Ganges #6
by Kevin Huizenga
IT'S HERE!  The sixth and (maybe? maybe not??) final issue of Kevin Huizenga's revelatory exploration of and meditation on time and space:  Ganges.  This issue focuses on some of the effects of technology on our temporal experience.  As always, Huizenga takes the opportunity to explore the unique properties of comics searching for new, untried and/or under-appreciated approaches to what the medium has to offer by way of communicating concepts and states – of mind as well as of being.  While all of us employing the latest gadgetry, apps, platforms, etc. have no shortage of anecdotes pertaining to our experience, Huizenga isn't satisfied with simply relating an experience, he wants to take you inside of it. He aims to demonstrate, with the comics making tools at his command, what it feels like to move through space and time with technologically augmented perceptions, how the experience of moment and place is thereby altered, and so provide readers the opportunity to step out of their hyper-connected selves, to see what's happening in their minds and so gain a consciousness awareness of the changes taking places, of how our experience is undergoing a transformation by being so immersed in connectivity and mediated by a technology which, lest we forget, is owned and managed – for the most part – by for-profit corporations with agendas of their own.  Yes, of course, we all know that the world we live in is changing, but what is less obvious, what it is important to keep in mind, is that it is being changed, that agency is involved, and that competing interests are locked in constant struggle to determine the future – our future – and that this future is ever more being determined by a controlled altering of human interactions with and through the temporal and spacial reality – in which we have evolved over millions (billions!) of years – via technological impositions designed to align our perceptions with the agendas of corporate entities and the interests of the hegemonic capital that they serve.  And while this capital is in turn putatively subject to private ownership, these owners are not themselves immune to the technological forces being employed to reshape civilization and are so subject to the same perceptual impositions, perhaps even more so due to their higher degree of immersion in technology.  Leading to a state of affairs in which the abstract aims of capital to replicate itself may be liable to determine future paths irrespective of any direct human agency.  In other words, it is imperative to gain a greater awareness of how present – and future, as every day brings something new – technologies are altering our experience of reality and so be able to consciously evolve in ways that enable us to adapt to the changes in our perceptual environment – changes that may very well turn out to be as momentous as the changes occurring in/to our physical environment – in order to maintain, and, ideally, advance, human agency.  Kevin Huizenga's timely and necessary work is aimed at providing just this awareness.
retail price - $8.00  copacetic price - $7.25




Crickets #6
by Sammy Harkham
The wait is over, Crickets #6, "an interlaced body of cowardice, blindness, craftiness and stupidity," has arrived.  The story of our hero continues.  Seymour remains possessed by his cinematic vision. The tighter he grasps the vision of what his film should be, however, the looser his grip on the reality of the situation in which the film is being made becomes.  Unsurprisingly, this leads to difficulties, the consequences of which the reader sees coming, but, unfortunately, Seymour does not, making for some farcical slapstick and some hard life lessons, both at the same time.
retail price - $8.00  copacetic price - $7.25




Mary
by Lale Westwind
PIX Premiere.  Hot off the press and straight from PIX, it's the latest from Lale Westwind!  Here, in 20 risographed pages, Mary posits a cyber-spirituality; the bonding together of human spiritual energy through a hyperconnected virtual reality space.  Deep within the recesses of a vital strategic area of a high-tech infrastructure in the thrall of a military-industrial complex, which is in turn leveraged by high-rolling, high-financiers – slipping in through a hidden hole in an unsurveilled space, a spark!  The Team is formed: drone pilot consciousness Joan and the sympathetically conscious Mary, a hybrid-being the likes of which we have not seen before (think Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann, maybe?).  Similarly inspirited individuals – wholesome, yet (and so?) subversive – become aware of the actions taken by The Team and sense their strength.  A movement begins!  The Team grows!  Impulsively coalescing around Joan and Mary, joining in the struggle to Give Peace a Chance in a World Addicted to War – a Storming of Heaven!
retail price - $6.00  copacetic price - $6.00

Grixly #38
Nate McDonough
published by Self-published
PIX Premiere. Sub-titled, "The Breakup Issue," Grixly #38 is also about the stunning rise up to the vistas of a relationship before the crushing fall down that leads to the break-up.  Most of all it is about identifying and releasing the bittersweet emotions trapped in the amber of memory; about re-inhabiting a former self and re-experiencing moments and decisions in one's own personal past and connecting them to one's own personal present – and, implicitly, future, as well.  In the pages of Grixly #38 – which contain, along with some full color pages, a tentative but nonetheless intriguing first-time use of spot coloring – you will ride the roller coaster of a first love that coincides with the first steps of independent young adulthood and witness the mix of contingency with immaturity which is perhaps its defining characteristic.  All for $2!
retail price - $2.00  copacetic price - $2.00

Cut-Away Comics #3
by Dan Zettwoch

PIX Premiere.  Hold onto your hats! The looooong awaited third and final issue of Dan Zettwoch's CUT-AWAY COMICS has arrived - along with restocks of the first two issues! So, anyone late to the party can celebrate the conclusion of this adventure-filled episode in the annals of John James Audubon's birding career along with the rest of us. All issues are only $1@: Another spectacular Zettwoch Industries value!
retail price - $1.00  copacetic price - $1.00

Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special
by Jim Rugg & Brian Maruca
PIX Premiere.  Long rumored, the official release of the first all-new Street Angel adventure in years has at last touched down on the Copacetic new arrivals table:  Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special is a deluxe hardcover edition complete with endpapers and special features, amply demonstrating that the Maruca-Rugg dynamo is still in full effect. Dexterously interweaving wry humor with ingeniously rendered eye-popping action sequences, they together forge a highly entertaining and uniquely insightful portrait of the refusals, denials and elisions that constitute high school romance.
retail price - $19.99  copacetic price - $17.77

Japanese Notebooks: A Journey to the Empire of Signs
by Igort 

Written and drawn – and designed – by the Italian artist, Igort (translated into English by Jamie RIchards) and printed in Italy, Japanese Notebooks is a sumptuous visual feast.  It is also, of course, much more.  It is:  an investigation of the personal forces that drive artists to create in general and to pursue the particular paths they do; an exploration of how their imaginations come to be possessed by specific images; a memoir of one particular artist's journey; and much else.  Igort is one of the most accomplished comics makers currently working, and Japanese Notebooks is likely his most personal work yet, one that is apt to hold a particular appeal to othwer comics makers, as these two testimonials attest:  "As a graphic novelist, I obviously can't get enough of books about what it feels like to be a cartoonist, and this is a high point in that pantheon.  Igort's memoir is a rich, complicated meditation on art, cultural infatuation and the seen versus the remembered.  All told in a collage of words, images, diagrams, photographs, history, ideas, feelings – and most surprisingly – of conflict."  – Chris Ware  "With evident enthusiasm, Japanese Notebooks describes an artist's journey to Japan, from Igort's arrival in 1991 with the preconceptions of an outsider to his discoveries both artistic and personal over many return encounters." – David Mazzucchelli
retail price - $29.99  copacetic price - $26.75

Imagine Wanting Only This
by Kristen Radtke
Kristen Radtke's massive meditation on impermanence, Imagine Wanting Only This is paradoxical in that it is a deeply felt work conveyed through superficial artifice; a dichotomy which undergirds its significance.
retail price - $29.99  copacetic special price - $22.22







S! #27: The BFF Issue
Cover: Hironori Kikuchi (Japan) Contributors: BloodBros (New Zealand), deadtheduck (India), Derrengueta (Spain), Émilie Gleason (Mexico), Erlend Peder Kvam (Norway), Gareth Brookes (UK), Gonçalo Duarte (Portugal), Hironori Kikuchi (Japan), König Lü. Q. (Switzerland), Krystal DiFronzo (USA), Līva Piterāne (Latvia), Louise Aleksiejew (France), Lucas Souza Teixeira (Brazil), Lukas Weidinger (Austria), Marie Weber (France), Melek Zertal (Algeria), Shawn Eisenach (USA), Shee Phon (China), Till Lukat (Germany), Tor Brandt (Denmark).  Support: Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation  Format: A6, 164 pages, full-color, perfect bound, high quality and environmentally friendly Munken paper.
retail price - $12.00  copacetic price - $12.00

PIX Picks #2
The second power-packed issue of PIX Picks has arrived.  40 full color pages of comics and features revolving around the special guests and exhibitors at PIX 2017 – including Dan Zettwoch, Conor Willumsen, Lale Westvind, Carol Tyler, Ed Piskor, Lane Milburn and Anya Davidson!  PIX 2017 will be held on Sunday, April 9, 2017 at the August Wilson Center, located at 980 Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh (15222).  Programs will be across the street at the Toonseum – and Comics Workbook will be holding workshops at the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council two blocks away at 810 Penn Ave.  Everything is FREE and open to the public – including PIX Picks!  More info <HERE>.

copacetic price - FREE





SET: Comics School / Comics Skool / Comix Skool USA #1-5
by Kevin Huizenga
Learn from the master of comics space and time for mere pennies, in this complete set of all five issues of his pedagogical zine!  Each of these issues is a jam-packed 32 pages filled with hard won insights, making for 160 pages of major league DIY comics instruction that will take you straight into the heart of the ComixZone™.  Now with bonus hand color-coding on the covers by Mr. H! 

copacetic price - $20.00



 
What Parsifal Saw
bv Ron Regé, Jr.
Ron Regé, Jr. strikes again!  What Parsifal Saw collects Regé's work since The Cartoon Utopia.  The two key pieces here are "Cosmogenesis," illustrating the "secret doctrine" of Madame Helena Blavatsky, the key figure in the history of Theosophy (which had a significant influence on the first generation of modernist artists, notably Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky), and  "Diana," Regé's unique spin on W*nder W*man; both originally appeared in (now out-of-print) self-published micro-editions.  Also included are:  "Pythagoras," which first appeared in The Pitchfork Review (and later in Best American Comics 2015!); Regé's brilliant use of Alex Schubert's Blobby Boys in a scathing critique of contemporary culture and society, all accomplished in a power-packed two-page spread that originally ran on Vice; several one-pagers; a bunch of bonus illustrations; new front and back cover illustrations; and more!  All in a nicely put together and printed softcover volume for quite a reasonable price.  Ron Regé, Jr. has been striving conscientiously to forge a visual language to channel spiritual forces through comics, continuously evolving his approach, and in the process creating a singular and highly rewarding body of work. Recommended!

retail price - $14.99  copacetic price - $13.75
PLUS! In tandem with their release of What Parsifal Saw, Fantagraphics has at last issued the long-awaited softcover edition of Regé's The Cartoon Utopia!



Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero
by Michael DeForge
Michael DeForge's latest is a collection of horizontally-formatted single-page strips that cohere into a single work.  It appears that DeForge gave himself the challenge to work in the mode of the old school newspaper comics strip makers, producing a "Sunday page" every week, only now, of course, instead of appearing in the newspaper, it was posted online.  The simple pleases of the format, such as the largely repetitive grid, and including the treasured, unique header titles for each and every strip, make this an æsthetic treat; but one that is always at a remove on the screen.   Fortunately, it has now been collected in this fine hardcover edition from Drawn & Quarterly. Fiendishly arch in its narrative discourse, while simultaneously completely sincere in its artistic aims and formal devotions, Sticks Angelica plots a course to navigate through our troubled times.

retail price - $21.95  copacetic price - $19.75




Starseeds
by Charles Glaubitz
Having begun life as a series of paintings over a decade ago, Starseeds at last takes full form in this 240 page hardcover graphic novel from Fantagraphics.  Sumptuously printed in navy blue and golden yellow on a nice, lightly textured, flat, off-white stock, readers will experience a multi-dimensional tale full of spectacular art leading through jarring shifts in mode and perspective.  Filled with aliens and strangers, cyphers for the experiences of alienation, discontinuity and commodification, readers are provided a chance to see the strangeness in the accepted normalcy.

Little Angels
by Aidan Koch
A tidy 32 page, full color, saddle-stitched work that is part of the MoMA PS 1 series of artist monographs.
retail price - $10.00  copacetic price - $10.00

Pretending Is Lying
by Dominique Goblet
Widely acclaimed in European comics, the work of Dominique Goblet, a francophone native of Brussels, at last receives an English language translation by Sophie Yanow in this beautifully produced New York Review Comics edition of Pretending Is Lying.  Produced over a period of roughly a decade, the artwork is highly expressive, deeply personal and embodies a variety of techniques and materials that indicate the passage of time, shifts in perspective and consequent changes in approach.  Pretending Is Lying is a work that you not just simply read, but experience.  Check out its NYRC page for six preview pages and more.

Another Pair of Retrofit Releases:

Canopy

by Karine Bernadou

80 fun-filled pages! Printed in black, white and red, Canopy (Retrofit 57) collects a heaping helping of Karine Bernadou's playful pantomime comics wherein and through she releases her inner child and lets her lead her cartoon avatar through a fable-filled Flower Child's Progress (of sorts). Reflective, enjoyable and energizing! 

Babybel Wax Bodysuit

by Eric Kostiuk-Williams
The comics in Babybel Wax Bodysuit jump off the page.  Inventive, layered, colorful and complex, the seven short comics pieces that make up this 24 page compendium tackle a variety of pop culture icons and demonstrate how they can be – and are – integrated into personal identity; simultaneously demonstrating the deconstructive abilities and savvy of their creator; entertaining and educational.

Canopy - retail price - $15.00  copacetic price - $12.75
Babybel Wax Bobysuit - retail price - $6.00  copacetic price - $5.00

Terms and Conditions: The Unabridged Graphic Adaptation - Complete Edition
by R. Sikoryak

Inkbrick #5
edited by Alexander Rothman
The latest issue of Ink Brick is the most jam-packed yet!  80 full color pages and 29 creators – here's the list:  Louise Aleksiejew Kurt Ankeny, Nicky Arscott, Colleen Louise Barry, Aaron Cockle, Letisia Cruz, Allie Doersch, Shawn Eisenach, Winnie T. Frick, Mike Getsiv, Dina Hardy, CB Hart, Jason Hart, Aurélien,  Leif, Courtney Loberg, Maxine Marie, Antoine Medes, Laurence Musgrove, Myra Musgrove, M. A. Noreña, Thilini Perera, Ellis Rosen, Sam Ross , Alexander Rothman, Samplerman, Alexey Sokolin, Deshan Tennekoon, Paul K. Tunis and Jenny Zervakis.

Tarzan, The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus – Volume One

retail price - $28.00  copacetic price - $24.75

retail price - $17.95  copacetic price - $16.25

Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White

The End of Summer
A City Inside
I Love This Part

by Tillie Walden
The End of Summer was the first book by wunderkind Tillie Walden's.  Published by the UK's Avery Hill Publishing, it was started (and finished?) while Ms. Walden was still a student at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and has been turning heads with its polished professional poise, despite its creator's tender years: Born in 1996, Ms. Walden was the top Ignatz award-winner at this year's SPX.  Get a taste of what she's (been) up to at tilliewalden.com.  You're sure to be impressed.  Her next work, A City Inside, takes a searching look through the dense forest of life, down one particular path, revealing... days of (one potential) future past?  An eloquent embodiment of "the journey is the destination"?  A preternaturally talented 19 year-old's Miyazaki-inflected self-examination in comics form? An extended visual riff on the relationships between urban and suburban spaces and identity?  Yes.  And her third book, an early 21st century high school romance told in a neoclassical hybrid that incorporates early 20th century comics language into a post-modern sense of space and time, I Love This Part is composed of a series of 64 one-page tableaus through which the protagonists move – almost float – and in which the figures occupy masses and spaces within each of the many land and cityscapes which wildly vary in relation to the presupposed respective spatial relationships they occupy in our memory maps of reality - but perhaps not, Ms. Walden hints here - in our imaginations (Ms. Walden is likely taking her cue here from Winsor McCay, as she did in other ways in her first Avery Hill work, The End of Summer, and by so doing reinvigorating the century old tradition of this artist who did so much to shape the history of comics, returning to the source to renew the form).  Most readers of this effecting work will, of course, be too engrossed by the detailed delineations of affections exchanged and the consequential quandaries that follow to be paying much attention to the formal qualities outlined above.  It's a winning combination, either way. 

Black History in Its Own Words

by Ronald Wimberly

Between the hardback covers of Black History in Its Own Words, celebrated comics creator Ron Wimberly has selected and illustrated 39 quotes "ranging from the casual to the profound, from luminaries past and present."  The comics portraits assembled here range in style from Pop Art to European portraiture to manga and, of course, straight up comic book, the mode of representation in each case chosen to effectively represent the speaker and match up with the quote.  Part of the fun of this collection is seeing who Wimberly chose to represent, which quote he picked and how he went about it representing it, so we're not going to spoil things by giving it all away here, but will suffice it to say that the range – from Sojourner Truth to Ice-Cube – is wide, and includes plenty of surprises, and will demonstrate to just about every reader that there's still plenty to learn about black history.  SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:  Copacetic will host Ronald Wimberly – creator of Black History in Its Own Words – on Wednesday, February 22, from 6:00-pm to 8:00pm.  See you there!
retail price - $17.99  copacetic price - $15.00

Overgrowth and Underbrush

Hot off the press, it's R. Sikoryak's The Unquotable Trump. Seventeen classic comic book covers and one Hostess Twinkies ad are re-imagined for the age of Trump, in inimitable R. Sikoryak fashion.  All dialogue sourced and referenced.
retail price - $4.00  copacetic price - $4.00

Rumbling, Chapter 1

by Kevin Huizenga

With things going as they are, Mr. Huizenga has, evidently, decided that it was a good idea to reissue the long out of print first chapter of "Rumbling," which first appeared in Or Else #5, way back in 2008, to remind us that things can still go quite a bit further south.  Here's a bit of what we had to say about it back in our original review of that issue:  ...the 24-page "Rumbling," which is, according to the credits, "adapted" from the 44th of the 100 Ouroboric (very short) Novels that make up Centuria by Giorgio Manganelli (translated by Henry Martin) –  but it is probably more accurate to say that is "inspired" by it.  This story "stars" Glenn Ganges and imagines a religious war -- something along the lines of the current Sunni-Shiite conflict raging (then... and still) in Iraq -- taking place here in the good ol' USA.  This issue also includes a 5-page bonus story, "Spiders Around the House", which, along with covers and title page rounds this mini-comic out to a full 32 pages.  PLEASE NOTE: We have also received a simultaneous restock of Rumbling, Chapter 2, so Now Is the Time ...
retail price - $3.00  copacetic price - $3.00

Grixly #37

by Nate McDonough

The latest issue of Grixly has arrived.  This time around, Nate McDonough's comics compendium of personal observations, philosophical musings, relationship reflections and just straight up cartooning takes the form of a pint-sized edition composed of 28 black and white interior pages wrapped in a one-two punch, full color, hi<=>lo concept cover.  Includes collaborations with Emilernst and Marolon Battad.  Printed in a limited edition of 200 copies it is paradoxically ultra-low priced at a mere $2.00.  Made in Pittsburgh!  What are you waiting for?
retail price - $2.00  copacetic price - $2.00

Madwoman of the Sacred Heart

by Moebius & Alejandro Jodorowsky

Moebius & Jodorowsky's Madwoman is, perhaps, the screwball comedy to end all screwball comedies.  Opening on a French college campus, it starts out slow with what seems at first to be the beginnings of a fairly typical professorial indiscretion with an attractive younger student, but.... Well, we don't want to ruin it for you, as the primary pleasures of this work – after, of course, that provided by simply enjoying Moebius's splendid artwork – are the rapidly multiplying plot twists that make up this roller coaster ride of a book.  It seems germane to point out at that, yes, the superficial characterizations on display here lean towards the stereotypical and, oh boy, yes, sexism is the order of the day – but, the outrageous plot has been concocted to turn these clichés inside out and point out the inherent folly in building a society based on such conventionalities (i.e., a patriarchal one), before, finally, setting everything back to right with what may very well be the definitive deux ex machina conclusion. So, buckle up and get ready for quite the ride.
retail price - $29.99  copacetic price - $26.75

Total Chaos

by Iggy Pop and Jeff Gold

And we'll wrap things up this month with the Stooges book to end all Stooges books.  WIth a text primarily comprised of transcriptions of Iggy Pop's reminiscences, starting with a heaping helping of his early days when he still faced the world as James Osterberg, this heavyweight hardcover volume goes on to chronicle the lives and times of The Stooges in all their glory and decrepitude.  It is packed with ultra-rare photos of band members, early haunts, little known peripheral players, famous. not-so-famous, and nearly unknown performances and concerts – both early and late –  rare artifacts and much else that will have longtime Stooges fans eyes bulging out of their sockets.  Essential.
retail price - $49.99  copacetic price - $44.44

Want to keep going?  There's tons more great stuff here, most of which is still in stock.  Check out our New Arrivals Archives:

4Q 2016: October - December, New Arrivals
3Q 2016: July - September, New Arrivals
2Q 2016: April - June, New Arrivals
1Q 2016: January - March, New Arrivals

4Q 2015: October - December, New Arrivals
3Q 2015: July - September, New Arrivals
2Q 2015: April - June, New Arrivals
1Q 2015: January - March, New Arrivals

4Q 2014: October - December, New Arrivals
3Q 2014: July - September, New Arrivals
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4Q 2013: October - December, New Arrivals
3Q 2013: July - September, New Arrivals
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4Q 2012: October - December, New Arrivals
3Q 2012: July - September, New Arrivals
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1Q 2012: January - March, New Arrivals

4Q 2011: October - December, New Arrivals
3Q 2011: July - September, New Arrivals
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1Q 2011: January - March, New Arrivals

4Q 2010: October - December, New Arrivals
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4Q 2009: October - December, New Arrivals
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4Q 2008: October - December, New Arrivals
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4Q 2007: October - December, New Arrivals
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4Q 2006: October - December, New Arrivals
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4Q 2003: October - December, New Arrivals
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2002:       January - December New Arrivals
 

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last updated 31 March 2017