Unreal City is D.J. Bryant's first solo book (that we are aware of). Some Copacetic customers willbe familiar with the secondstory in this collection, as it originally appeared in MOME #19. This 21 pagestory, "Evelyn Dalton-Hoyt", is his brutally brilliant re-envisionment of "Driven to Destruction" by Steve Ditko (which, for all you comics collectors and scholars out there, isin the February 1972 [V.2#4]issue ofHaunted, from Charlton),in which an explicit (very) sexual subtext for the characters is supplied by Bryant's vivid imagination and conveyed through hishigh octane pencilling and inking, the combination of which may generate a...

An epic, hallucinatory journey that while physically set in South Africa, embarks from a place of alienation and detachment and travels throughdark and confusing psychological spaces – often viathe useof various psychoactive drugs – to arrive at an unexpected series of destinations, Highbone Theaterprovidesa comics trip like no other to anyreader adventurous enough to climb aboard.Imagine, if you will, a very Charles Burnsian narrative in which dream and reality, imagination and perception, delusion and conception, fiction, fantasy and rumination are all inextricably bound together into an irreducible mass. Then imagine it featuring a cast...

Creator of the critically acclaimed Sabrina, Nick Drnaso's highly anticipated new graphic novel,Acting Class, has arrived. In the 248 full color, flat, heavyweight, off-white pages of this hardcover volume, role playing and reality mix it up in the shared headspace of a group of adults who are drawn to the idea of inhabiting new characters as a reult of difficulties in their own lives. Almost immediately, the destabilizing effects of the acting lessons set the stage for the dissolution of borders between actor and role and an ever increasing sense of disorientation.

Set in a world in which all forms of remote communication are quite...

FROM THE ARCHIVES | ONE solid second hand copy

When it comes to artfully integrating book design into the form of a graphic novel in such a way as to enhance the expression of its content, Mr. Hornschemeier has few peers. To our mind, only Clowes, Ware and Seth have been as successful in this department*, and it bears remarking that there seems to be a bit of trend in effect among these design-oriented comics craftsmen as the latest work by each of these three creators shares with Hornschemier's a strong biographical focus on the protagonist. Wilson, Lint and George Sprott each present their eponymous protagonist's life story**, and Life...

Here it is in all its glory: the complete X'ed Out Trilogy – X'ed Out, The Hive and Sugar Skull – altogether in a single, attractive and affordable, full-size, softcover collection. Conceived as a Burnsian tribute to Herge's TinTin, the tale told in Last Look is a tortuously twisted take on thoseepic adventures in which the polyanna-ish innocence of TinTin is replaced molecule by molecule with the corruptions that are so readily at hand inthe world as we find it and, crucially, inthe world as our humanimagination makes it, as well. Perhapsmost of all, Burns demonstratesthe way in which these two worlds intersect.It is here that the...

Discipline, the latest comics work from Dash Shaw, has been in the works for over five years. Shaw set himself the difficult challenge of creating a calm, still work about war – specifically the American Civil War – one that would embody the Quaker ethos. Whereas most fictional depictions of war focus on strategy, technological prowess and valor on the battlefield, or, conversely, on the tragedy, absurdity and horror of war,Disciplinefocuses instead on the moral quandaries of war. These are approached within a philosophical matrix firmly grounded in the traditional Christian ethics of the Quaker faith, which hold, among much else, that one...

The cover image with whichthe collectedArt Comicfirst greets the eye,in juxtaposing Yves Klein’s “Leap into the Void” with Jeff Koon’s “Balloon Dog,” sends a strong, clear signal of what is in store for the reader, once they crack the cover. The protagonist’s leap here is made with an expression mixing equal parts of hope,fear and anxiety (with, perhaps, a hint of aggression), likely matchingThurber’s own feelings regarding the work’s central concern: the contemporary, NYC-centered, fine art world, and his experiences therein and thereof.

The story begins from the perspective of youthful idealism embodied by students attending Thurber’s...

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 and, especially, Luba 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 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...

With Jack's Book, Gifford and Lee launched the oral biography as a valid form(there'd be no Please Kill Me without it), and arguably created what remains its gold standard. Here you have a portrait in the round of the central figure of "the beat generation" (who hated that label) provided by all the other players who were in his circle during the two decades of his writing career. William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Carolyn Cassady, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Felinghetti, Gary Snyder and many more herein provide thoughtful, forthright recollections of Kerouac, his scene and the times in which they mixed. Gifford and Lee weave them together...

Beneath this less than satisfactory, unrepresentative cover, lurks an amazing assemblage of fantastic sketchbook samples from a host of talented (and copacetic) comics creators from across the specturm.

This massive*, 352 page, 9" x 12", full color, French-flapped softcover is brimming over with great – and inspiring – drawings, layouts, sketches, doodles, thumbnails and more.

When this book was originally released in 2012 (!) not only did the art department let this book down, so did the marketing department, as nowhere in the material assembled to promote this book did they list the actual artists it contains. Why not??? If only they...