
NEW
STUFF ARCHIVES
Copacetic
Arrivals: 3Q 2011
all items still
available (unless otherwise noted)
ordering
info
New for
September 2011

Love and Rockets: New Stories #4
by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
Yowza! The new issue of Love and Rockets has
arrived. Last year's issue packed such a wallop that we are still thinking about it. Even
though more than a year has passed since then, we never felt like we
were waiting for the next one. It seems that the supernatural
power that is imbued through the pen and ink on paper and reproduced in
the pages of each issue of Love and
Rockets is such that it is able to imprint its
content on readers' minds to whatever degree is necessary to keep it
thriving there until the next issue arrives. And so, now that the
new issue is here – and from what we've heard, it's another mind-blower
– all we can do is hold onto our hats and dive in. See you there!
retail price - $14.99
copacetic price -
$11.99
The Jack Kirby Omnibus, Volume One
by Jack Kirby (of course); intro by Mark Evanier
As much as it pains us to endorse a work published by the corporate
behemoth that is Time-Warner, this book is simply too good to pass
by. Perhaps the only one able to follow the genius of the
Hernandez brothers without seeming puny by comparison, Jack Kirby was a
juggernaut of creativity unsurpassed in the annals of art, and this
volume presents a great selection of his work, much of which has not
been available since its original publication over fifty years
ago. With the exception of eight pages of work culled from the
pages of issues of Real Fact Comics
that were released in the late 1940s, the entirety of the work in this
300 page hardcover volume are from the year's 1957, 1958 and 1959; in
other words, the years immediately preceding those in which Kirby (with
the able assist of Stan Lee & Co.) remade the world of comics
forever: The Marvel Age (aka the 1960s). The production on
this volume is surprisingly good, with Digikore and Harry Mendryk doing
a great job of reconstructing the original art and colors, all of which
are smartly printed in the state of Kentucky right here in the USA, on
flat, clean newsprint of low-reflectivity, that, taken together, makes
for a reading experience that is as close to reading the original
comics as one could have any reason to hope for.
retail price - $49.99
copacetic price -
$44.44
Habibi
by Craig Thompson
Craig Thompson's long awaited follow up to Blankets – one of the most
widely and loudly lauded graphic novels in history – is now weighing
heavily on the shelves here at Copacetic. A sprawling,
multi-layered, multi-faceted, multi-pronged work, Habibi is part history lesson, part
tutorial, part travelogue, part anthro/socio/psychological study, part
sermon, and all love story. Thompson clearly had outsized
ambitions for this work, likely necessitated by the high expectations
surrounding any follow up to Blankets.
It's always an additional challenge for creators to follow up a highly
praised work. Should they try to compete with their big hit?
should they use this moment of high regard to do their secret project
that they had always wanted to do, but could never hope to get green
lighted before? or should they just pretend that nothing's changed and
just do what comes naturally? In the creation of Habibi, it seems that Thompson took
all three approaches and melded them into an organic whole. In
other words: Habibi
tries to have it all and do it all; at times it seems that its contents
may overflow. Learn more at our full page
review. In any event, if the length of the lines of those
waiting to buy a copy of Habibi
and get it signed by Craig Thompson at this year's SPX are any indication of the demand
for this book, then it's safe to say that its publisher, Pantheon
Books, will probably get over its grumpiness over how much longer it
took Craig to finish the book than originally expected – 2007 – when
they paid him his advance way back in 2005. At least part of the
reason it took him so much longer to finish the book is that it is
another mammoth tome – weighing in at 674 pages, it's close to 100
pages longer than Blankets,
which was, at the time of its publication, the longest,
not-previously-serialized graphic novel ever published (at least in
North America).
retail price - $35.00
copacetic price -
$31.50

Pure
Pajamas
by Marc Bell
There's a little bit of everything and something for everyone in this
fulsome, full-size hardcover volume that collects odds and ends from
the last ten years of Mr. Bell's illustrious Canadian comics career, in
both black and white and full color. Bell's comics strongly evoke
the glory days of R. Crumb's early psychedelic comics as well as those
of fellow Canadians Julie Doucet and Chester Brown. But the
comparisons stop there, as Bell's work is a wholly original synthesis
of these sources and much more. Anyone not already familiar with
Marc's work should take a gander at some of his work here. All the rest of us
already know it's the cat's pajamas.
retail price - $22.99
copacetic price -
$20.00

The Body of Work
by Kevin Huizenga
Fall 2011 is a good time to be a Kevin Huizenga fan. Not only do
we have this brand spankin' new 32 page mini comic and two new issues of Amazing Facts and Beyond
(co-produced with dazzlin' Dan Zettwoch; see below), but the long
awaited fourth issue of Ganges
is just over the horizon! There is no other cartoonist of
equivalent stature – unless it's his pal, the aforementioned Dan
Zettwoch – that we can think of that continues to self-publish their
own mini-comics, but Huizenga's been at it so long it's in his
blood. Lucky us! The four stories here range from the two,
colloquial "Postcard from Fielder" tales, to the logical abstractions
of "First Try." All are tied together by the title tale,
which ponders the significance of a life spent in art and the meaning
of the "Body of Work" that is produced. Added Bonus: each
cover is uniquely (if modestly) hand colored!
retail price - $4.00
copacetic price -
$4.00
Amazing
Facts and Beyond 4 & 5
by Kevin Huizenga & Dan Zettwoch; w/ assists by
Ted May, Ron Weaver and Sammy Harkham
Two
big batches from beyond, Leon Beyond, that
is. Brain Dump (Volume
4) sports a sturdy
Dan Z silk screened cover, binding together 33 strips worth of Amazing
Facts for posterity. Factual
Healing (Volume 5) features another (see above) hand-colored
cover by Kevin H collecting 32 punctures of the over inflated super ego
of our times. For those of you unfamiliar with Amazing Facts and
Beyond, with Leon Beyond, it is, more or less, Ripley's
Believe It or Not! for the Onion set, but with an index to
boot! Funny, smart, well drawn, and extremely collectible, these
collections are here today and gone tomorrow.
retail price - $5.00@
copacetic price -
$5.00@
Optic
Nerve 12
by Adrian Tomine
The first half of this issue, consisting of "A Brief History of the Art
Form Known as 'Hortisculpture'", shows Mr. Tomine following in the
footsteps of his mentor and role model, one Daniel Clowes, in playfully
and inventively incorporating the newspaper comic strip format in to
that of the comic book. Tomine has taken the formal replication a
bit further, however. Here we have a story artfully divided into
four-panel, black and white "dailies" and full-color, full-page
"Sundays." Titled "Hortisculpture," the strip "runs" one Sunday
strip shy of five full "weeks," and it's a real doozy of a
comicstrip! "Hortisculpture" is nothing less than a mordantly
ironic meditation on the fix that every comics artist finds themselves
in: due to the hybrid nature of comics, being composed as they
are of two already distinct disciplines – image making and writing –
comics creators (aka cartoonists) have had a tough time getting the
rest of the world ("civilians," as Dan Clowes would say) to see things
their way. Thanks to comics creators like Tomine, this is, in yet
another irony, an ever diminishing problem. The second story,
"Amber Sweet," is
classic Tomine, but... in full color! The issue closes out with
two pages of meta-comics, with Tomine ironically inserting himself into
the work to provide behind-the-scenes commentary on its creation, his
attachment to the "floppy" form of comics (aka comic books), and his
feelings of hope, pride, frustration and despair about the very comic
you're holding in your hands.
retail price - $5.95
copacetic price -
$5.95
Pope Hats 2
by Ethan Rilly
We at Copacetic do indeed generally embrace the old adage that "you
can't rush quality." Following at least two years after the
first issue, Ethan Rilly certainly can't be accused of rushing to get
this second issue of his series onto store racks , but it's so good
we sort of wish – against our better judgment – that he'd, if
not rush exactly, perhaps then devote a little more time to it, so we
won't have to wait three years for the next issue. It's no
coincidence that we've listed Pope
Hats immediately below Optic
Nerve. Rilly's strong
delineation of character and setting puts us in the mind of Tomine,
and, at the very least, puts him in the lineage that begins with the
Hernandez brothers, and flows through Clowes. One thing that
links all these creators is that they take their time and produce
organically rich characters that the reader trusts and believes in;
and this takes time.
retail price - $6.95
copacetic price -
$6.25
Gazetta:
Comics from Belgrade to Bangkok
by various
This international anthology of comics from around the world has much
to recommend it both in terms of scope and quality. Cover artist
Ron Rege, Jr.'s contribution is the first publication of a portion of
his latest project, Cartoon
Utopia. Here he is producing what are, in effect, sermonistic
lectures in spritual psychology (or, perhaps, lecturistic sermons on
pyschological spirituality) in comics form; whatever one might decide
to call them, they are both uniquely fascinating and uplifting, and,
really, are worth the price of admission. The Dylan Horrocks, the
first new work by him we've read since we don't know when (what?
Atlas #3, was it?),
is so good that it makes us mad that this is all we get. Dylan's work
has been so sporadic over the last decade that we suspect that there
are plenty of folks out there who aren't familiar with his work.
If you fit this description, then you should change your status with
all due speed, and picking this up might just be the ticket. Then
there are the two! – count them – contributions by Finland's greatest
export, Amanda Vähämäki, rendered in her trademarked
delicate yet precise pencils. The remainder of the contributions
are all quite worthy, and will have readers asking themselves why they
haven't seen work by these creators before and/or where they can find
more: Belkis Ayón from Havana; Edmund Baudoin from Paris;
Igor Hofbauer from Zagreb; André Lemos from Lisbon; Aleksander
Opacic from Belgrade; Maurizio Ribichini from Rome; and Sam Seen from
Bangkok. Recommended!
retail price - $15.00
copacetic price -
$15.00
Sundays 4
by various
It looked for awhile that we weren't going to be able to lay our hands
on any of these, but thanks to trusty Tony Shenton, we snagged a
handful before they went the way of the Dodo. Limited to 300
copies,
this horizontally formatted anthology of super indy comics was printed
and bound at The
Center for Cartoon Studies
and sports a hand pulled silk screen cover drawn by Damien Jay and
pulled by Alex Kim and Joseph Lambert. Here's its contributor
list:
Mickey Z, Jeff Lok, Ed Piskor, Warren Craghead III, Aaron Cockle,
Melissa Mendes, Joseph Lambert, Mark Burrier, Alex Kim, David Libens,
Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi, Dane Martin, Julie Delporte, Michael DeForge,
Sean Ford, Samuel C. Gaskin, Scott Longo, Jose-Luis Olivares, Mari
Ahokoivu, Max de Radigués, Damien Jay, Lydia Conklin.
Whew! Grab it
before it's gone!
retail price - $15.00
copacetic price -
$12.75

Gay Genius
edited by Anne Murphy
Gay Genius is the latest,
and possibly last, anthology from from venerable independent comics
publisher, Sparkplug Comics, founded and run by Dylan Williams,
an independent comics hero if there ever was one, who passed
away on September 10, 2011. "A
showcase of contemporary radical queer visionaries-to-watch-out-for,"
Gay Genius is a squarebound
softcover that runs 144 pages, most of which are in full color, and
features twenty pieces that range from straight forward comics to
collage to illustrated prose to unique combinations of these, all in
celebration of the title theme.
retail price - $20.00
copacetic price -
$17.00

Troop
142: A Graphic Novel
by Mike Dawson
The popular web comic, Troop 142 at last makes the
leap to the printed page with the help of the intrepid small press
comics publisher Secret Acres. Troop
142, as is often – but certainly not always – the case with web
comics, benefits from being collected all at once under one cover,
giving the reader both opportunity and impetus to read all the way
through the entirety of this story about one week spent at Pinewood
Forest Camp, New Jersey, with The Boy Scouts of America Troop
142. Dylan Horrocks states that it, "dig(s) deep into the dark
side of teenage - and adult - masculinity to reveal the brittle,
wounded humanity at its heart."
retail price - $20.00
copacetic price -
$16.75
P*S
Magazine: The Best of The Preventive Maintenance Monthly
by Will Eisner
It is rare indeed when our opinion completely agrees with that of
publisher provided cover hype, but in this case it does. The
material that Will Eisner produced over a period of 20 years (!!!) for
P*S Magazine is indeed, "the missing link between The Spirit and A Contract with God" as the cover
states. The work contained in this 272 page hardcover volume has
the highest ratio of critical importance : critical awareness of any
work we can think of. It represents the single largest unified
body of work of one of the most admired creators in the history of
comics, yet very few have read much – if any – of it. Now, thanks
to Denis Kitchen, Ann Eisner, Eddie Campbell and Abrams ComicArts, we
all have the opportunity to rectify this out-of-kilter relationship
between material and critical appreciation. Eisner spent twenty
years focusing on creating clear concise communicative comics for the
United States military. Surely this is a factor that contributed
to his development as an artist and the evolution of his mature
style. Both forcing him to hone his cartooning skills to meet the
demands of the assignment and in holding back his own personal artistic
goals for so long that they burst forth so spectacularly in his later
years.
retail price - $21.95
copacetic price -
$19.75

Feynman
by Jim Ottaviani & Leland Myrick; coloring by Hilary Sycamore
Long the foremost popularizer of science in comics, Jim Ottaviani has
here teamed up with the artist illustrator Leland Myrick – who is
probably best known for his graphic novel, Missouri Boy, also published
by First Second – and colorist Hilary Sycamore to present the story of
the life and work of the Nobel-Prize winning physicist, Richard P.
Feynman, in this 162 page full color, hardcover graphic biography.
retail price - $29.95
copacetic price -
$27.50
Mark Twain's Autobiography, 1910 - 2010
by Michael Kupperman
Right away, the fact that this "autobiography" is written by other than
the subject is a dead giveaway that this work is not going to be what
it purports to be; the fact that its author is Michael Kupperman let's
you know that not only is it not going to be what it purports to be,
but that it is also going to be odd and strangely off-kilter in a way
that you can't quite put your finger on, but that will somehow involve
an unusual combination of prose and comics in putting together the
pieces in which the core of the meaning resides. Oh yeah – it's
also going to be funny.
retail price - $19.99
copacetic price -
$17.77

The
Hidden
by Richard Sala
Sala's latest graphic novel takes its readers to a post-apolcalyptic
USA, wherein the story of what happened to bring the world to this pass
is gradually revealed in a narrative that opens with a
dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream sequence that, in its disorienting
qualities, provides a good preview of the flat-out craziness of the
tale to come, which is, in addition to being deeply creepy, a
politically-tinged fable with a message for our times.
retail price - $19.99
copacetic price -
$17.77
Oud
Music for Snake Handlers (CD)
by Tom Moran
Can it be? An all new full length CD by the one and only Tom
Moran? Yes! Years in the making, Oud Music is exactly what
the title states it is, and lets listeners in on the not-so-secret
world of oud music that Mr. Moran has been inhabiting for quite a few
years now. One of the most adept stringed-instrument players
around, he has more than mastered oud playing; an accomplished luthier,
he also designs and builds ouds, for himself and others. He has,
in fact, become the go-to-guy for local and touring belly-dancers in
and travelling to Pittsburgh from the world over, an example of which
can be found here.
retail price - $12.00
copacetic price -
$12.00
Items
from our September 2011 listings may now be purchased online at our
new
site, HERE.
New for
July/August 2011
Big
Questions
by Anders Nilsen
The tiny seed that was planted in the back of Mr. Nilsen's mind during
the course of an artist workshop exercise that took place at the D.H.
Lawrence Ranch in Taos, NM in 1996 has now at last reached its maturity
in this sequoia-like 592 page tome that collects the entire continuity
originally published in the (mostly) long out of print series.
The first six issues were self published before Drawn & Quarterly –
the publisher of this collection – picked it up and added the series to
their then burgeoning but now defunct series of regularly published
pamphlet comics. Big Questions
defies easy categorization, and many have written much about the
original issues (including, in brief, us). We'll try
to have something intelligent to say shortly on the event of its book
publication, but for now will cede the floor to Anders himself in this
interview posted on CBR on 12 August where he talks about his
comics career and answers questions Big and small.
Intrigued? Then continue on to read Douglas
Wolk's review in The New York Times Book Review.
retail price - $44.95
copacetic price -
$39.75
also
available: Deluxe,
Signed and Numbered, Hardcover Edition (of 1000)
Please note that this edition – in addition to possessing a signed and
numbered tipped-in plate – includes 3 appendices that comprise an additional 55 (or so) pages.
What you get is: the extra, non-essential stories from Big Questions #1 & #2; all the
covers of the original series – including an unseen (by us, at any
rate), unused (to the best of our knowledge...) extra cover for #5;
"bird strips" from other publications that did not appear in Big Questions.
retail price - $69.95
copacetic price -
$69.95 (sorry, no discount – only a few copies available)

Esperanza:
A Love and Rockets Book
by Jaime Hernandez
This 248-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover is the fifth
volume of Locas stories by Jaime Hernandez; and the eighth overall, the
other three collecting Gilbert's Palomar stories. Esperanza picks
up where 2010’s Penny Century
collection left off in collecting
the the stories from the second volume of Love and Rockets – the
comic book size series that ran from 2000 through 2007. Together,
the two volumes collect everything Locas up through #19, the second to
last issue of the series (#20, the last issue, presents the full color
story that originally ran in the New York Times, along with a second
off-format story of Maggie's childhood, neither of which would work in
this volume; completists take note). Page after page of immortal
classics fill this essential volume. We know that all true
believers already own the original issues, but, for all the rest of
you: It really doesn't get any better than Love and Rockets. Really.
retail price - $18.99
copacetic price -
$15.00
A
Zoo in Winter
by Jiro Taniguchi
Fans of Taniguchi's singular work, from the now-out-of-print Walking Man (which the cover
image at left meaningfully evokes) to his ongoing Summit of the Gods, can now
rejoice with the release of this new hardcover release (which is,
amazingly, priced less than his last few softcover releases!).
Originally released fairly recently (2008) in Japan, A Zoo in WInter's 231 pages amply
display Tanuguchi's mature skills as he combines all of his interests -
meditative scenes of walking outdoors, detailed urban landscapes,
animals and snow, all in the service of a complex, deftly constructed
narrative involving the intricacies of the human heart. The story
is an autobiographical roman á clef recounting Taniguchi's early
years, beginning in the winter of 1966, at the point when he had
recently moved to Kyoto to follow his dream of being a textile
designer. Events there lead to him taking up a friend's
invitation to move to Tokyo to work as a mangaka assistant... but we
don't want to give too much away here! And as always with
Taniguchi, that's just one layer of the complex weavings of the story,
there's plenty more going on, in this skillfully rendered and deftly
paced memoir. An excellent and valuable counter example to
Tatsumi's widely heralded manga memoir, A Drifting Life.
Recommended!
retail price - $23.00
copacetic price -
$21.75

Setting
the Standard
by Alex Toth
edited by Greg Sadowski
WOW! It's a dream come true for long suffering fans of the work
of Alex Toth: over 370 pages of full color comics all scanned
directly from the original 1950s comics published under the
banner of Standard Comics in Toth's glory days of 1952 through 1954;
and not only that, this 432 page softcover includes a heavily
illustrated 30-page vintage interview with Toth from 1968; and, that's
not all – there are also fourteen pages of notes by editor Sadowski
(who, we must add, is also responsible for this volume's knock-out
design and production) plus full color scans of the original black and
white artwork for two complete stories (as well as a stray page or
two)! While this book is a total no-brainer for all Toth
initiates, we feel confident, despite it's relatively hefty price tag,
in unreservedly recommending this volume to any student, practitioner
and/or aficionado of comics: Toth is one of the few great masters
of the comic book story, and Setting
the Standard is – by far – the single best collection of his
comic book work ever published.
retail price - $39.99
copacetic price -
$35.00
The
Incal
by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius
Perhaps the single greatest science-fiction-adventure bande dessinée series of all
time, the six-book series that was originally published in France
throughout the 1980s has
at last been collected in its entirety in a single hardcover volume for
a price that works out to less than $7.50 per book. Massively
influential (see Brian Michael Bendis's introduction cum rant), The Incal has informed many a
popular culture work, across mediums: films, television series,
and
books, in addition to countless comics, manga and graphic novels
have
been influenced and/or informed by this Jodorowsky-Moebius
masterpiece. While the page-size is here slightly reduced from
the original, the magnificent colors – along with their registration
and reproduction – are of high quality and enable the reader to plunge
right into the definitively fantastic Moebius art that propels the
twists and turns of the epic Jodorowsky plot in this now definitive English
language edition.
retail price - $44.95
copacetic price - $44.95

MOME 22
edited by Eric Reynolds
Say it isn't true! Sadly, this is the end of the road for the
most innovative and challenging regularly published English language
comics anthology of the twenty-first century. But they're going
out with a bang! MOME 22 is a wallopin' 240-page double issue
that is a veritable gathering of MOME alumni (along with some notable
last-minute newcomers) featuring 30 artists, including Kurt Wolfgang,
Tom Kaczynski, Joe Kimball, Eleanor Davis, Anders Nilsen, Tim Hensley,
Paul Hornschemeier, Gabrielle Bell, Zak Sally, Jesse Moynihan, Malachi
Ward, James Romberger, Nick Drnaso, Joseph Lambert, Nick Thorburn,
Victor Kerlow, Jim Rugg, Chuck Forsman, Sergio Ponchione, Steven
Weissman, Sara Edward-Corbett, Laura Park, Josh Simmons, Derek Van
Gieson (with collaborator Michael Jada), Tim Lane, Nate Neal, Lilli
Carré, T. Edward Bak, Dash Shaw, Ted Stearn and Noah Van
Sciver. Whew! Get a heaping helping of PDF preview, here.
retail price - $19.99
copacetic price -
$17.77

Forming,
Volume One
by Jesse Moynihan
The first of a projected three volumes collecting Mr. Moynihan's
ongoing webcomic detailing "the spawning of worlds, and the trajectory
of consciousness on Earth." This oversize, full color, hardcover
volume is published under the auspices of NoBrow, and
is another feather in their cap of excellence in craft (printed in
Belgium!). Jesse Moynihan has been producing adventurous
self-published comics for quite awhile, as those intrepid Copacetic
customers who managed to score Backwards
Folding Mirror and/or Follow
Me already know. Forming
is by far his most ambitious project yet, and we feel confident in
recommending it to fans of C.F's Powr
Mastrs, Frank Santoro and Ben Jones's Cold Heat, the
works of Yuichi
Yokoyama and all those waiting around for the next Kramers Ergot.
Yes, that's quite a broad recommendation, we know; but! – you don't
have to take our word for it as you can read the entire saga online,
starting here. Until you come down
and see it for yourself, you will, however, have to take our word that
this sumptuously produced book provides an aesthetic experience that
the webcomic lacks.
retail price - $30.00
copacetic price -
$30.00

The New Ghost
by Robert Hunter
And here's another fine NoBrow publication. Mr. Hunter shares
with fellow NoBrow creator, Jon McNaught,
a great respect for, strong understanding of, and an exceptionally deft
hand working with the comics page as a creative unit in and on which to
express temporal and spatial relationships that are both informative
and aesthetically pleasing. The
New Ghost is a welcome addition to this shared
perspective. Get an idea of what we're talking about at NoBrow's
own preview page
for this fine new 24 page deluxe pamphlet comic book.
retail price - $11.00
copacetic price -
$11.00
The Comics Journal 301
edited by Gary Groth & Co.
Two years in the making, this massive 624 page issue of the foremost
periodical on all things comics is finally
firmly ensconced here at Copacetic. The lead off cover
feature is an epic 170 page focus on R. Crumb's adaptation of the Book
of Genesis that starts off with a 50 page interview with Crumb
conducted by Gary Groth which is followed by a 120 page critical
roundtable on the book by comics scholars Rick Marschall, Donald
Phelps, Robert Stanley Martin, Jeet Heer, Tim Hodler, Alexander Theroux
and Kenneth Smith. Groth then moderates a lively 60 page
conversation between Mad Magazine's
legendary creator of the Fold-In® and Thrizzling® cartoonist
Michael Kupperman, and later completes his trifecta of amazing
interviews with an engrossing 50 page interview with Joe Sacco that
focuses on his reportorial comics masterpiece, Footnotes in Gaza (which is also
reviewed in this issue). Chris Lanier writes on Brian
Chippendale's Maggots, Warren
Bernard alerts us to the large body of work created in the early 20th
century by Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonist John T. McCutcheon, and
Tim Krieder turns in what we will not have to go too far out on a limb
to immediately declare to be what is now, surely, the definitive
critical appreciation of Dave Sim's 300-issue masterwork, Cerebus. On the art front, we
have the complete Gerald McBoing Boing comics – 70 pages of full color
comics lithely illustrated by UPA staffers in the early 1950s – as well
as sketchbooks by Jim Woodring, Tim Hensley, and, surprisingly
(bizarrely!), Stephen Dixon. As this is the only issue of TCJ
that will be available for all of 2011, we feel quite safe in saying,
"If you read only one issue of The Comics Journal this year, this is
the one!"
retail price - $30.00
copacetic price -
$25.00

Tank Tankuro
by Gajo Sakamoto
In releasing what they hope will be the first of an ongoing series of
collections of unseen-in-the-west, pre-WWII manga, publisher
Press Pop
has pulled out all the stops and released a super-deluxe, slip-covered,
256-page volume designed by Chris Ware which reproduces these
never-before-published-in-America foundational manga classics employing
a printing process that preserves their original 1935 duo-tone
form. Visit TCJ.com for
an eight-page preview introduced by Dan Nadel and Press Pop president,
Yasutaka Minegishi.
retail price - $29.95
copacetic price -
$27.50
Miss Fury
by Tarpe Mills
edited by Trina Robbins
Wow, it's one classic after another here at The Copacetic Comics
Company! Miss Fury – the Golden Age comics work that ran in full
color in the Sunday comics pages for 351 consecutive weeks from 1942
through 1949, and was also collected in comic book form by Timely
Comics (the precursor company to Marvel), and which provided a uniquely
female perspective to the heroic fantasy genre that simultaneously
provided a solid proto-feminist critique of the genre's conventions,
all the while delivering finely crafted, solid entertainment –
gets the mega-deluxe Library of American
Comics treatment in this massive, oversize 232 page hardcover
volume edited and introduced by Trina Robbins. At least in part
due to the fact that the earliest Miss Fury strips have previously been
collected – albeit in black & white – by Pure Imagination in their now-out-of-print
volume (note to Greg Theakston: now would be a good time to
reprint it!) which helped to get the Miss Fury revival rolling, the
powers that be (i.e., Dean Mullaney) have decided to present the "never
before reprinted" strips that comprise roughly the second half of the
Miss Fury run: strips #159 - #351 which originally ran from April 1944
through August 1949. As Mullaney's brief preface makes clear, it
was no mean feat to assemble this complete, high quality, full color
run. Get ready to be wowed!
retail price - $49.99
copacetic price -
$44.44

The Raven
by Lou Reed & Lorenzo Mattotti (and Edgar Allan Poe)
Lorenzo Mattotti!
Lou Reed!!
Edgar Allan Poe!!!
The Raven!!!!
HOW?
Check
it out in this sumptous PDF preview.
retail price - $22.99
copacetic price -
$20.00

Papercutter 16
edited by Greg Means
This issue leads off with "Professor Pearson," by Joey Alison
Sayers: an epic of despair in the form of a
20-page comics story about a junior high school teacher who loses his
mind (did we neglect to mention that it is, as with all work by Sayers,
quite funny?) Also on hand are a two-page by Liz Prince, "Endless
Lizcation," and "A
Good Catch,"
a ten-pager depicting a slice of life that is red in tooth and claw by
Alexis Frederick-Frost. Papercutter delivers yet again.
retail price - $4.00
copacetic price -
$3.50

Queen of
the Black Black
by Megan Kelso
Fantagraphics brings back into print this collection of Megan Kelso's
early work that was originally published by small press pioneer
Highwater Books way back in 1998. Queen of the Black Black collects
Kelso's Girl Hero series, six
issues of which were released between 1992 and 1997, along with two
1998 stories including the title tale. Kelso charts the ups and
downs of growing up a girl and building an original, independent female
identity in life and comics.
retail price - $19.99
copacetic price -
$17.77

Citizen
Rex
by Mario & Gilbert Hernandez
The other Hernandez brother,
Mario, busts out with brother Beto and pens a fantastic fifties-style
sci-fi fable that focuses on a highly stratified, mediated, fabricated
and policed society that put us in mind of a futuristic synthesis of
Latin and Anglo America – which, come to think of it, may very well be
how things play out. In other words: this work of old school comics
that echoes the science fiction comic books of the 1950s that nourished
the growing minds in the Hernandez household could tell The New York
Times and The Wall Street Journal a thing or two about what's going
on. Citizen Rex is also
a frantic, fast-paced and fun read packed with detail and nuance, that,
while completely zany, will, nevertheless reward close reading.
Hardcover!
retail price - $19.99
copacetic price -
$17.77
The Best of
Archie Comics
by Harry Lucey, Dan DeCarlo, Frank Doyle, Bob Bolling, Bob Montana,
Bill Woggon, et al
While this 400 page digest size volume most certainly does not live up to its title, it is the best anthology Archie Comics
has managed to publish in as long as we can remember – and possibly
ever, considering how poor their track record is in this particular
department – and it is especially significant in that the publishers
have finally recognized the
bare minimum of their responsibility to the people who built their
business and has in this book published artist and writer credits for
all the stories. Beginning in 1941 with the very first
Archie story by Bob Montana and Vic Bloom from Pep Comics #22, The Best of Archie Comics continues
on,
decade by decade,
through the subsequent seventy years, taking
us all the way up to 2011. For us here at Copacetic HQ, the glory
days of Archie Comics will always be the 1950s through the early 1970s,
when Harry Lucey and Dan DeCarlo ruled the roost, and, for a few years
at least, Bob Bolling and Bill Woggon were given free reign on Little Archie and Katy Keene, respectively.
There is a generous selection of both Lucey and DeCarlo here, along
with what is reputed to be Bolling's own personal favorite Little
Archie tale, "The Long Walk," from Little Archie #20, and a modest
sampling of Woggon's work, and so we won't hesitate to recommend this
book to anyone who would like to be introduced to the world of Archie
Comics.
retail price - $9.99
copacetic price -
$8.88
Jack
Magic: The Life and Art of Jack Kirby - Volume One
by Greg Theakston
Kirby confidante – and inker! – Greg Theakston, who is well known to
readers of these pages as the power behind Pure Imagination
publishing, has finally completed the first part in his long awaited
recollection, reflection and appreciation of, and on, the life and work
of the one and only Jack Kirby, King of Comics. This book is
printed in the typical Pure Imagination format: 160, 8 1/2" x
11", B & W pages; softcover. It is liberally illustrated with
Kirby comics – and cartoon – art that includes some early
rarities. It also includes a selection of photos that featuring
Kirby family portraits and snapshots as well as shots of him at the
drawing table, hanging with pals and in the army. There are
plenty of Kirby books already out there, and sure to be plenty to come,
but only a few of them can be written by someone who has spent as much
time with him as Theakston has, so we are hopeful that unique stories
and insights will unfold within these pages.
retail price - $25.00
copacetic price -
$23.75
Motel Art Improvement Service
by Jason Little
Somehow, this one slipped through the Copacetic cracks on its
release. Jason
Little is a natural storyteller and an excellent colorist, and Motel Art Improvement Service
combines his strengths in
bringing you this highly entertaining and rather racy work that will
take your mind off of whatever's worrying it and plunge you straight
into the soft underbelly of the hospitality industry with a screwball
comedy story set behind the scenes at a string of hotels. It
features: one directionless, hot-to-trot bicyclist and her
worldly roommate; one
zany, drug fuelled artist; one
drug dealing army soldier on leave; a couple of drug manufacturing
college chemists (yes, it's safe to say that drugs feature prominently
in this tale); and a wide assortment of hotel staff and guests as well
as a lone NYC art dealer on a quest. Motel Art is produced in a nearly
identical format to Little's previous book, Shutterbug Follies, and
features the same leading lady, Bee, and
you can read a ten-page excerpt here at beecomix.com,
so it does not seem unreasonable to assert that it is the second in a
series.
retail price - $19.99
copacetic price -
$18.88
The
Authentic Animal:
Inside
the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy
by Dave Madden
Ever find yourself wondering what possessed people to skin and stuff
animals and then mount them on their walls or build dioramas based
around them and install them in giant glass cases in museums?
Well, wonder no more! University of Alabama professor and
Copacetic customer Dave Madden has spent the last several years of his
life
putting together a book that answers this very question.
Beginning with the "father of modern taxidermy," Carl Akeley, who
created the Akeley Hall of African Mammals at the American Museum of
Natural History, Madden continues on a journey that brings him to the
World Taxidermy Championships, a taxidermy academy, the garage
workshops of taxidermy enthusiasts and many other taxidermy-related
locales, as he spares no expense (affordable by someone living on a
professor's salary) to bring his readers this "thought-provoking blend
of history, biology and philosophy."
retail price - $26.99
copacetic price -
$25.00

Supergods:
What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants,
and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
by Grant Morrison
With Supergods, Mr. Morrison
takes a stab at deconstructing the comics genre that pays his bills and
made him famous. Here's a (relatively rare) opportunity to read
(what we trust will be insightful and articulate) critical musings from
inside the industry by someone who has established themselves as a
leading light in the post-Watchmen
era of self-aware and self-critical interpretations and applications of
superhero narratives, conventions and tropes. The book opens with
a Nietzsche quote employing his seminal use of the term superman
(übermensch), is divided into four sections – The Golden
Age, The Silver Age, The Dark Age and The Renaissance – does not
contain any bibliography but does append a (very) modest list of
suggestions for "further reading" that includes books on comics as well
as collections of comics, and has what seems on first glance to be a
half-decent index; should be interesting.
retail price - $28.00
copacetic price -
$25.75
Rebel
Bookseller:
Why
Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight for – from Free
Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities
Revised and Updated Edition
by Andrew Laties
foreword by Edward Morrow; afterword by Bill Ayers
And here is the winner for the longest subtitle! Speaking of
which, how can we not like a
book endorsing this point of view? Get started rebelling
with this
excerpt posted on scribd.com.
retail price - $16.95
copacetic price -
$15.25
Items
from our July/August 2011 listings may now be purchased online at our
new
site, HERE.
Want
to keep going? There's tons more great stuff here, almost all of
which is still in stock. Check out our New Arrivals Archives:
2Q 2011: April - June, New
Arrivals
1Q 2011: January - March, New
Arrivals
4Q 2010: October - December, New
Arrivals
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