Cold
Heat #1
As crazy as it may sound, this is
the
first issue of a twelve-issue
comic book maxi-series written and drawn by art comics
favorites, Ben "Paper
Rad" Jones and Frank "Storeyville" Santoro. Mightily
manifesting
the poignant praxis of pioneering publisher, Picturebox,
Cold
Heat is not necessarily stoned, but beautiful -- a
hypnotically
tranced-out, maximum-volume take on the action/adventure
genre that stays out all night and doesn't come home until the
party's
over and it's time to crash. From it's super-slick full
color
covers, to its orange-juice-orange inside covers and through
its
24-page
interior printed entirely in magenta and sky blue, this is a
comic book
that stands out in a crowd, and about which we are entirely
comfortable
in
saying, "there's nothing else remotely like it on the
market."
Feeling adventurous? Try this.retail price - $5.00
copacetic
price
-
sold out!
Cold
Heat #2
by Ben Jones and Frank Santoro
Picking up where
the
first issue left off, Cold Heat #2
revs it up a few notches and takes us on a whirlwind ride
through the
dis-united states of the disturbed American psyche.
Series
artist, Frank Santoro once again refuses to play it
safe. This
time around he pulls out all the stops and takes the chances
that most
other artists wouldn't take even if they could. Leaping
into the
artistic no man's land between the well established borders of
pre-existent genres, Santoro combines the propulsive
narratives of
mainstream American heroic adventure comics, the exaggerated
expressiveness of Japanese manga, and the naivete of
self-published
autobiographical comics with his own experimental ideas to
create a
totally unique comics cocktail that will knock you for a loop
(You
don't have to take our word for it: Check out this double-page
spread).
Cold Heat takes the outside in and then brings
the inside out -- demonstrating how our internalization of
international affairs creates monsters in our minds that are
every bit
as dangerous as anything
we'll
meet on the street -- and by so doing helps us see our place
in
and find our way through the mess of our world.
retail price - $5.00
copacetic
price -
$4.00
24 pages, 2-color
Cold Heat
#4
by BJ and Frank Santoro
How?! Cold Heat #4 is already 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 the mix while
at the
same time
turning in some of his most polished art to date. To those of you
who
have been watching on the sidelines, uneasy about the
ellipticality of Cold
Heat's narrative, wondering what it's all
about and where it's been leading,
we say: Now's your chance -- this
is the one you've been waiting for. This is the issue
that puts
the story into focus and brings the series up to speed.
retail
price - $5.00
copacetic
price -
$4.00
Cold Heat
5/6
by Frank Santoro and Ben Jones
It's been well over a year since the last issue of
Cold Heat appeared,
but we're here to tell you that this is one comic book
that was worth
the wait!! It's a 48 page double issue printed
in the trademarked
Cold
Heat two-color process employing magenta and
blue. It's comics at
their most adventurous and risk-taking, produced by
creators who have
the experience, skill and training to get to the other
side, and,
crucially, to take the reader there along with them --
but you'll have
to pay close attention and hold on tight as it's quite
a trip! A
key
to understanding this work is that its true subject is
the relationship
between the perception of reality and the
representation of reality,
between the signifier and the signified; how the
representation of
reality creates a feedback loop which transforms
reality in the
process. And there is a special focus on the
relationship between
subjectivity and perception, particularly on how
emotional and
chemically altered states of mind alter the perception
of events which
then alters their representation and is capable of
altering their
actual outcome as well. This is a task to which
comics are
ideally
suited and which Frank Santoro has been in the
vanguard of
exploring.
With this issue he has pushed the furthest yet into
this unmapped and
only dimly comprehended artistic
territory. Yes, this is
one pricey
comic book, but the economics of today have forced the
publisher into a
corner and this is being produced in an extremely
small quantity for
the True Believers.
retail price -
$20.00 copacetic price
- sold out!
Cold Heat 7/8
by
Frank Santoro and BJ
Cold
Heat closes in for
the kill with another double issue. This one
brings the series
one (double) issue away from completion. After
the massive action
blow-out of #5/6, this time around we have more of a
culture jam as the
saga crosses international boundaries when Castle
& Co. head to the
southern hemisphere, accompanied by the BBC, and the
modern condition
of living in the global village is given the Cold Heat
treatment along
the way. Land lines and laptops, mobile phones
and desktops, the
internet and intensive care units, wifi and the web,
credit cards and
music festivals, airports and hotel rooms, Starbucks
and taxi
cabs, bright beaches and dark alleys – all
seamlessly connect to
form the all-encompassing phenomenological envelope
that passes for
reality in the 21st century. As always, series
artist, Frank
Santoro takes chances – starting, most obviously this
time around, with
the front cover, which invokes Ellsworth
Kelly and Ad
Reinhardt while
highlighting the "thingness" of a comic book – as he
pushes and pokes
at the formal elements that make up the current corpus
of comics in his
ongoing challenge to the received wisdom that
constitutes contemporary
comics orthodoxy. 
The
images we've selected to illustrate this listing focus
on one of
Santoro's greatest strengths that of exploring the
many avenues open to
graphically rendering interior subjective states of
mind beyond mere
mastery of facial expression. The many faces of
Castle on display
in the pages of Cold Heat embody of the struggle to
forge new tools to
place in the comics craft toolbox, making each issue
of the series
double as a workshop – and none moreso than this
one. There's an
aspect to the experience of reading Cold Heat that
feels like being
taken behind the scenes to see how it's done while the
action never
stops happening all around. It's like bringing you
right there on the
set while they're filming yet still managing to
maintain the
manufactured illusion of the movie. This
issue has a
terrifyingly low print run of 100 copies, so delay
purchase at your own
risk. BUY HERE!
retail price - $20.00
copacetic price -
$18.88
We now have in stock a very limited quantity of a signed and numbered Cold Heat print by Frank Santoro. This print is standard comic book size -- 7" x 10" -- so it will fit right in with the Cold Heat comics if you would like to store it away as part of your collection, but we feel confident that you'll be putting this one on your wall. This is the image here on the right =>; you should know, however, that the colors -- at least on our copies -- are far more vibrant when viewed in person. THIS ITEM IS NOW OUT OF PRINT. SORRY!
copacetic
price -
sold out
Cold
Heat Special #1
Cold
Heat Special #3
Cold Heat Special
#5
Cold Heat Special #6 
Cold
Heat Special #8Learn more about Cold Heat at the Official
Cold Heat Comics Website.
prices and
availability
current as of 20 January 2011
