Just In (Case You Missed It) - New Stuff Archives 1Q 2012

New for March 2012

NB6

Nobrow 6
edited & designed by Sam Arthur & Alex Spiro
Look no further, the brain blasting book to beat is here. Nobrow 6 is a double dose of doppelganger doubling that takes full advantage of the "69" format. 64 double page spreads each tackle this issue's theme of "The Double". Start with Tom Gauld's cover for the "Comics" side and then, when you reach the center pivot – Robert Hunter's "Anchor Point" – you flip the book over mid-strip and then continue with the "Illustration" side, concluding with Gwenola Carrere's cover; or vice versa, if you prefer. The fabulous flat planar color of the Nobrow house style is in full effect throughout, and is, as always, an æsthetic treat. The real thrill here comes from the integration of comics into Nobrow's flagship title. Here's our vote for it's continuance. Contributor's include Kevin Huizenga, Michael DeForge, Joseph Lambert, Luke Pearson, Blanquet, and many other fine comickers, including the pole star in the Nobrow firmament, Jon McNaught. Make sure you pick this up and look through it. You won't want to put it down. And, while we're at it, we should let you know that we have the first five issues of Nobrow back in stock, as well.
retail price - $24.00 copacetic price - $24.00

The Madwomen of the Sacred Heart
by Jodorowsky and Moebius
We heard only hours before starting to write up the arrival of the softcover edition of this classic work by two of the all-time greats of bande dessinee, that Moebius, perhaps the greatest of them all, had passed away. While Madwoman does not contain the type of cosmic science fiction imagery most closely associated with Moebius, it is second only to The Incal as his most important collaboration with, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and it is a work that clearly demonstrates his seemingly effortless mastery of the form and that is certainly one of his most mature and sophisticated works from a narrative standpoint. On the one hand Madwoman is a close up and personal view of a popular university professor's midlife crisis that involves a torrid affair with one of his students who may or may not have a screw loose, but on the other it is a brilliant allegorical satire of the religious and political institutions that undergird European society that is accompanied by a (relatively; certainly for a graphic novel) deep analysis of their historical basis. It is also a wildly entertaining page-turner that is nearly impossible to put down.
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $23.75

King City

King City
by Brandon Graham
The wait is over for all of those who have been frustrated in their attempts to put together complete runs of Brandon Graham's freakish, fabulous, and fun future fantasy. Now, the complete series – and then some – is collected in this massive 424 page compendium that presents the work in its original oversize format that includes a full color cover gallery and bonus comics by Thomas Herpich, Marian Chuechland, James Stokoe and Ludroe. King City is pure comics energy and this collection is the biggest bang for your buck you're likely to get right now. And for some instant gratification, check out this Inkstuds featuring Brandon with Frank Santoro, in which, among other things, they discuss their mutual admiration for Moebius.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $18.88

Corto Maltese: Ballad of the Salt Sea
by Hugo Pratt
Well, it's about time. Ballad of the Salt Sea is the original Corto Maltese adventure, written and drawn by Hugo Pratt, perhaps the premiere practitioner of European adventure comics of his generation, way back between1967 and 1969. This edition is of a new English translation by Hall Powell, that has been colored by Pratt collaborator, Patrizia Zanotti. This is a fascinating work from an artistic standpoint, as you can see Pratt's style evolve before your eyes over the course of the book. Ballad was originally produced for black and white reproduction, so it's appearance here in color, on glossy stock, is less than ideal; but it's certainly a quite welcome development to have this back in print after such a long hiatus, and we certainlyl hope that it presages the North American (re)issuance of the subsequent volumes in this classic and entertaining series featuring the adventures of this appealing rogue plying his trade on land and sea during the opening decades of the twentieth century.
retail price - $25.00 copacetic price - $22.75

MH2

Manhole #2 & #3
Washing Machine
The Sky in Stereo
by Mardou
Haling from the UK (Manchester), but currently residing – and making comics in – the US (St. Louis), Sacha Mardou, who, as a comics creator, goes simply by Mardou, has been dilligently and unobtrusively producing insightful and entertaining comics that have been gradually accreting into a small but significant body of work. Long a Copacetic favorite, her comics have been steady sellers at our shop and it has been been our intention to bring them to the attention of our online custmers for quite some time. Now, at last, with the release of The Sky in Stereo, the first installment of what looks to be by far her most ambitious project yet, we are offering these excellent self-published works online. In the world of self-published comics, those by Mardou stand out for their strength of characterization as well as the naturalness of their narratives, both brought to life on the comics page through a holistic traditional comics where story takes precedence over style. Mardou is unerring in her sense of editing and pacing. When writing a scene and composing it on the page, she knows which details to put in and which to leave out. While her comics are not auto-bio, she stays close to home and writes about what she knows. Her stories feature the lives of young women and men that are like – and surely based in part on – her self and her peers. Many comics readers – and certainly most Copacetic customers – will find themselves on SiS

familiar terrain reading these stories. It is a world of work and worries – most often about men* and meaning (*or boys, as the case may be); of adventures that as often as not involve sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, as well as the occasional trip to the cinema; where characters walk or ride the bus (or train) at least as often as they drive a car. In other words, it's the world we live in, as we know it: Mardou's comics offer a revealing mirror of our lives. Comparisons are easy and often facile, but we would be remiss if we did not point out what may already be obvious, which is that Mardou's comics are sure to be appreciated, and likely to be enjoyed, by any fan of Love and Rockets. So, where should you start among these several comics? Anywhere. These stories are all complete within themselves and each can be read on its own. The second installment of The Sky in Stereo will, upon its release later this year, be the first exception, as it will be best read after the first part we are now offering here.
Manhole #2 - copacetic price - $4.00
Manhole #3 - copacetic price - $3.00
Washing Machine - copacetic price - $2.00
The Sky in Stereo - copacetic price - $5.00

collier!

Collier's Popular Press: David Collier's 30 Year's on the Newsstand
by David Collier
A long time coming, Collier's Popular Press is a hefty softcover volume just released by Conundrum Press. It starts off with an introduction by noted Canadian comics scholar, Jeet Heer, who situates Collier's work here squarely in the tradition of "observational cartooning," for which he provides a concise history before ushering in a whoppin' 200 pages of Collier comics, originally published over three decades in a variety of Canadian newspapers and magazines – few, if any, of which have previously reached the straining eyeballs of stateside comics readers. In addition, a series of Collier's essays and personal recollections are mixed in. All but one of these (the concluding essay from Comic Art Magazine #7) originally appeared in the Vancouver-based Geist magazine and are, in typical Collier fashion, self-reflective, free-association riffs on the creation of his "banner" landscape drawings for The Globe and Mail (which are also included in this volume) and not only provide both context and depth to the comics they are interspersed with, but demonstrate that Collier is fully able to translate his sensibility into prose; "The World's Best Chinese Food Delivery Driver" perfectly captures how person, time and place are situated in memory amidst a tangle of association, combines image and text in a perfectly complementary fashion, and is a true Collier classic! This hefty tome is a gem-packed treassure chest that is guaranteed to be welcomed with open arms into the collections of all Collier fans. More than that, is the fact that anyone who enjoys comics packed with personal observations of the realities of day-to-day living, of going places and meeting people, of the ins and outs of relationships, of going for a walk or going to the store, of piecing together the odds and ends of urban (and rural) living that combine to make an environment, of life on the road and life in the home – and especially those who would like to immerse themselves in a full, rich Canadian vibe – will dig this massive tome, rendered in a matter-of-fact manner that it is easy to imagine a less self-obsessed (more self-effacing?) R. Crumb doing. This is a great book that is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates the works of creators like Frank King, R. Crumb (especially his non-fiction work of the 1980s), Harvey Pekar, Joe Sacco, Seth and Dan Zettwoch, just for starters. There is simply no contemporary comics creator who is more down to earth than David Collier, and there is no better antidote to the feeling of being overwhelmed by the frentic pace of the non-stop electronic pseudo-connectivity of contemporary North American life, than Collier's Popular Press.
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $17.77

svrg

The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti
by Rick Geary
Rick Geary has done it again – but a little bit differently this time around. As the title attests, this story is more than just another "Treasury of XXth Century Murder." Geary is a master of recreating earlier eras, and here we have Boston of the 1920s meticulously restored with a focus on the Italian immigrant neighborhoods. Then we are brought face to face with both the forensic science and legal systems of the day. But this is no dry historical recreation. All is done in service of the story, and what a story this is. Geary's presentation is, pound for pound, one of the densest presentations of this True American Drama that continues to resonate to this day. As with all works by Rick Geary, it is... Recommended!
retail price - $15.99 copacetic price - $14.75

Griffy

Bill Griffith: Lost and Found: Comics 1969-2003
by (yes) Bill Griffith
Has it really been forty years since Zippy the Pinhead made his debut in the pages of Tales of Toad #2? During a career that predates the creation of Zippy and has now entered its sixth (calendrical) decade, Bill Griffith has created what has to be at this point the most significant body of work among the original generation of underground caroonists, save for the almighty R. Crumb himself. In addition to producing 40 years of Zippy comics, Griffith created and edited – with Jay Kinney –Young Lust, the ground-breaking romance comic of the underground era, and with Art Spiegelman, created and edited Arcade Magazine, the crucial comics anthology of the 70s that linked Zap to Raw. This instantly definitive volume of Griffith's non-Zippy work is a treasure chest packed with rare gems that will appeal to comics fans of many stripes, from underground to new wave to old hat. Bill Griffith knows his comics.
retail price - $35.00 copacetic price - $29.75

Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives, Volume One
by Bill Everett; edited by Blake Bell
Bill Everett was most widely known for creating The Sub-Mariner, one of the defining characters of the Golden Age of comic books, who remains a highly popular character to this day. He was a comics pioneer who was present at the birth of comic books and spanned five decades. This volume takes us back to the very beginning, when Everett helped forge the dynamic page layouts that came to be synonomous with comic books. While no one surpassed the one and only Jack Kirby in this regard, Bill Everett and a unique approach to the page – angular yet sleek and streamlined – that was quite different from Kirby's and was a formative influence on generations of comics artists. This book collects Everett's work from comic books that, taken together, would set you back tens of thousands of dollars to purchase if not for this book. So, thanks once again to Fantagraphics for letting the 99% get their hands on these great works in this excellent, 240 page, full color hardcover volume that does it right. Get a head start with this whoppin' 23 page preview! Bell's editorial input leaves much to be desired, as Dan Nadel's brief take on the book makes clear, so it will be up to readers of this book to start formulating their own critical and historical responses to the material. That means you!
retail price - $39.99 copacetic price - $35.00

herge

The Adventures of Hergé
by Stanilas Barthélémy, José-Louis Bocquet & Jean-Luc Fromental
Why, of course! A biography of the creator of TinTin, done in the form of a TinTin album – it's a no-brainer. This volume is, in addition to being an entertaining romp a lá TinTin (but with plenty of adult situations, that would have been out of place in any TinTin adventure) and being drawn after Hergé's own ligne clare style, a "meticulously researched (work) complete with a bibliogaphy and mini-bios for each of the main characters." Any adult comics reader who grew up reading Tintin is sure to get a kick out of this. Not convinced? Check out this PDF preview and then make up your mind.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.77

Goliath
by Tom Gauld
The UK master of minimalism unleashes his first full-length graphic novel. Gauld is a picture-writer of the first order and the pleasures of the text are abundant. Gauld has forged a solid, personal cartoon language; he understands the geometry of pages, panels and placement, and has married this to his uniquely insightful perspective on the ancient world. In Goliath, Gauld presents quite a revisionist adaptation of the biblical story of David and Goliath, from the point of view of Goliath. Jason fans are among those who should take a look at this PDF preview, as they have more than a fair chance of finding what they're looking for in this 96 page, two-color hardcover volume.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.77

didi

Glitz-2-Go
by Diane Noomin
Here it is at last, after three decades in the wilderness of underground comics, Diane Noomin's signature creation, Didi Glitz, get's the deluxe, full-size trade edition treatment. In black and white and full color as required, Glitz-2-Go has it all, from Didi's beat beginnings to her (off-off-off, as in San Francisco) broadway bonanza. Also included are costumed fumetti romps with Diane dressed up as Didi, papier maché dolls, Christmas cards, etchings and more! This is another career-spanning compendium by an underground comics legend. Together with Aline Kominsky, Noomin created and edited the pioneering women's underground comics anthology, Twisted Sisters (and, yes, this comic book came before the metal band) that helped establish a collective voice for women in comics in the 1970s and 80s. And, as it happens, as Kominsky married R. Crumb, Noomin married Bill Griffith, and both couples have lived happily ever after; A True Comics Fairytale!
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.77

Lynda!

Lynda Barry: Girlhood Through the Looking Glass
by Susan E. Kirtley
It's finally come to pass: Lynda Barry is now the subject of a critical biography, written by a respected academic and published by a renowned university press. You've come a long way, baby, indeed. Girlhood Through the Looking Glass traces Barry's career from her youth and early zinester days, through her ground-breaking independent newsweekly syndicated series, Ernie Pook's Comeek, to the apotheosis of her comics approach in that masterpiece of memory, One! Hundred! Demons!. It also includes in-depth looks at Barry's non-comics works, The Good TImes Are Killing Me and Cruddy. Kirtley was granted an extended interview with Barry, and so has been able to weave personal details into her critical writing. The book is peppered with Barry quotes and anecdotes, which makes for both an engaging and erudite work.
retail price - $25.00 copacetic price - $25.00

Items from our March 2012 listings may now be purchased online at our eComerce site, HERE.

New for January/February 2012

KE8

Kramers Ergot 8
edited by Sammy Harkham
Starting out way back in 2000 as a plain ol' self-published, black and white comic book (copies of which have recently been unearthed and are now once again being offered for sale; see below), Sammy Harkham's Kramers Ergot has been through some serious changes over the years. In 2003, when Sammy went for broke (literally) and switched to a massive full-color book format with the fourth issue, Kramers was transformed from a simple comic book to a synecdoche/catch phrase for the exploding art comics scene. The subsequent two issues followed suit and were published by art house publisher, Gingko Press. Then, with the seventh issue the stakes were raised again with the gigantic, full-blown, original-old-school Sunday page size – a whoppin'' 16" x 21" – full color, hardcover published by Buenaventura Press that knocked people's socks off the world over; not least folks here in Pittsburgh, where we hosted the Kramers Tour at The BrilloBox to much acclaim. Now, with the eighth issue, Kramers is being published by our pals at PictureBox and has entered yet another phase. This time out – perhaps in keeping with its maturation – Kramers takes the form of an unassuming standard size hardcover sporting a tan cloth cover of deceptively straightforward design by Robert Beatty; one which nonetheless provides both visual and tactile pleasure to the reader and hints at what is to come, which is another all-star anthology featuring some of today's top cartoonists working in an environment where they feel comfortable taking risks. An essay by Ian Svenonius, "Notes on Camp, Part 2" sets the tone with a hyperbolic sequel to Susan Sontag's famous essay, in which Svevonius traces a lineage for pop, camp and comics that centers on Warhol and goes back through to the Roman Empire. Then we are treated to a brand new Jimbo adventure by Gary Panter followed by new stories by C.F., Kevin Huizenga (who redraws the story "The Half Men" from the classic ACG series of the 1950s & '60s, Mysteries of Unexplained Worlds), Gabrielle Bell, Johnny Ryan, Time Hensley, Leon Sadler, Chris Cilla, Anya Davidson, Ben Jones and Sammy Harkham, himself. The clear standout of Kramers Ergot 8 is the collaboration between Dash Shaw and Frank Santoro, "Childhood Predators." This sixteen page story is a masterpiece of layout which was consciously composed as a series of eight two-page spreads by someone who really knows what they're doing. Santoro displays his mastery of the medium by employing a host of techniques and methods to deliver a highly textured, subtly nuanced, and deeply felt look at an emotionally complex and politically fraught scenario that will amply reward repeated readings. In addition to the comics, there are a pair of art portfolios featuring Robert Beatty's "retro-future" airbrush art, as well as a series of digital artworks by Takeshi Murata, all of which are reproduced on bright glossy stock, in contrast to the flat off-white stock of the comics work. The 40-page dose of Oh, Wicked Wanda! comics that closes out this issue is also printed on glossy stock to mimic its original appearance in the pages of Penthouse Magazine back in the 1970s. Oh, Wicked Wanda was created by the British artist and writer duo of Ron Embleton and Frederic Mullalley as Penthouse's answer to Kurtzman and Elder's Little Annie Fannie, which ran in Playboy Magazine. As with everything Penthouse, it is the same as Playboy, only more so; and in this case, the humor is decidedly British (as was Penthouse) with its international settings and casual conflation of kinky sex with Nazis. We'd be curious to learn why the largest hunk of this issue of Kramers was devoted to these comics, so we hope Harkham will go on record as to his rationale and motivation here. Regardless of what they may be, Kramers remains in the vanguard of contemporary comics and is indispensable reading for anyone who likes their comics challenging.
retail price - $32.95 copacetic price - $29.75

Athos

Athos in America
by Jason
Yes! An all new, full color, 196 page, hardcover omnibus featuring "six new stories of love, crime, alcohol, and severed heads" by the one and only Jason. "The Smiling Horse," "A Cat fromn Heaven," "The Brain That Wouldn't Virginia Woolf," "Tom Waits on the Moon," "So Long, Mary Ann," and "Athos in America" – all between two covers. What more do you need to know?
retail price - $24.99 copacetic price - $22.22

Is That All There Is?
by Joost Swarte
Long delayed – which was no surprise; when it comes to Swarte's work, we're used to waiting – the (near) entirety of the career of Holland's pre-eminent cartoonist is now available in this aptly named volume. Swarte made a a big splash in the US during the 1980s, appearing to wide critical acclaim in the pages of both Heavy Metal and Raw. His instantly recognizable ligne clare style (he purportedly coined the term) is commonly associated with Hergé and his followers, but Swarte's own "clear line" style is much more closely related to that of George McManus, upon the foundation of whose consummate linework Swarte built a strongly architectural storytelling style that has had a global influence out of all proportion with the relatively tiny volume of work he has produced over his 40-year career. In addition to his cartooning, he produced a mass of illustration and graphic design work,and not only that – he designed furniture and at least one building! Anyone unhep to Swarte's work should take a gander at this full-story preview.
retail price - $35.00 copacetic price - $29.75

Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics
by Jack Kirby, with Joe Simon
It should go without saying that putting the label "Best of" on any substantial body of work is sure to lead to disagreement, especially when it comes to someone with as much work as Kirby! So, while we respectfully disagree that this collection constitutes the best of Kirby Romance, it is nevertheless an excellent collection. The selection is an intelligent survey of the dozen years of Kirby romance comics produced forYoung Romance and its ancillary titles – Young Love, Young Brides (which was overlooked here) & Real West Romances – published by Prize Comics in the post-war years under the guidence of Simon & Kirby. The production is all that you could wish for: high resolution scans of original comics that have been "restored" for superior reproduction and printed on flat, off-white paper stock. Also included are an afterword by editor Michael Gagné and a cover gallery that focuses on photo covers. We've said it before and we'll say it again: Romance comics, from their inception in 1947 with Young Romance and running through to the introduction of the Comics Code in 1955, were extremely popular and included in their number some of the finest comics ever produced. Some of these gems are collected here. These are truly great comics that deserve the appellation, "classic." We say: a must for all devotees of the form!
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.00

HoF

Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby
by Charles Hatfield
While we are on the subject of the King of Comics (you can't knock Stan [for bestowing this title on Jack] on this one), we would be remiss if we failed to mention this long-in-the-works tome by the widely respected comics scholar, Charles Hatfield, whose previous work of comics scholarship, Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, is a widely used academic text in the emerging academic discipline of comics studies, and whose online writings on comics have been widely followed and commented upon. We have yet to do more than dip into this book, so it looks like it's up to Grant Morrison to let you know what he thought of it: "I've been waiting a long time for a book like this about Jack Kirby, and Hand of Fire rewards with an engrossing page-turner to be read and re-read. Kirby fans like me will be delighted by the smart and detailed analyses of everything from his personal influences to his pencil technique. But anyone with a keen interest in the human creative process, the fruits of the American working class postwar imagination, and the life and times of a genuine pop art visionary will find inspiration here, too. Mixing his scholarship with a lively and engaging turn of phrase and page after page of fresh insight, Charles Hatfield explores the highs and lows of 'King' Kirby's career, as well as his often turbulent relationships with collaborators like Stan Lee, and his ever-growing legacy. Hand of Fire is radiant with the 'Kirby Krackle' of energy and enthusiasm, a fitting tribute to a unique creative genius." 'Nuff said?
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.00

Action! Mystery! Thrills!: Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age, 1933 - 1945
edited by Greg Sadowski
A visual feast if ever there was one, Action! Mystery! Thrills! delivers on the promise of it's title. Prepare for your eyes to buldge and your brain to pop as you try to absorb page after glossy page of these attention grabbing covers from the golden age of comics, when a daily struggle for survival took place on the comic racks of the USA, where the cover image could mean the difference between life or death for a comic book title; with so many to choose from, the cover had to grab the attention of the potential buyer and hold it long enough to pry that thin dime from his or her fingers and hand it to the clerk to plunk it into the till. The covers chosen for this collection collectively separated millions of dimes from their prior holders and sent a penny or two per to the publishers who could then live to fight another day – at least until the comics code came along... People bandy about the label "extreme" a lot these days, but there's nothing out there now to compare to the extremity of the images on display here. Pistols, knives and rayguns abound in full phallic splendor, along with women in bondage, unintentional homoerotica and racial caricatures that will have you shaking your head. The unifying factor underlying all of these cover images is a high energy, dynamic composition supported by an equally energetic use of color and contrast that taken together defined the comic book aesthetic that in turn was a defining element of the "American Century" that has been essentialized in works ranging from Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol's Pop Art imagery to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and hundreds if not thousands of European and Asian artistic commentaries on American culture which have used comic book imagery as a shorthand for American values. It all starts here.
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.00

TransAlaska
TransSiberia
TransAtlantis
TransUtopia
Cartoon Dialectics #1
Cartoon Dialectics #2
by Tomasz Kaczynski

Tom K. has - in addition to his day job - been industriously producing intellectually challenging comics, both for respected anthologies, most notably MOME (we direct interested readers to MOME 11, where his Ballardian gem, "Million Year Boom" first appeared; it was later collected in America's Best Nonrequired Reading 2009) and for his own imprint, Uncivilized Books. Growing up behind the iron curtain in Poland before emigrating to the US as a teenager gives his work a perspective fairly unique in contemporary comics. K. Takes a rigorously analytical approach to narrative, and in the four Trans comics here – each of which is a 16-page mini-comic – he applies his spotlight inward in an effort to deconstruct his psyche and it's motivations. These are auto-bio comics unlike any others. The two

volumes of Cartoon Dialectics – which are digest size and 24 pages and 32 pages respectively – while collecting much of Kaczynski's work for anthologies (other than MOME) and periodicals, some in color and nearly all dated from 2005-2010, also reveal his roots in the communist east – perhaps moreso by their titles than by their contents – and so also serve to remind readers of the strong philosophical roots of Marxism. Catch up with Tom K. at his blog, trans atlantis.

all Trans titles - retail price - $3.00@ copacetic price - $3.00@
Cartoon Dialectics #1 & #2 - retail price - $5.00@ copacetic price - $5.00@

KE1

Kramers Ergot #1, #2 & #3
edited by Sammy Harkham
A heretofore hidden cache of the first three issues of this seminal anthology have just been unearthed and we managed to obtain a share of them, which we are now offering for sale at their original prices (or less!). These three issues have been selling for high multiples of these prices for quite awhile, preventing the many who have to worry about things like eating and paying rent from being able to get their hands on copies – until now! The first two issues are more-or-less standard B & W comic books; #1 on newsprint guts with a cardstock cover, #2 on white (mando?) stock with a cardstock cover that is slightly lighter than that of the first issue; both are 48 pages. Each features early work by Harkham, along with his now largely forgotten compatriots David Brook, Lucas Quigley and Justin Howe (who lives on as a blogger). With the third issue, the format graduates to a 128-page squarebound trade paperback format and features a strong variety of early work by Anders Nilsen, Ben Jones, Joe Grillo, Hans Rickheit, Sara Varon, Zack Soto, Kathleen Lolley, Mark Burrier, and others, along with, of course, Harkham himself. Anyone interested in learning more about these issues should take a moment to read Joe Mcculloch's recently posted TCJ review written to draw attention to the discovery of these very issues.
KE3

#1 - retail price - $5.00 copacetic price - $5.00

#2 - retail price - $5.00 copacetic price - $3.75

#3 - retail price - $8.95 copacetic price - $8.95

SET - retail price - $18.95 copacetic price - $16.75

LB1

Watch the Doors As They Close
by Karen Lillis
Karen Lillis, top Pittsburgh literary maven and Polish Hill denizen, has a new work that has just been released as part of the Spuyten Duyvil Novella Series. Watch the Doors As They Close is an engaging 80 page work that appears, at first glance, to be a breezy roman á clef recalling a failed relationship. A closer read, however, reveals it to be primarily taken up with an intriguing meditation on this popular literary form. Adopting the guise of a series of journal entries, it is presented as having been written in quick succession during the closing three weeks of 2003. Lillis employs the technique of "stating the obvious" to bait the reader into digging a little deeper; evident right from the get go, with its opening sentence, "This is the story of Anselm." This seemingly blatant statement of fact is revealed, by the close of the work, to be anything but. Not simply a portrait of "Anselm", Watch the Doors is more complexly the story of the nameless "I", the narrator, and how Anselm has been encoded in her psyche. Geography – from Pittsburgh to Paris but mostly Brooklyn – and history – primarily 9/11 – are intermittently intagliated throughout the narrative but fail to penetrate its driving dynamic and engage its actors, who effectively live in their own world, which is a creation of the narrator. Watch the Doors explores the psychology and motivations at work behind the desire to write about friends and lovers under the guise of fiction. Attentive readers will glean their own personal insights from these explorations and be wiser for their efforts.
retail price - $10.00 copacetic price - $10.00

Items from our January/February 2012 listings may now be purchased online at our new site, HERE.