Just In (Case You Missed It) - New Stuff Archives 3Q 2011

New for September 2011

LR4

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

KIRBY

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

BoW

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

AFB4

Amazing Facts and Beyond 4 & 5
by Kevin Huizenga & Dan Zettwoch; w/ assists by Ted May, Ron Weaver and Sammy Harkham AFB5

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@

ON12

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

PH2

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

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

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

PSmag

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

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

Twain Kupp

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

Hidden

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

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)

Esp

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

TOth

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

Incal

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

M22

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

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

TCJ 301

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

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
raven

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

PC 16

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

QBB

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

Archie

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 1

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

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 Book

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.