NEW STUFF ARCHIVES
New for December 2019
Tongues #3
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
New for November 2019
Sky Hawk
by Jiro Taniguchi
Action and adventure comics simply don't get any better than this epic graphic novel by Jiro Taniguchi. Conceived of as an homage to the "spaghetti westerns" of cinema and bandes dessinée – especially the Lt. Blueberry series by Jean "Moebius" Giraud – Taniguchi outdoes them all in this tale of cowboys and indians... and samurai! Sky Hawk is an historically accurate account of the post-civil war American west. As the railroads spanned the continent, an alliance (some might call it a conspiracy) of the railroad companies, the US government and gold hungry settlers of European ancestry pushed the Native American Indians off of more and more of their traditional lands. This inevitably led to conflicts, clashes, battles, and all-out war. At the same time that this was occurring in the American west, across the Pacific Ocean Japan was in the midst of what has come to be known as the Meiji Restoration. This too was triggered by the armed might of the US. Led by Commodore Perry, in 1853 America more or less forced Japan to open to "the west." Japanese leaders soon after realized that they needed to modernize their society in order to avoid being colonized. As a result, Japan's traditional feudal society of lords and their retinues of samurai warriors was brought to a close, and a market economy was institutionalized. Here in the pages of Sky Hawk, a pair of these newly unemployed samurais emigrate to America and find themselves in the middle of the epic conflict then unfolding in the American west, specifically between the Oglala Sioux – and later, also the Lakota Sioux – and the Euro-American settlers, the Railroad companies, and, finally, the US Army. The action then unfolds according to the conventions of the (spaghetti) western genre. In the masterful hands of Jiro Taniguchi – who passed on to the next plane of existence in 2017, to the watch over comics readers from his throne in the comics pantheon – these conventions are merged with those of the samurai adventure and apotheosized in this one-of-a-kind graphic novel. Readers will encounter the historical figures of Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and General George Custer and some historical battles will be depicted, but this is primarily a work of fiction that is the product of Taniguchi's inspired imagination. And, while cultural appropriation is inevitable in any work of this sort, Taniguchi is clearly very sympathetic to the culture of Native Americans, and does as good a job of representing their plight here in Sky Hawk as in any comics work we have ever encountered.
retail price - $24.99 copacetic price - $22.75
LAAB #4: This Was Your Life
by Ronald Wimberly
Ronald Wimberly & Co. are back with another issue of the broadsheet newspaper art magazine, LAAB! A feast for the mind as well as the eyes, it features a host of fascinating pieces chock full of interesting insights designed to challenge our perceptions and conceptions of yesterday, today and tomorrow. This issue "concerns themes of death and environmental devastation, horror, hauntology, necropolitics, and the anthropocene. We ask what it means to die, and what it means to live -- and what might have to die for a future to be born." While this issue states that it is "#4", it is in fact the second issue, so, as long as you have the first issue (which was #0), don't worry, you haven't missed anything. The issues are numerologically numbered, and this issue is #4 due to 4's association with death. This time around we have six 8-page sections of full color comics, intellectual explorations, semiotic deconstructions, reporting, interviews, and even a horoscope – well, "horrorscope", actually. And what pages! LAAB takes the prize for size. Printed on bright, crisp newsprint, each of the 48 pages are 16" x 21" – which opens to eye-popping 32" x 21" spreads – making for a unique reading experience. There are all new comics by Emily Carroll, Ben Passmore, Hellen Jo, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Nishat Akhtar, Josiah Files, Freddie Carrasco, Richie Pope, Tanna Tucker and Gymah Gariba, with the feature attraction being a twelve page work by Ronald Wimberly himself. We also are treated to an essay on the possibilities of Frankenstein's monster representing blackness by Elizabeth Young; Sarah Jaffe's exploration of how women's reproductive rights are embedded within the Alien films; an interview with John Carpenter and Sandy King; a look at the battle for Standing Rock by Michael Horse; and much more.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.77
Grip #2by Lale Westvind
Here's the stunning conclusion to Grip, Lale Westwind's comics constitution of cosmic energies in the service of manual creativity. Readers will be propelled through panel after panel filling page after page – 88 in all! – with imaginative delineations of a series of fantastic mergings of mind and hands with the materials of nature. These pages are overflowing with supercharged comics energy that will be directly transmitted through any eyes that are laid upon them, preparing their possessors to meet any challenge the world throws their way. Stunningly printed by the risograph wizards at Perfectly Acceptable Press in a limited edition of 450 copies. We received only a tiny allotment of this issue, so if you have yet to snag this, don't delay!
retail price - $35.00 copacetic price - $32.75 (SOLD OUT!)
The Tenderness of Stones
by Marion Fayolle
retail price - $32.99 copacetic price - $26.75Originally published as La tendresse des pierres by Editions Magnani of France in 2013, Marion Fayolle's large format work has now been released here in the United States by New York Review Comics in a translation by Geoffrey Brock (that has been relettered by Dean Sudarsky). The Tenderness of Stones is a comics meditation on coming to terms with the illness and death of a close family member, in this instance the father. In harnessing both scale and locale to serve not only in the normative representational mode, but additionally in the metaphorical and figurative modes as well, Fayolle successfully leverages the inherent expressive capacities of comics to convey the heartfelt yet sometimes absurd processes of simultaneously dealing and coping with the illness and death of a loved one, in the process creating, in the words of NYRC, "a gorgeously drawn fable (offering) a vision of family, illness, and grief that is by turns playful and profound, literal an lyrical." Special Introductory Sale Price
Pleading With Stars
by Kurt Ankeny
Pleading with Stars, Kurt Ankeny's new collection from AdHouse Books, showcasing his work from 2014 to 2019, maps an intricate constellation of words and pictures. And what pictures! Ankeny can draw. His virtuosity extends to a wide range of tools and mediums: pencils, pens, markers and brushes; inks, paints and watercolors; alone and in combination. These pictures are woven together with various threads of text into a series of stories that fill this elegantly produced 184 page softcover volume, with a pleasing tactility designed to make for an æsthetically pleasing reading experience. The stories it collects range from the science fiction of "A Bomb" and "The Synthesizer" to the personal philosophical reflections embodied by "E" and "Mother Airplane." The core of the collection is a series of meditations on the mysteries of human behavior: "Gulls," "Between December and March," "Saltwater Snow" and "Dark Desert Dawn." There are, in addition, a handful of unclassifiable 1 - 2 page "abstract and experimental" comics, unique conjunctions of techniques and topics that are highly engaging and will, we think, leave most readers wanting more. If these stories are linked in any way, it is in their searching for, finding and then exploring facets of souls shrouded in darkness and striving for illumination; pleading with stars.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.75
Now #7
retail price - $9.99 copacetic price - $8.75
My Dog Ivy: A July Diary
retail price - $5.00 copacetic price - $5.00
Mini-Kus #82: Elemental Starsby Kevin Hooyman
An all-new, full-faded-color fantasy epic by Kevin Hooyman, Elemental Stars features Alvum, Bird-Man, Turbo-Dog, Party Gator, Elgua – and Hedgie! It all starts when Bird-Man has a dream – or was it a vision? – of Crystal City. He recruits the others and they head out on a quest for the city of crystals, which they find, but is not what it seems... "What are the forces that move us? What is there to guide us? Neighbors unite and find a path when they follow a drean together."
retail price - $5.00 copacetic price - $5.00
New for October 2019
Making Comics
by Lynda Barry
It's here! The new volume of comics pedagogy by The Funnest Teacher in the World, Lynda Barry! As most watchers of this space are likely already aware, Ms. Barry was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (aka "the genius" award"). Making Comics provides further evidence that this award was well deserved. This much anticipated follow up to her previous work, Syllabus, also based on her experiences teaching at the University of Wisconsin, follows the same format, using it to dig deeper into the cave of creativity. In the 200 pages of this facsimile composition book we leave the safe, well defined confines of the symbolic realm and are transported to the rarely seen borderlands between writing and drawing. There, we are taken on a guided tour that includes a visit to the wilds of projective doodling wherein hands can draw without eyes to guide them, lines comes alive to reveal the "monsters" lurking in latency, and much, much more. By turns inspiring and instructive, insightful and informational, and a pleasure to read, Making Comics will be a welcome addition to anyone interested in what comics are and how they work, and how to go about making them. It will, of course, be of extra special interest to anyone who wants to learn more about how to teach comics and their making – and, really, creativity in general – and how to make it fun!
retail price - $22.95 copacetic price - $20.00
Maria M.
by Gilbert Hernandez
Well, instead of the long awaited Maria M., Book Two, we get... Maria M., the compete, all-in-one, single-volume hardcover edition. So, sorry to all those who bought Book One and now have to get it again in this complete volume... but, this one – containing both Books One and Two – is priced only seven dollars more than Book Two alone was priced, before it was cancelled and replaced with this single volume (and the Copacetic Price is only 76¢ more, so, hey, not bad). Such are the exigencies of publishing. All that said, Maria M. is a book of multiple layers. To anyone simply picking it up and reading it, Maria M. will be 232 pages of rock 'em, sock 'em comics pulp fiction, loaded with the sex and violence that are the staple of this genre. However, to longtime Love and Rockets readers, it is also, ostensibly, a B-movie retelling of the "true story" of Luba's mother, María Inclán – who is also the mother of Petra and Fritz, the latter of whom is the "star" of this movie, playing here her own mother. The "true story" referred to is the story that Gilbert originally told in Poison River, which was serialized over the course of several years (1989 - 1992) in the pages of Love and Rockets #s 29 through 40, and is one of Gilbert's most complex works. Additionally, there have been references to Fritz playing her mother in more recent issues of Love and Rockets, so one could then go back, reread Poison River and then search for those references to this "movie" of Maria M. made by – or about – Fritz over the last decade and then use those to inform a back story for this work... yes, it's kind of complicated – but it's entirely up to the reader how far to go down this particular rabbit hole. Suffice it to say that, no matter how you slice it, it makes a great read.
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $23.75
Bradley of Him
by Connor Willumsen
Consumer capitalist consciousness is turned inside-out – in page after page of spectacular, groundbreaking comics – to reveal an America in which it is viable to have consensus reality erased and supplanted by a prefabricated identity made in Hollywood (and on sale in Las Vegas), enabling one to star in a movie of their own life rather than live it. It becomes clear that there is a heavy price to pay for this life of illusion (although, of course, there is a Faustian bargain available), and Bradley of Him breaks out the cost structure – not just to the individual involved, but to the containing society as well – in great detail in this tour de force graphic novel.
retail price - $15.00 copacetic price - $13.75
Ginseng Roots #1
Chad in Amsterdam #3
by Chad Bilyeu
Chad Bilyeu is a Cleveland native transplanted to Amsterdam (via Washington DC) who is currently working to expand the comics vein opened by the soulful explorations of fellow Clevelander, Harvey Pekar. Following Pekar, Bilyeu writes, edits, art directs and publishes each issue himself. In the pages of Chad in Amsterdam, however, readers will experience the added value of a cross-cultural dimension absent in American Splendor. The stories in this series all fulfill the promise of its title. Each conveys a specific facet of Chad's life in Amsterdam, and in the process simultaneously reveals facets of Chad's personality along with aspects of the character of the city of Amsterdam. Thus far in the series, 18 different artists have contributed to the three issues of CiA (19, if you count Bilyeu himself), each adding their own ways of seeing to Chad's vision. This, the third issue in the series, is the most successful yet. The cover image drawn by Will Robson (with colors by Greg Menzie) provides an iconic image of Chad's comic book consciousness as he heroically embodies an African-Amercan ethos on the streets of Amsterdam. This issue's lead story, "De Vier Visspecialisten" (The Four Fish Specialists) is the fullest embodiment of all of the above yet achieved in the series. Illustrated by longtime Pekar collaborator, Gary Dumm, this story artfully weaves a (very) brief history of Herring in the Netherlands, with a look at how this fish moves to market – and ultimately Chad's own stomach – combined with pithy character studies of who does the moving. All dialogue is in the original Dutch with handy English translations provided, adding a degree of verisimilitude along with a bonus language acquisition opportunity. This is a combination of qualities that you'll be hard pressed to find elsewhere. In addition, this issue includes the third insallment of "The Dutch Inquisition," drawn by no less than Bernie Mireault, the '80s & '90s alt cartoonist and creator of The Jam – along with plenty of much else, including a stiont on Matt Wagner's Grendel – nice to see new work from him! This issue is rounded out with "Ronin." Illustrated by Lorenzo Milito, this story works to provide a window on the soul of the ex-pat, in another country via the metaphor of the masterless samurai, which works well here, and adds to the internationalist flavor.
retail price - $8.00 copacetic price - $7.25
Ink Brick #10
edited by Alexander Rothman
A new issue of Ink Brick is always a cause for celebration – especially this one. It has been announced that this, the tenth issue, will also be the last one... at least for awhile, as the series is going on hiatus. It is, fortunately, a particularly good issue, with a great bunch of contributors (see below), who have all turned in some really interesting and far ranging work, some of which you can get a look at on the publisher's homepage. FULL CONTRIBUTOR LIST: Kimball Anderson, Alyssa Berg, Warren Craghead, Kevin Czap, Allie Doersch, Amanda Green, Thomas Hamlyn-Harris, Ileana Haberman-Ducey, John Hankiewicz, Tom Hart, Emma Jensen, Keren Katz (who does double duty as the cover artist), Mario Klingemann, Laurel Lynn Leake, Alexander Rothman, Daryl Seitchik, Alexey Sokolin, Bianca Stone, Noemi Charlotte Thieves, Noel Suthers, Paul K. Tunis, Andrew White, Madeleine Witt.
retail price - $19.95 copacetic price - $17.75
These items and more may also be found at our eComerce site, HERE.
Creation
by Sylvia Nickerson
The debut graphic novel by Sylvia Nickerson, Creation presents an up close and personal look at living in Hamilton, Ontario that simultaneously confronts urban angst, inter- and intra-personal conflicts, the emotional conduits that run through domesticity and creativity – all in the context of a shifting cityscape that is responding to the pressures of globalization – in 192 pages in black and white and gray. Eleanor Davis opines, "Sylvia Nickerson allows the profoundly personal to be completely universal in her stark, soft drawings and faceless figures. This is a deeply human, generous book." Seth sayeth, "Way back in the stone age, when I first began making comic books for adults, it was with hopes that books like this would follow. Sylvia Nickerson's Creation is filled with the deep, complicated, messy stuff of real life – hard, sad, funny, insightful, and very rich in empathy."
retail price - $21.95 copacetic price - $16.75
retail price - $19.95 copacetic price - $16.75
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $21.75
Brain Bats of Venus: The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton, Volume Two
retail price - $29.99 copacetic special price - $21.75
Return to Romance: the Strange Love Stories of Ogden Whitney
