy cross-hatching, shading or chiaroscuro for these guys – no! – just a clear, precise line, thank you. McManus was a true comics original and hugely influential. The work of artists as diverse as Carl Barks and Joost Swarte, and many others in between, show the strong stamp of McManus's artistic influence. You owe it to yourself to at least take a look at the work of this master, and, with the fine choice of work, excellent reproduction, and copious historical material, this volume is the clear and obvious place to start.

books

Title	Author	Publisher	Price
The Way of Chuang Tzu	Thomas Merton, Chuang Tzu	Shambhala	$11.75 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The writings of Chuang Tzu are the most rigorous classic articulations of Taoist thought, which had its beginnings with the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu. Taoism is, perhaps, the system of thought second only to Confucianism in defining the history and culture of Chinese civilization. In Merton's "readings" (which are his interpretations based on an assemblage of the then [1965] best available Western translations by China scholars), these brief but powerful texts become quite accessible to Western thought. Thomas Merton -- whose name at least should be familiar to Pittsburgh area residents through the work of the much lauded Thomas Merton Center -- was a Trappist monk and an important author in his own right, as his eloquent introduction to this volume makes abundantly clear. Merton's translation manages to successfully pull Chaung Tzu's thought through the difficult east/west mind-barrier and present contemporary American readers with 2500 year old writing that often seems uncannily appropriate to the tenor of our times. His introduction draws our attention to surprising parallels between these writings and those of the New Testament that, if more widely appreciated, could go a long way towards deepening the dialogue between east and west that, because of the spectacular growth of the Chinese economy and its integration into the global economy, becomes of more importance with each passing day. The Way of Chuang Tzu is a tastfully designed compact sturdy clothbound hardcover edition from the Shambala Library that is printed and bound in Germany, and comes with its own sewn in bookmark. A book that's suitable for a lifetime's worth of consultation that's built to last. We recently discovered a cache of these that we can offer at a great low price. Give the gift of eternal wisdom. We give his volume our highest recommendation.
Romare Bearden in Black-and-White: Photomontage Projections 1964	Gail Gelburd, Thelma Golden, Albert Murray	Whitney Museum	$15.75 ($17.50 list)
Read more and comment...	Romare Bearden in Black-and-White is the catalogue of a show mounted by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997. The show traveled for two years and made it as close to Pittsburgh as the Trout Gallery at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. The book contains an essay by each of the authors along with the transcript of a conversation between Ms. Gelburd and Albert Murray. Each of the essays combines a social-historical context for understanding the milieu out which the work emerged with an art-historical appreciation of the nature and degree of Bearden’s achievement, with Ms. Gelburd’s concentrating on the former while Ms. Golden’s is weighted toward the latter. The often fascinating conversation with Mr. Murray focuses on his theories relating to the centrality of ritual to art, and his inferences of Bearden’s own thoughts on ritual arising both from his friendship with Bearden and from the works themselves. It was, in fact, Murray who provided the phrase, "The Prevalence of Ritual," that has become closely associated with Bearden's work. Please click on the image at left to read our full length review.
Little Kingdoms	Steven Millhauser		$4.95
Read more and comment...	The lead story in this collection of three novellas by America's reigning master of the form, "The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne" is an amazing tour de force for which the life and work of Winsor McCay serves as a springboard into a hallucinatory trip inside the mind of a powerful and obsessive creativity. We believe that this work stands to be especially appreciated by comics aficionados, and as we just secured a large quantity of the UK edition at a special price (and as the US edition is now, while not, technically, out of print, available only in a print-on-demand edition) we felt it was appropriate to bring it to our customers' attention at this time. The two additional novellas that fill out this volume are every bit as original, unique and intense: "The Princecss, the Dwarf and the Dungeon" is a magnificent deconstruction of the fairy tale that reveals its origins and functions -- social as well as psychological; and "Catalogue of the Exhibition: The Art of Edmund Moorash (1810 - 1846)" is one of the most singular works in the annals of fiction -- a turbulently romantic tale presented in the form of, as the title has it, the catalogue for an exhibition of paintings. Recommended!
Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s	Ann Douglas	Noonday Press	$12.00 ($15.00 list)
Read more and comment...	This volume comes as close as any one book can to first uncovering and then diagraming the myriad ways which, in New York City, during the 1920s, the United States of America created and then defined a new way of organizing the intellectual civilization that apprehends the reality of our world. Up until this point the reality of the west that the United States saw itself as a part of had been built up through a gradual accretion of intellectual developments over the centuries in the "old world"-- primarily, but certainly not exclusively, Europe. A definitive break was made in the wake of the First World War, after which, as this book demonstrates, the "new world" of the United States forged ahead on its own, and Manhattan was the crucible of this transformation. The foundation of the United States had been constructed out of those elements of what its founders and guides perceived as best in contemporary, Christian, and classical European civilization, with, naturally enough, a large bias towards its British component. At the conclusion of WWI, however, the US found itself ascendant if not actually dominant in the western world and while the center of political power in the US was, of course, Washington, the cultural capital was unquestionably Manhattan, and it was here that, emboldened by their nation’s nascent position of growing power, a new way of being was erected upon this foundation that was carved out of the essence of America. And within the cultural sphere at that particular historical juncture nothing was more essentially American than the African-American culture that had risen in Harlem. Douglas demonstrates time and time again in the pages of Terrible Honesty that a key element in distinguishing American culture from European was-- and by extension clearly continues to be-- America’s inclusion of its African cultural heritage, whether intentionally or, as was more likely-- at least at first-- unconsciously. And let's not forget the epochal ninety page bibliographical essay that concludes the volume. It puts the knowledge of the ages at your fingertips. Read this and you're good to go. Terrible Honesty is -- or at least so we argue -- one of the most significant books of cultural history of our times, don't miss it!
Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943 - 1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright	Steven Millhauser	Vintage Books	$10.80 ($12.00 list)
Read more and comment...	Whether the point of this novel is to show us the adult that lies latent in the child or to reveal to us the child that the adult never manages to quite fully outgrow is a question that is difficult if not fruitless to answer. What is certain, however, is that the novel Edwin Mullhouse is brilliantly conceived. It is also shockingly well written, replete with uncannily accurate descriptions of childhood perceptions that can at times be overwhelmingly sympathetic. It is at turns funny, sad, insightful, and even profound; but above all else, it is deeply creepy: It reveals -- almost imperceptibly at first, but then slowly, incrementally, the inertia builds, like a snowball rolling down the hill of your neighborhood cemetery -- the dark, lurking, unconscious desires that shadow what we might otherwise simply take to be our bright, waking, thoughtful acts. >> Read our full length review by clicking on the image at left.
The Amazing Continuity: The Drawings of Stuart Davis	Lewis Kachur, Stuart Davis, Karen Wilken	Abrams	$22.22 ($24.95 list)
Read more and comment...	*The Amazing Continuity* provides an engaging introduction to the life and works of Stuart Davis, but it will be more truly valued by those already familiar with his work who would like to increase their appreciation of it, for it is in the material presented here -- in Davis’s drawings, sketchbooks, and notebooks -- that we get the most intimate look at the mind of the artist. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name organized by the American Federation of Arts that toured the US from 1992 through 1994, The Drawings of Stuart Davis covers the entire length of Davis’s career: from 1909 pencil sketches of industry amidst domesticity through to his casein on paper roughs of the early 1960s. As with any overview of Davis, you can’t help but get caught up in watching his development unfold. The transitional developments are especially apparent in some of the drawings and studies for his paintings that are contained in this volume.
Who Needs Donuts?	Mark Alan Stamaty		$15.25 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Stamaty’s cult masterpiece is now back in print after a thirty year hiatus, in a beautifully produced hardcover edition. Once you start looking at this book, it's really hard to stop. You just get sucked in. The appeal of this book lies in the neural connections between the eyes and the brain and the hand that draws, it’s pretty hard to explain... but those who are already familiar with Stamaty’s work from his many-year run on Washingtoons in the Village Voice, and, more recently, his endpage strip in the New York Times Book Review, Boox, will know what we’re talking about. This is technically a kids’ book -- and kids will dig it, especially those hyper-brainy types (this is the perfect book to save them from a life of video-game addiction before it’s too late), and was more than likely an inspiration to Martin Handford, the creator of the Where’s Waldo series as well as the team responsilbe for the I Spy book series -- but it will, perhaps, be most appreciated by obsessive-compulsive adults -- you can be sure that Ben Katchor has this book in his personal library. The level of detail in the drawings that fill this book has to be seen to be believed. Furthermore, it is not just detail, but detail with an agenda, and that agenda can perhaps best be summed up in the phrase, "reality is what you make it." Reality as Stamaty makes it, is, more than likely, not reality as seen by you or I, but Who Needs Donuts makes us realize that it doesn't have to be that way, that the possibilities are only limited by our imaginations. We really recommend this one!
The Brief Wondrous LIfe of Oscar Wao	Junot Diaz		$12.75 ($14.00 list)
Read more and comment...	What can you say about a book that opens with a Galactus quote from Fantastic Four #49, drops more comics references -- particularly to the classics of the 1980s -- than any novel we've ever read, clearly shows the influence of Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar stories, AND won the Pulitzer Prize for best novel of 2007? We'd say, "This is a must read! Particularly suitable for fans of Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and, although, perhaps, to a slightly lesser degree, of Michael Chabon's (also Pulitzer Prize winning) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." And then we'd add: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a gigantic meditation on the inner life of the fanboy. Its subject is disguised in some ways and blatant in others, but it is on every level derived from and is filled with insights into the role that comics and its partners in geekdom -- SF & fantasy, videogaming, role playing, etc -- play in bearing the costs of the sins of the world, especially those sins of the father (figurative as well as literal) that are visited on the son. Clearly, most readers won't see it in this light to the same degree, but we feel compelled to harp on it as this book won the Pulitzer, and while its author, Junot Díaz, is clearly chock full of talent and developed a strong and engaging voice that made the novel a pleasure to read, and of course deserves all the credit for putting pen to paper and creating it, it owes its key insights to comics -- especially to Gilbert Hernandez, from whom he derived his narrative strategy, but also to Chris Ware (whom he intriguingly neglects to give any props to [unless we missed them], perhaps indicating a guilty conscience?) for providing the central insights into the soul of the fanboy. From these two he derived the deep structures that underpin the entire work, but its surface is peppered ceaselessly throughout with references to comics (and Tolkein, science fiction, etc.) and as a whole provides yet another example of how comics and other narrative sources of fantasy have infiltrated American culture at level after level (and in the context of this novel, it is fairly explicit that America should be considered the entirety of the "new world," extending outside of the borders of the USA). It's a fascinating fact that California, which became home to the dream factory par excellence, was named after a fictional land depicted in a Spanish novel which was at the height of its popularity when this land was first claimed by Spain, indicating the inextricable bonds between fantasy, reality and history. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao continues this long-running tradition.
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever	James Tiptree Jr.	Tachyon Publications	$13.55 ($15.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is a moment we've been waiting for for quite awhile. In our opinion, the least appreciated and most misunderstood science fiction writer of modern times, James Tiptree, Jr. (the nom de plume of Alice Sheldon) is a writer of breathtaking originality who is still ahead of her time, nearly twenty years after her death. That all of her work -- with the exception of a single "loose ends" collection that was published three years ago -- has been out of print for years is, in our opinion, a negligence that borders on the criminal. Thankfully ("Thank you, Tachyon Publications, thank you."), this situation has now come to an end with the release of this 508 page volume, a paperback re-issue of the posthumous Arkham House collection which has to stand as the best single-volume edition of her work ever released, putting together eighteen of her most penetrating and insightful stories, all of which were originally published between 1969 and 1981. Click on the image to discover the contents of this volume and learn more in our full-length review of this essential classic. Recommended!
Despite Everything: A Cometbus Anthology	Aaron Cometbus	Last Gasp	$15.25 ($16.95 list)
Read more and comment...	Review by Frankie Sirk <<<•>>> Those of you who know about Cometbus can understand how amazing it is that Last Gasp has published an anthology of Aaron’s best work. To me, it represents a passing of the torch, the old ringing in the new, a continuation of the San Francisco Bay area press. I think it is also a show of respect between two unique and original underground publishing forces. And really it’s just an amazing and truly enjoyable book to read. Those of you who don’t know about Cometbus, well, you’re in for a treat. I can tell you that this collection presents a rare opportunity to study the birth, growing pains, wasted youth and early old age of an incredible culture that most people have only heard about through mainstream media sources. Cometbus is a fanzine that has transcended its own label and even its own ambitions. Inspired by punk rock magazines of the late 70s, a teenaged Aaron began to edit and publish his own fanzine in order to add his own voice, and document the bay area music scene that he found himself participating in. A junkpile of ideas, Cometbus was refreshing in that it abandoned the general formula of record review, band interviews and the like. Acting mostly as an editor, Aaron crafted a remarkably original mag full of features focused on what didn’t even enter into most people’s peripheral vision, let alone center stage; things like dumpster diving, kids’ cereal reviews, and small time scams like how to reroute your one-way Greyhound ticket into a round-trip cross country bonanza--free of charge! Over the years Cometbus began to introduce more fiction pieces from its contributors and Aaron began to turn his rambling travel journals into digestible short stories. This is where Cometbus really began to take off and go beyond any expectations that were set up by the early issues. Aaron’s writing became sharp and quick yet subtle and tender- a counterpoint to the music he and his friends were documenting. I remember thinking then that-- finally!-- here was a voice that I could trust. He wrote stories that spoke to me and used my language, our language. He wrote about things, places, concerns, even people that I knew. Yet somehow he was able to make it-- write it-- in a way that didn’t seem insular or elitist. He wants his comrades to get his point, but he also wants his neighbor, the old guy with the cats to get it too. And that is why I think Aaron is one of the most valuable of young writers working today. He’s concerned with his milieu, but he also sees the big picture. Personally, I don’t know many youthful voices who do both and do it well. Aaron’s writing is about telling all the old stories with a new cast of characters. It isn’t about being clever and toying with the medium. Straight forward honesty is at work here, like Bob Dylan’s best songs or the Ramones’ first album. Cometbus holds a special place in the hearts of its readers because it is one of the few underground voices that hasn’t allowed itself to be watered down and filtered though bigger, generally corporate outfits. Aaron’s stories have appeared in other underground magazines and newspapers, but never in, say, the Utne Reader, Granta, or the New Yorker. At the end of Despite Everything Aaron addresses his botched and bungled dealings with publishers and magazines, including a hilarious episode with an editor from Harper’s. To put it simply, Aaron didn’t sell out when he had the chance back in the mid-90s. By teaming up now with Ron Turner’s Last Gasp-- the publisher and distributor which figured prominently in the birth of the underground comics movement, and has been at or near the center of the US underground press ever since-- Aaron has anchored his work to a strong counter-cultural tradition, and by doing so has simultaneously enabled this tradition to affirm its commitment to the next generation. Last Gasp’s decision to publish Despite Everything combined with Aaron’s choice to allow it to be published by someone other than himself is quite an event. I really think it embodies a changing of the guard: Ron Turner and Last Gasp have recognized that Cometbus is in fact the new regime-- the new model of the underground press. Despite everything, this anthology has found its way into print and onto the shelves of the Copacetic Comics Company. I can’t recommend it highly enough: It is truly indispensable. A real cup of coffee. No decaf.

dvds

Title	Director	Publisher	Price
Wild Palms	Phil Joanou, Peter Hewitt, Keith Gordon, Kathryn Bigelow, Bruce Wagner (writer)	MGM	$17.77
Read more and comment...	Without doubt one of the most singularly unusual television shows in the history of the medium, Wild Palms (obliquely referencing the Faulkner novel from which its title is taken) is an ultra-paranoid political thriller that takes place in world clearly reminiscent of David Lynch, whose own unique foray into television, Twin Peaks, concluded its broadcast two years before this was aired in 1993 and was an obvious inspiration for the dream like ambience on display here. It is important to keep Lynch in mind when watching this series, the 6-episode entirety of which is available on this low priced two-disc DVD, to fully appreciate and enjoy it. Like Lynch's work, Wild Palms is not overly worried about verisimilitude. That the action is supposed to take place in the year 2007 adds to the fun of watching it today. To read our full length review, click on the image at left.
Juliet of the Spirits (Giulietta delgi Spiriti)	Federico Fellini	Criterion Collection	$25.95 ($29.95 list)
Read more and comment...	The most lushly beautiful and haunting of all of Fellini's films, the climax of Federico Fellini's artistic collaboration with his life-long partner, actress Giulietta Masina, an experience that can never be forgotten, Juliet of the Spirits is now available on DVD from the Criterion Collection! In Juliet of the Spirits, the processes involved in identity formation -- specifically those that involve the family dynamic and religious aspirations -- are shown to involve spirits of the past which, while they typically are encountered during the process of "growing up" as the values which are transmitted through the generations, are more real than that and manifest themselves in a variety of other ways. While these processes occur primarily during childhood and adolescence, they continue throughout adult life as well; although most adults seem oblivious to this fact -- but not Giulietta! She is open to the life of the spirit world, and by being so is able to come to terms with her existence. Juliet of the Spirits is a film of intense self-discovery: the layers of illusion and self-delusion peel away one after another as slowly but surely the film makes its way to the core of human being, leading finally to a profoundly satisfying conclusion that frees the individual to face the future on her own terms.
Absolute Beginners	Julien Temple	MGM	$12.77 ($14.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is one of the most overlooked films of the 1980s. An absolute masterpiece, Absolute Beginners attempted the impossible: to single-handedly revive the Hollywood musical, and from England, no less! While, clearly, it did not achieve the impossible, you can, if you try, trace a line from this film that goes slowly-but-surely, step by step, straight through to Moulin Rouge, and, more recently, Across the Universe and a generally more favorable environment for flashy, spectacular cinéma entertainments that, Lord knows, we could all use more of these days. This is a film where, clearly, everyone involved gave their all, and everything fell into place, just right. Click on the box to read our full length review.
By Brakhage	Stan Brakhage	Criterion Collection	$35.00 ($39.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is it! The definitive Brakhage DVD collection. Two DVD set includes the films: The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes Black Ice Cat’s Cradle Commingled Containers Crack Glass Eulogy The Dante Quartet The Dark Tower Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse Desistfilm Dog Star Man Eye Myth For Marilyn The Garden of Earthly Delights I…Dreaming Kindering Love Song Mothlight The Stars are Beautiful Stellar Study in color and Black and White Three hand-painted films: •Nightmusic •Rage Net •Glaze of Cathexis Wedlock House: An Intercourse Window Water Baby Moving The Wold Shadow New high-definition digital transfers of all films, approved by Stan Brakhage Interview with the filmmaker Essay by Brakhage expert Fred Camper Film Info 243 minutes Color/Black and white 1.33:1 Dolby Digital Mono 1.0 Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition To learn more about Stan Brakhage, the films that he has made, and his writings on film and other topics, the best web resource is Fred Camper's Stan Brakhage on the Web.
Lost Highway	David Lynch	Focus International	$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	The final (major) piece in the puzzle of the Lynchian oeuvre is at last in place. Employing the great American metaphor of driving -- in a highly coded manner that takes one bizarrely twisted turn after another -- Lost Highway shows us the innermost workings of a psyche (in more ways than one, Lynch's own) that failed to successfully navigate the transition from childhood to adulthood and so remains trapped in a state of traumatized adolescence where identity remains in a constant state of transitional flux and the real and the imagined are never far apart. Or something like that. Not to mention the cool soundtrack. Get creeped out, freaked out, wigged out and more!
Titus	Julie Taymor		$17.77 ($24.98 list)
Read more and comment...	With Titus, Julie Taymor proves herself to be one of the very few film directors to successfully employ the visual vocabulary invented by Italian Film Director Federico Fellini and make it speak to her own concerns. That she did so while simultaneously wedding it to the vocabulary, aims and genius of Shakespeare makes this film a truly spectacular achievement. Click on image to read our full review of this amazing film. Recommended!
Last Year at Marienbad	Alain Resnais	Criterion Collection	$34.95 ($39.98 list)
Read more and comment...	directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet w/ Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi <<<•>>> There are few truly one-of-a-kind films. By any measure, Last Year at Marienbad is clearly one of them. A film that is successful like none other in recreating a mental landscape, that shows the inner workings of a restless mind and haunted memory, that employs the language of cinema to probe the interior twists and turns of consciousness, that demonstrates how thought is action in a manner that, while tempermentally quite different from, may yet be considered the most successful translation of the Proustian approach to narrative in any film yet realized. Here, in L'année dernière à Marienbad, like in Á la recherche du temps perdue, we are confronted with a life turned inside out. Robbe-Grillet, Resnais & Co. managed a feat that has yet to be repeated, and now we are presented with the – for now – definitive DVD edition, courtesy of The Criterion Collection (who else?). This is a two-disc edition with some interesting and worthwhile extras – including two short Resnais documentaries from 1956 & 1958 – but all pale next to the glory of the restored high-definition transfer of the film itself. Your film education is incomplete until you've seen this film. And this is also one film that can quite decidedly stand up to repeated viewings, as its aesthetic pleasures and intellectual challenges are not easily exhausted.
Eureka	Nicolas Roeg	MGM	$17.77 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	Eureka is our candidate for the single least appreciated film of all time. This film, the crowning achievement of 1970s auteur Nicolas Roeg (Performance, The Man Who Fell to Earth), so baffled the powers that be at United Artists that they sat on it for years before finally deciding... not to release it! With the exception of a single print, which showed briefly in NYC, LA and Toronto, it never saw the light of a North American movie projector bulb. (It may have played Europe, however) It sat on the shelves for years more, before grudgingly being transferred to video, where it was released to zero fanfare and disappeared. Now, at last it’s on DVD, and the story repeats itself. The company that owns this film simply has no idea what it has. The film is, admittedly, extremely difficult to define and describe, but, hey, we’re going to try. And yes, it wouldn’t be overly difficult to make the case that Roeg himself got lost while making it, but, y’know, we’re not. Read our long description to see what lengths we will go to defend this film.
The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Collector's Edition Mega-Set	Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin	A & E	$59.95 ($159.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	Copacetic Comics is amazed to present our second Depression Buster Bargain™: ••>> A mind-boggling box of 21 discs featuring just about everything ever produced for television under the aegis of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and then some, at an equally mind-boggling price! The complete series, three live films, one German television show, six personal best shows, two NEW documentary films and bonus galore! What can we say about Monty Python that hasn't been said before? Taking the angsty absurdity of post-WWII European existentialists across the English channel and then running it through the Goon Show grinder, and, via American ex-pat and former Harvey Kurtzman underling,Terry Gilliam, adding a touch of Mad, the Python posse somehow stumbled on a secret formula involving a heretofore unseen combination of startlingly original format, style and sense of humor that gave birth to a once in a lifetime television experience that is now available at what may be a once in a lifetime price. Perfect timing, we say. Read the long description for more details.
La Dolce Vita - Deluxe Collector's Edition	Federico Fellini	Koch Lorber	$39.95 ($79.95 list) OUT OF STOCK!
Read more and comment...	(1960) directed by Federico Fellini • starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg & Anouk Aimée • Here it is: Indisputably one of the greatest films of all time, the film that captured a fleeting moment in time and yet defined not only an era but a state of mind, Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita is now available on DVD. This is the film that pinpointed once and for all the transformation that movies -- Hollywood movies initially, but all of cinema ultimately -- have wrought upon the human soul. We are now all actors in a film, we view are own lives as cinematic spectacles to fulfilled, we are all dying to live la dolce vita. And here we have the definitive DVD edition, completely restored and remastered. You can take it from us – Koch-Lorber have done a terrific job here; at least as good as Criterion in this regard: the image is clean and crisp, the contrast is perfectly calibrated and the sound is sharp. And this 3-disc deluxe edition is loaded with bonus features galore, which you can read abot by clicking on the image at left.
By Brakhage, Volume 2	Stan Brakhage	Criterion Collection	$34.95 ($39.98 list)
Read more and comment...	By Brakhage, Volume 2 << • >> Here we have it: a whopping seven and a half hours of work by the undisputed master of independent American experimental cinema, selected by his widow, Marilyn Brakhage, and expertly transferred to digital media by the Criterion Collection Crew. While most movie-goers have never even heard of him, it's hard to over-estimate Brakhage's impact on the history of film. Beginning in the 1950s, he opened up a whole new way of thinking about and working with film. It could be said (and so, we will) that what Einstein was to Newton in the realm of physics, Brakhage was to Eisenstein in the realm of film. Learn quite a bit about what's on this 3-disc set by reading this in-depth essay by Ms. Brakhage.

cds

Title	Artist	Publisher	Price
Approximate Hellhound vs The Monkey Demon	Reid Paley Trio	Metaphor Rhythms	$11.77 ($14.98 list)
Read more and comment...	Approximate Hellhound, the arrival of which has been highly anticipated by the Copacetic Comics Co., is now standing tall on our trusty CD rack. Listening to this disc for the first time is an experience akin to that of suddenly realizing that the movie you inadvertently ended up watching at three in the morning has you riveted, and you find yourself thinking that it is the most amazing thing you've ever seen. The ten tracks on this disc flow like a conversation, each one picking up where the other left off, generating a persuasive musical argument that drives its train of thought to the end of the line. Our favorites include: "Take What You Want," an R & B rocker that has been covered by Frank Black and the Catholics; "Everything Is Going Wrong (& That's Alright)," a song for our times if ever there was one; "Better Days," the masterful centerpiece of the record, is a paradoxical work that pulls off something that we would not have thought possible if we hadn't heard it with our own ears -- managing to be simultaneously mournful and triumphant (you try it); "Someday I'll Be Okay," is a song that delivers a frisson unavailable from any other vendor; and, finally, the closer, "Stay Awhile," an anthem that one can well imagine receiving heavy play on Sisyphus's iPod. So, what are you waiting for?
Laughing In Rhythm	Slim Gaillard	Proper Records	$29.75 ($33.95 list)
Read more and comment...	This is it: The ideal antidote to these trying times. Slim’s wit, style, charm, and grace will make the world vout oroonee in no time. As with all Proper Boxes, this one includes 4 CDs packed to the limit (102 tracks total!) for over 5 hours of music -- all remastered in the UK at the highest possible standards for music recorded during this period -- and a 44 page booklet containing a comprehensive history of Slim's career along with fab photos, old ads, record labels, and, best of all, complete track by track annotation -- where you’ll note the appearances of Slam Stewart, Ben Webster, Zutty Singleton, Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker among many others -- along with a bountiful biographical career history by the all-knowing Joop Visser. All this for the copacetic price of only $29.75! How!?!?!
King Louis	Proper Box 93: Louis Armstrong	Proper Records	$29.75
Read more and comment...	99 Tracks of absolute greatness. This is the music that defines the twentieth century, that once and for all distinguished the unique and original culture of The New World from that of its Old World forebears. Louis Armstrong changed the face of music and the music he created changed history. His career is nothing short of miraculous. No self-respecting American can be ignorant of the music contained on this set: it's the real declaration of independence. Finally, this music gets the Proper Box treatment: Five hours of music on four discs, each enclosed in their own LP-style jacket, accompanied by an informative 40-page illustrated booklet, all packed in a stylish, compact box for the copacetic price of only $29.75!
Handful of Keys	"Fats" Waller	Proper Records	$29.75 ($33.95 list)
Read more and comment...	YES!!! At last it has come to pass: Fats Waller gets the Proper treatment. More than any insurance policy, the music of Fats Waller will keep you sleeping safe and sound, knowing that you have bullet-proof protection from the blues. It's simply impossible to be down when Fats is on: He'll turn your frown upside-down. Of all the great personalities of jazz, Fats is -- aside from Louis Armstrong -- probably the greatest. Fats would be a legend just for his mastery of the keyboard with which he launched his career, but he has so much more to offer. He crafted a true persona which he then donned for each and every performance. And what performances! Fats was the very embodiment of entertainment. And finally, there's the songs themselves. While Fats could take practically any tin-pan alley tune -- like, for example, My Very Good Friend the Milkman -- and transform it into a timeless classic, he also happened to be one of the greatest song writers of all times. He brought a jazz sensibility to show tunes and a show tune sensibility to jazz. Some, like Ain't Misbehavin', have become standards, interpreted over and over again by cats of all colors, able to be made fresh each time. Others, like Squeeze Me, belong to Fats alone. The people of Proper Records really had their work cut out for them with this one: how do you bring the whole of Fats when you have a mere four CDs? It's painful to leave out even one timeless classic! Handful of Keys proves once again why Proper Records is the reigning champion of classic jazz packages: On 100 big tracks, Fats is here in all his glory, from his early days as keyboard prodigy to his final blazing days of songmanship. This is a set that will bring a lifetime of enjoyment. If Fats isn't part of your life, then, man, you ain't livin'! As with all Proper Box sets, this one contains five hours of music mastered with the jazz EQ in mind by people who know what they're doing, and comes complete with a 48 page career overview and appreciation by the Mr. Know-It-All of classic jazz, Joop Visser, and, to top it all off, a complete track by track breakdown of who played what on each and every song as well as when and where it was recorded. It's a proper deal! Here's the complete track listing and discography.
Blood From Stars	Joe Henry	Anti-	$15.97 ($17.98 list)
Read more and comment...	Another impossibly good album from the one and only Joe Henry. Amazingly, you can listen to the entire LP online at his site, HERE (Just click on "Launch MP3 player to listen"). And while you're listening to it, you can take a moment to read the note he penned on the day of its release, HERE. And, please note that both the package and booklet covers feature photographs taken by Eugene Smith in Pittsburgh, PA during his epic Dream Street project of 1955-56.

Mon - Thu	11 - 5
Fri & Sat	11 - 7
Sun	12 - 4