Believe it or not, it's been over twenty years since the publication of Understanding Comics, which established the breakthrough realization that the most effective way to truly explain how comics work is in comics form. Now, at last, we have the next iteration of this understanding: that the most effective way to explain how comics presented here as consciously thinking and writing and, of course, reading — in a free flowing combination of images and text — are changing the way we represent our world and understand ourselves is also in comics form. Unflattening, just published by Harvard University Press, is the book form of Sousanis's...

Twenty-five years ago, inRaw, Volume 2, Number 1, Richard McGuire published a six-page work, titled "Here"*, and comics have never been the same since. Now, McGuire has expanded his revelation into a full length work, that, while it may be considered to fulfill the definition of graphic novel, is clearly something more besides. Years in the making,Hereis a meditation on time and its passage through place that employs the power of comics to concisely and powerfully convey their inextricable relation. ReadingHere, one is quickly gripped by a feeling of the uncanny. The realization that the precise spatial coordinates occupied by the room...

Tillie Walden's long in the works and hotly anticipated coming of age story has arrived. In the pages of Spinning, Tillie Walden provides a first person window into the world of competitive figure skating. One of the western world's many subcultures,figure skating is like the proverbial iceberg which is carried alongbythe ocean of the dominant culture:all that most of ussee is the tippy top that appears on television during national and international competitions, while9/10 is submerged and hidden from site to all but those directly involved – until now. It is a world populated largely by girls.Manyof whom, as revealed here, enterit at the...

WOW! Attilio Micheluzzi's crisp, pen & ink, black & white artwork here in the 144 pages of this full-size hardcover edition of The Farewell Song of Marcel Labrume is knock-your-socks-off good. It's part of lineage that starts with the fine line rendering of Hal Foster and Alex Raymond on the one hand and strong compositional skills of Milt Caniff and Noel Sickles on the other, and that falls exactly – perfectly – between Alex Toth and early Jaime Hernandez (who then combined it with much else, took it in another direction and made it all his own). The characters and stories are at times reminiscent of Howard Hawks, with a tough guy...

Sometimes, dreams do come true! Here it is, at long last: the first of two volumes collecting the entirety of Steve Ditko's pre-superhero output for Marvel Comics, almost all of which was scripted by Stan Lee. This massive, full color, slightly oversize, hardcover volume – the first of two! – collects a wallopin' 134 (!!!) tales, plus 16 bonus pages, ten of which are high quality reproductions of original pages. It all starts off with a great Roger Stern introduction. Yes!

COLLECTING:JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (1952) #33, 38, 50-73, STRANGE TALES (1951) #46, 50, 67-91, TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #1-26, TALES OF SUSPENSE (1959) #1-15, 17-24,...

Yes, Cold Heat #4 is still in stock, and it's a doozy. Disparate and heretofore disconnected aspects of the storyline are joined together as some puzzling pieces of the plot are put into place. We don't want to give too much away here, but suffice it to say that some things have turned out -- surprise! -- not to be what they seemed. Lovers of cosmic mysteries and mighty metaphors will find plenty of food for thought this time around, and thrill seekers should find what they're looking for as the intensity is ramped up a notch or two. Santoro's art really shines this issue as he continues to bring a world beat of styles and perspectives to...

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...

2022 has clearly been a watershed year for Ms. Julie Doucet. Firstshe won the 49th Angouleme Festival’s Grand Prix(only the third woman to do so). Then, a month later, her first (drawn) comics work in 15 years,Time Zone Jwas published to a flurry of press, including in theNY Times(along with stalwarts,TCJandThe Beat and others). A result of all this publicity is that it, apparently, generated a significant early demand for the book – as we initially struggled to get and keep it in stock. But, the pressure has abated, and we've managed to put in a good stock.

This book presents the strongest of David Collier's work and is one of our perennial best-sellers here at Copacetic. It is filled with extremely engaging stories of the lives of minor, obscure and offbeat Canadian figures. Some of these are full fledged biographies, such as the fascinating account of Humphrey Osmond, the Canadian scientist who was an early researcher into psychotropic drugs and reputedly coined the term "psychedelic." Then there's the life story of Ethel Catherwood, the Olympic high jumper known as the Saskatchewan Lily, who ended up obscure and reclusive. A more tightly focused tale is that of "Grey Owl," an enigmatic...

The second issue of the latest incarnation of The World's Greatest Comics Magazinehas arrived!