NEW STUFF ARCHIVES
New for June 2024
We're going to start things off this month with a Ron Regé, Jr. self-published double-header.
It's OverIt’s Over is a digest-size, two-zine set – 44 pages + 28 pages – printed in black ink on yellow paper (attention Pittsburgh sports fans). It presents a nice selection of work from issues 84 - 99 of Rege’s still ongoing series, The Shell of the Self of the Senses, that serves as an addendum to Rege’s Shell Collection just released by Fantagraphics Underground – which presents a (proportionately larger) selection of the first 82 issues. Philosophy, theosophy, mythography and much more mix it up in page after page of engaging comics powered by satisfying cartooning that work together to inform andentertain. This work amply demonstrates the strength of Rege’s artistic abilities that he has developed over his three decades of comics making . You can feel your neurons firing as you scan each page.
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $17.75
The Shell of the Self of the Senses #100And then we have… (The) Shell (of the Self of the Senses) 100! While T.S.O.T.S.O.T.S. is a subscription-only publication, Rege is releasing this celebratory 100th issue to the public and select stores. In addition to Rege’s own work, this issue’s 48 pages are filled with the comics by special guest contributors – all of whom are subscribers, just FYI. So get ready to enjoy some great work by Brendi Rioux, Patrick Kyle, C.F., John Porcellino, Jordan Crane, Chr PShaw, Arrington de Dionyso & Jason T. Miles, all done in the spirit of The Shell of the Self of the Senses, much, if not all, of which is unlikely to be reprinted. Don’t miss it!
retail price - $16.00 copacetic price - $14.75
And, we're going to keep going here with another self-published work from one of Regé's peers, the one and only Kevin H.! While it's summer vacation for some, lifelong learners know to jump on educational opportunities whenever and wherever they arise, and so we want to let you know that, after a long hiatus, Kevin Huizenga is back with a new pedagogical zine series to pick up where his twelve issue Comix Skool left off. This time around it's full, magazine size and in full color (but it should be noted that much of the artwork is, effectively, black & white when that is the form that particular lesson/demonstration takes). 20 pages with cardstock cover. Don't miss it!
CCC - Comics College Chicago: Introduction to Comics #1
retail price - $10.00 copacetic price - $9.00
J & K (softcover)No point in stopping now, here's the latest release from another member of the Kramers Ergot generation. For all of those who missed this the first time around and, especially, those who wanted it but felt that the price of the hardcover was too expensive for their budgets, John Pham’s lyrically ironic ode to consumer youth culture, J & K is back in this very nicely done softcover edition – for half the price (less than half, actually, once you take four years of inflation into account) of the hardcover! The printing quality on this edition is every bit as good as the hardcover. The rich and subtle shades of coloration are all vibrantly reproduced on the same heavy uncoated stock, fully evoking the risograph process for which Pham is duly famous. And all the micro-comics inserts from the hardcover have here been painstakingly reformatted to fit into full-page layouts. The only thing missing is the 5” vinyl single itself. In J & K, John Pham provides readers with a rare combination: self-awareness, fun, and a high level of craft.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.75
Now #13Now we'll segue into the present with the new Now, which has finally arrived! This lucky thirteenth issue runs the gamut, bringing readers comics from France, Spain, New Zealand, Australia and, of course, the U.S. of A. representing a diverse and far ranging take on the form: from the 24 pages of abstract comics from Cynthia Alphonso to the classic one-page Paul-Schrader-driven gag comics from Nathan Gelgud; from Caitlin Skaalrud's lyrical and sensually drawn pæan to the creative life, “How to Make Comics,” to Stacy Gougoulis’s cooly rational and tightly drawn inspection of the thin walls separating life and death; from Emil Friis Ernst’s Apollonian techno-managerial metaphysics to Ross Murray’s Dionysian family-dynamic disfunction; a couple signature quickies from Roman Muradov and Steven Weissman, showcasing their pithy wit to Kayla E’s full-on, 1990s-Chris-Ware meta-comics tackling despair with equal doses of rigorous deconstruction and slapstick humor. In short: another great issue! Kudos to Eric Reynolds for keeping the torch held high.
retail price - $12.99 copacetic price - $11.75
In the pages of All My Bicycles Powerpaola takes a post-punk-Proustian ride down memory lane via a series of bicycles, each evoking the particular period that it was owned and ridden: people, places, events – both mundane and dramatic – all are revisited as the reader is transported by Powerpaola’s lush and evocative artwork to remembrances of bike rides past in this nicely produced, 108 page, 7" x 9” French-flapped flexi-cover volume printed in black and white with red and yellow spot colors. "One of the great works of Colombian literature (and not just comics)." — El Tiempo. Translated fro the Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg.
All My Bicycles
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.75
Safer PlacesSafer Places is the first collection from Kit Anderson, recently graduated from The Center for Cartoon Studies. It is an engaging – and intriguing – collection of 21 short comics pieces executed in a variety of styles and ranging in length from the one-pagers like "Morning" and "Waves" to more lengthy excursions like the 26 page, "Weeds," and the 22-page, "The World's Biggest Ball of Twine" will all shapes and sizes inbetween. Stories are in black & white, full color, grey-toned, duo-tone, and combinations of these. There is considerable degree of formal and stylistic experimentation going on in these pages, a sure sign of a restless talent itching to go places – places that may well be worth following her to, as we have a feeling that she may make some interesting discoveries along the way.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.75
Hate Revisited #1It’s the return of Buddy Bradley & Co.! Taking a page out of the Love and Rockets playbook, the core story is bracketed by / intercut with flashbacks to the early Hate era (aka the ‘90s), showing the presence of the tangled lines of the past: Buddy/Lisa; Buddy/Valerie; Buddy/George; and (in flashback only, obviously) Buddy/Stinky – are drawn into the present as Tacoma-dwelling Buddy & Lisa visit Valerie & George at their Seattle digs for a dinner cum throwdown where values and tastes collide – in exactly the ways that longtime readers would expect. Appropriately, the flashbacks have been created in the black & white of the Hate-era in which they are situated, while the contemporary story is i the full color that Hate has been produced in for the last 20+ years (And, yes, the entire issue is all new material). Bonus cameo of Buddy and Lisa’s now-adult son, Harold! For longtime followers of the Buddy Bradley saga, reading this issue will be like catching up with old friends. 2024 feels like the right time to reconnect.retail price - $4.99 copacetic price - $4.75
GoiterAnd here's 224 pages of a cartoonist continuing (well, somewhat, certainly) in the tradition of Peter Bagge. Josh Pettinger's first major collection has now been released by Floating World. It brings together a heaping helping of comics from Pettinger's self-published Goiter series (and elsewhere?). This 6" x 9", perfect bound, softcover volume is printed on newsprint paper similar to that used in Rich Tommaso's Black Phoenix (also published by Floating World) for a nice classic comic book feel (although we must state that the reproduction here is not as crisp and clean as it is in Black Phoenix). Full color throughout, except for the 26-page "Wendy Bread", which is both black & white and reformatted (reduced) to fit the dimensions of this volume. Learn more and check out some sample pages (that look very different in print on paper than here on the screen) HERE. Even the elusive R. Crumb put in a good word: "Excellent, good social commentary with some moments that made me laugh out loud." Not bad!
retail price - $25.00 copacetic price - $19.75
The Bogeyman #1Wow! Who ever thought this day would come? Published by Baltimore-based avant-cartoonist, Noel'Freibert's Toy Box Coffin imprint, this is a high quality oversize (as in, larger than the original) reprint edition of the obscure, rare, 1969, underground comic book that's cover-to-cover Rory Hayes – The Bogeyman #1! Here in these 24 black white pages, Rory channels the heavy vibe picked up by his receptive mind from a steady stream of EC horror comics. This is comic book horror in its rawest form. And not only that, this edition comes with a massive 18" x 24" full color Bogeyman poster and a facsimile of an original 8 1/2 x 11" black & white flier promoting the comic's release.
retail price - $13.00 copacetic price - $13.75
And here's the first ever collection of the work of a largely overlooked figure from the early days of underground comix, Nancy Burton, aka "Hurricane Nancy." This oversize – 9 1/2" x 12 1/2" – 112 page softcover brings together an expansive overview of her rarely-if-ever seen comics and illustration work from the years 1965 through 1971, along with a brief introductory essay and lengthy interview with Ms. Burton by Alex Dueben. The bulk of the artwork is in black & white, but there are a few pieces – along with several photographs – in full color. Part of the Fantagraphics Underground (FU) series.
Hurricane Nancy
retail price - $30.00 copacetic price - $25.00
And while we're on the topic of classic comics reprints, anyone old enough to remember reading the Village Voice back in the 1980s will surely remember Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies – "All dialogue guaranteed 100% overheard" – which appeared in pretty much every issue for the entire decade – and then some, as Real Life Funnies ran from the mid-1970s through to the early-1990s. Now at last comes the opportunity to revisit well over 300 of these classic strips, printed full size in this massive, 12 1/2" x 9 1/2", horizontally formatted, 336 page hardcover. For anyone – probably most of you reading this – unfamiliar with Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies, we heartily recommend that you take a few minutes to read of few of them on Stan Mack's own site, HERE and HERE (just click on the thumbnails). "Back in the day, Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies was a weekly treat that became addictive to many readers, including Voice writers like me. We couldn't turn away from the words and images so innocently set down by the wandering artist as he overheard New Yorkers blurting out the social, political, sexual, and status anxieties of a generation. Indelibly candid, funny, startling, and occasionally even profound, these vignettes depict a magical lost metropolis that forever shaped our culture." — Joe Conason (journalist, author, and former Village Voice staff writer) >> INTRO SPECIAL PRICE!Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies: The Collected Conceits, Delusions, and Hijinks of New Yorkers from 1974 to 1995
retail price - $50.00 copacetic price - $40.00
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
New for May 2024
FINALLY! Ernie Bushmiller's iconic classic – the ur comics-as-text, the comicstrip that strips comics down to its bare basics – Nancy is back in print, thanks to the fine folks at New York Review Comics – and Denis Kitchen, who provides the foreword to this volume – the first of many, we can only hope. It's hard to believe that a strip so beloved by so many and so central to the history of comics has been completely out of print for close to a decade. But, the drought is now officially over – it's here! 148, 8 1/2" x 11" pages in glorious black & white.
Ginseng Roots: Complete Box Set #1 - 12 (ALL)by Craig Thompson
From the Midwest to the Middle Kingdom, Ginseng Roots spans global history through the lens of this humble plant in Craig Thompson’s latest epic work – the first of his works to be serialized in individual issues. Now, all twelve issues are available in a nifty collector box designed by Craig specifically to house the series, along with a few bonus doodads, all for less than the price of the individual issues alone. Ginseng Roots is engrossing – it’s hard to stop reading – educational – you’ll definitely be learning plenty you didn’t know before, about ginseng, about American and Chinese history and culture, and much more besides – and quite entertaining, filled with page after page amazing artwork. We posted some pages on our Tumblr – HERE – so you can take a look at what we're talking about. RECOMMENDED!
retail price - $69.99 copacetic price - $62.75
Nancy and Sluggo's Guide to Life
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $21.75
Then, on the other end of the comics spectrum, we have the comics of Aidan Koch – also from New York Review Comics, if you can believe it! While they're not for everyone, Ms. Koch's comics offer unique æsthetic pleasures, and for those who can really connect with them, it can be transportive. With 208 full color pages, Spiral and Other Stories is her most substantial work yet. The title story, which is divided into ten chapters and takes up 2/3 of the volume, is long enough to be a stand-alone work (aka graphic novel) – and it was, in Spain (en español), as La espiral, in 2020. In “Spiral," Koch applies her mastery of paint handling and uncanny understanding of negative space to a muted staccato narrative intercut with internal, metaphorical riverscapes to communicate an ineffable sense emotional distance. Also included are three additional short works, "A New Year," "The Forest" and "Man Made Lake." To the best of our knowledge, "A New Year" and "The Forest" appear here for the first time. "Man Made Lake" was previously published as mini kus #94, but was printed roughly half the size and, intriguingly, with the spreads being all different due to the fact that in the mini-kus the story begins on the recto, and here it begins on the verso.; so, subtle differences in the reading experience for all you layout obsessives out there (we'll let you know if Frank Santoro weighs in on this). Those unfamiliar with Aidan Koch's work can get a better idea of what we're talking about by taking a moment to visit a gallery of the book we posted on Tumblr, HERE.Spiral and Other Stories
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $21.75
New for April 2024
Victory Paradeby Leela Corman
Set in World War Two era Brooklyn, Victory Parade is a full length graphic novel work of historical fiction, beautifully executed in watercolors that successfully evoke the era. It follows the lives of a group of women doing welding work at the Navy Yard, work that before the war would have been done almost exclusively by men. Primarily focused on Rose, her daughter Eleanor and a German-Jewish refugee, Ruth, there is much more going on here in the lives of these women than welding, including Ruth's foray into the world of wrestling! We are also given an up close and personal look at the experience of liberating a concentration camp through the eyes of Rose's soldier husband, Sam. But the real star here is Leela Corman's lushly expressive watercolor art, which is well served in both reproduction and presentation in this sturdy, 10" x 11" full color hardcover volume. You can see a good number of full pages at this online exhibition at the Steven Kasher Gallery, HERE (first scroll down a bit, then you can scroll right – or left - by clicking on the arrows on either side of each image). All that said, as may be gleaned from the cover image, this work's title is not without irony, to say the least. The story told here is by turns angry and dark and contains more than one note of despair.
retail price - $29.00 copacetic price - $25.00
Woman, Life, Freedom
Here in The West, and particularly The United States, many – perhaps most – mistakenly identify Iran as a whole with the policies and actions of its Islamic leadership. This is a mistake. Readers of Woman, Life, Freedom will be fully disabused of this notion by the time they get to the last page – and likely well before. Iran is a diverse nation comprised by a intermingling of peoples – Persians, Kurds, Arabs and more – with long and rich histories stretching back thousands of years, making for a multi-faceted culture with many traditions predating Islam. The story of Iran today is a tragic – and complex – tale, and one in which The West is complicit in bringing about through its self-interested actions (read: access to oil; cold war proxy fight) taken at the expense of the Iranian people. As readers of Woman, Life, Freedom will clearly see, the Iranian people are now striving to regain the self-determination that had been taken from them. This striving is taking the form of a rebellion against the stifling and repressive, theocratic patriarchy of the Islamic Republic and their grotesquely vindictive enforcers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The courage and bravery on display in these pages will be as humbling to Western readers as the savage responses of the Islamic regime will be horrifying. But there is also much humor, joy and celebration to be found here, as well as plenty of satire, some of which is quite scathing. And, yes, this is a comics anthology. The twenty-four comics that fill this softcover volume's 268 pages have been created in black in white, duo-tone and full color, and in style and approach they vary as far and wide as called for by the nature of the contents, with each creator well matched to the story they have to tell. Standouts for us here at Copacetic include the fantastically cartooned story by Coco, as well as those by Bahareh Akrami, Paco Roca and Mana Neyestani, each of whom produced two tales, but every artist brings their all to the tale(s) they tell, and all are effective as well as affecting. Woman, Life, Freedom is a project initiated and led by Marjane Satrapi (the creator of the wildly successful two-part graphic novel, Persepolis). It takes its title from the name of the movement that it is documenting and supporting. Anyone interested in learning more about this movement can access a PDF of the 2023 Brown Democracy Medal winning study, Woman, Life, Freedom: Our Fight for Human Rights and Equality in Iran by Nasin Sotoudeh, HERE. The international aspect of this work led to translations from multiple languages into the French of the original edition, which has been in turn translated in its entirety into the English of this edition by Una Dimitrijevic. The lettering of the English language text
blends so seamlessly into the artwork that one would not guess that it wasn't the original. Kudos to the art director(s) who managed this feat!
retail price - $35.95 copacetic price - $29.75
Return to Eden, an homage to the artist's mother, creates a vivid portrait of one family's life during – under – the Franco regime, stretching from the Spanish civil war through the Second World War and up through the present – with the primary focus being the post-WWII years, when the artist's mother, Antonia, was growing up and coming of age. Roca has created a highly empathic and moving portrait of two generations of women surviving, and prevailing, through a harsh, violent period in Spanish history through which a man's authority remained unquestioned. Clearly sympathizing with the plight of his mother and grandmother, Roca shines a light on the grossly inequitable gender roles that prevailed during this era, implicitly linking fascism and sexism, and revealing outright misogyny underlying the particular, Catholicism-tinged brand of Spanish fascism, and in so doing revealing facets of human nature that continue unfortunately, to be relevant today. In Return to Eden, Roca has demonstrated measurable artistic growth, using more of the tools in the comics toolkit and putting them to better use in delineating the porous border between characters' internal lives and their external realities, producing his strongest work yet. To learn more, read Scott Cederlund's review, at From Cover to Cover, HERE. Translated from the original Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg. Recommended.Return to Eden
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $24.75
Love and Rockets, Volume IV #15
The New York City Outlawsby Ken Landgraf
Get ready for over 200 pages of classic, 1980s, Ken Landgraf comics! The New York City Outlaws is, as Jim Rugg states in his introduction, "the ultimate '80s black-and-white explosion book." This 248 page volume contains all five issues of the series – four in their original black and with and one in its original black and white and red – along with the aforementioned introduction by Jim Rugg, a 16-page, illustrated 2024 interview with Landgraf made especially for this volume, and a full color cover gallery. New York City Outlaws was – and still is – a pæan to classic old school heroic fantasy comic book values – but dropping the “super” from hero and with a grittier, more violent edge that fit in with the chaotic streets of NYC during that period – with a special emphasis on Wally Wood, as well as nods to Jim Steranko and Paul Gulacy. And, if you aren't hep to Landgraf, the best place to start is with his 2019 interview with Josh Bayer on TCJ, HERE.
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.75
Last Girl StandingAnd, finally, we had been selling this in the shop since it was published in 2017, but only now, with Trina's passing, did we realize that we hadn't ever included it here. The Last Girl Standing is an amazing, mind-blowing memoir of Trina's life and times, from her upbringing in Queens (which included her dating the then equally young Harlan Ellison, if you can believe it!) to her wild, fashion-centric, bi-coastal times in NYC, LA and SF in the swinging sixties, then on through her amazing career in comics. A nice and concise selection of Trina's comics work are sprinkled through the story, along with plenty of photographs all of which serve to bolster the vibe and get you in the groove. Trina was one of a kind, and so is her story.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $15.75
While he does have a number of major book projects under his belt, going all the way back to the immensely influential late-1990s work, Skibber Bee Bye, along with numerous contributions to a wide range of anthologies, for thirty years and counting Ron Regé, Jr. has been preaching the gospel of hand-made, self-published comics, and the personal salvation to be found in the practice. In the process, he has emerged as one of the truest disciples of William Blake, carrying forth the Blakean spirit into the comics realm. Since 2016 this practice has been flowing through his most sustained self-publishing project yet, The Shell of the Self of the Senses. As the series title suggests, the point of departure for these works is an acknowledgement that there is more to life than that which we experience through the senses, that the self that is composed of sensory input forms a (protective) barrier that stands between the external world and another, distinct but dependent, internal self. Yet this title also suggest that, paradoxically, in creating work that must be apprehended through the senses, the only way we can communicate this internal self is through the shell self that that contains it. The comics and drawings that we are presented with here explore internal states of consciousness in lines on paper and work – to varying degrees – to inscribe these interior states into forms that can be transmitted through the "shell." This process can stand as a metaphor for comics making itself, with the shell being the paper through which we can share – through the senses – that what the "shell" of the senses contains. While that statement could be considered as belaboring the obvious, we do not generally have that in the forefront of our minds while reading comics. Here, we do, and it is Regé's placing of these considerations front and center that define his comics. As with Blake, Regé's ultimate aim is to transport readers to the realm of the spiritual, to share the spiritual self within the shell of the self of the senses. Ron Regé, Jr. is a true original, but he does have some peers, notably Frank Santoro here in Pittsburgh, and including – but certainly not limited to – Marc Bell, Theo Ellsworth, John Hankiewicz, Kevin Huizenga, John Porcellino, and Lynda Barry, specifically in her works What It Is and Picture This. All of whose comics careers can be said to embody, in one way or another, self-publishing meaningful, personal comics as a way of life. Anyone currently unfamiliar with Regé's work, who responds to and enjoys the work of any of these cartoonists stands a very good chance of connecting. The Shell of the Self of the Senses is soon to hit its landmark 100th issue and the comics that fill this Shell Collection are harvested from the first 75 issues. Its 176 oversize pages contain a heaping helping of comics, illustrations and texts, many in full color here for the first time, also in tri-tone, duo-tone, monochrone, and black & white. Also included are brief intro and outro essays by Regé and an essay by Brandon Avery Joyce that was originally written for the 2018 exhibit, From the Word of First Thought: New Work By Ron Regé,Jr. held at VCUArts' The Anderson Gallery in Richmond, VA. As all of the work included here has only previously appeared in Regé's self-published, subscriber-only series of mini-comics, it is "all new" to everyone but those subscribers. So, a real treat for the next tier of Ron Regé, Jr. readers and fans. Learn more about Ron Regé, Jr and his practice in this 2017 TCJ interview by Kim Jooha. Then gain some further insights into his recent work by reading this 2023 critical essay by Hagai Palevsky, also on TCJ.Shell Collection
retail price - $34.99 copacetic price - $29.75
Break out the bongs, Blessed Be has arrived! Rick Altergott has been producing his unique (but definitely inspired by and to a degree derived from the classic Mad) brand of comics – at a painstakingly slow pace – for over three decades now. He's been working on Blessed Be in one form or another for something in the neighborhood of twenty years – but you can't rush quality, and we're here to tell you that it was worth the wait! Longtime readers will recognize some classic earlier Altergott-penned episodes from his and Ariel Bordeaux's early-aughts, two-person anthology series, Raisin Pie, reworked and repurposed here, all in the service of creating the definitive saga of Flowertown, U.S.A. Blessed Be features Doofus & Henry Hotchkiss, along with their cohort of not-so-beautiful losers, and a host of other misfits, eccentrics and iconoclasts, as well as plenty of norms, several criminally minded individuals, and at least one dangerous lunatic, together with a notable number of independent, self-directed nubiles. All of these characters, taken together, work to delineate the chasm that yawns between the generations, between the wreckless and adventurous youths and the respectable and responsible elders that they must inevitably become if Flowertown is to flourish. This 168 page, full color hardcover is packed with page after page of classic, old school comics that will be especially appealling to those in or close to Altergott's demographic. It is like getting a heaping helping of alt/indy/underground comic books all mixed together and served up right. Plenty of comic book satire full of attitude and sarcasm, but also sincerity and a struggle for meaning and a search for values in a crazy mixed-up world where just about everyone goes astray – some more than others. The interspersing of Jack T. Chick tracts through the mis en scène is a nice touch that adds to the frisson. Altergott manages to turn the classic comic book reading experience inside-out and show the working parts (or, if you prefer, to place the subtexts front and center) – in a manner somewhat akin to Herbie, only without the sexual repression. Daniel Clowes gives Altergott – who is his contemporary – a ringing endorsement (see below), and that's not surprising, especially as, upon reflection, Blessed Be, while clearly – and deliberately – lacking the gravitas of Monica, does have a surprising (or, perhaps, upon reflection, not so surprising) amount in common with its themes and motifs, and shows Altergott and Clowes combing similar patches of the post-WWII American psychic landscape that shaped them both. >> "Rick Altergott is the unsung genius of American comedy. An amazingly well-crafted conflation of queasy psychology, sub-moronic toilet humor, and fine art." – Daniel Clowes <<Blessed Be
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $24.75
Seventeen years in the making... it's Marc Sobel's mightily researched, heavily sourced, profusely illustrated, in-depth, from-soup-to-nuts study of the original run of the one-and-only Love and Rockets! This 344 page, 8" x 11", French-flapped softcover is filled to the brim with not only the comics and art of Jaime, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez, but also illustrations of a wide variety of their inspirations – primarily comics of all sorts, but also movies, music and more – which serve to illuminate their pathway from culture consumers to culture producers, along with a healthy helping of photographs that show them at varioius points along the way, and plenty of rare ephemera – there's something to look at on every page! And, of course, there's plenty to read here – notably including a continuous cascade of perceptively chosen excerpts from the many interviews given by Los Bros over the decades, which have been assiduously dispersed throughout the commentary. Sobel starts off with a forty page preamble, "Life Before Rockets", which works to set the stage for what is to come. This section is particularly valuable for presenting early, pre-Love and Rockets fan art, cartoons and comics by both GIlbert and Jaime, along with reproducing the actual two-page spread from The Comics Journal #67 containing Gary Groth's review of the original, self-published first issue of Love and Rockets. Then, it's off to the races as Sobel goes on to "read" – as in write about – all fifty issues of the magazine-size, first volume of Love and Rockets, published by Fantagraphics from 1982 through 1996 (that was recently collected in a super-deluxe hardcover box-set), in order. The serialized stories, which are the most widely known works from the series, are, naturally enough, each treated as a whole, rather than on a chaptter-by-chapter basis, and situated in their rough chronological position in the issuse-by-issue read through, alongside of the many short, stand-alone pieces that accompanied them through the years. Again, the read-through of each story is illustrated with sample artwork as well as images that provide a continual referencing of sources, and also a variety of asides, which together make for a rich, you-are-there experience that works to both inspire the reader to head to the actual comics to read the works themselves – or, perhaps more likely, re-read – and then to enhance that reading. Longtime readers will feel dormant synapses firing, bringing back halcyon days of immersive comics reading, while newcomers will experience the excitement of exploring this terrain for the fiirst time. All who delve into Reading Love and Rockets will be sure to find themselves drawn inexorably towards the work by the gravitational pull exerted by the world of Love and Rockets. Marc Sobel's previous work – produced in collaboration with Kristy Valenti – was titled The Love and Rockets Companion, and provided a detailed index of stories and characters that functioned as a companion to the corpus of Love and Rockets. This work that we have before us now serves as a companion for the Love and Rockets reader, enabling a triangulated dialogue between itself, the reader – you – and the comics of Love and Rockets, opening up an expansive space for interpretation(s) and appreciation of this truly outstanding one-of-a-kind work, an appreciation that is sure to continue to grow in the years ahead as Love Rockets takes its rightful place as an era-defining classic of American art and literature.Reading Love and Rockets
retail price - $49.99 copacetic price - $42.75
First off, to avoid any confusion that might arise from the illustration accompanying this listing, this is a single volume that flips over, with two front covers – Ace-Double / 69 style – making for two different sketchbooks – one for Jaime and one for Gilbert – that then meet in the middle of the volume. ¿Comprende? Most of the material presented here is drawn from the two original oversize softcover Love and Rockets Sketchbooks that were published over thirty years ago – but not all; there is previously unseen work here. This massive compendium (see specs below) provides a chance to experience some of the untrammeled enthusiasm at the genesis of Love and Rockets as well as some behind-the-scenes looks at the scaffolding the supported the early days. We do feel compelled, however, to note that the quality of the reproduction of the art, what you actually see on the page, is not up to the level one would expect for a book at this price point. It is clear that many, perhaps most, of the images are not first generation scans/reproductions of the actual artwork, but are at a remove of one or more generations; reproductions of reproductions, in other words. While many, perhaps most, perusers of this volume won't even notice the quality issues in the reproduction of the artwork, some are sure to be marginally disappointed (we've done our part to make up for this by offering a healthy 20% discount to help bring the price down). That said, there is no downplaying the vitality of the work collected in this volume. There is a high level of raw comics energy here, flowing forth onto the page from the can-do, punk rock spirit that animated the dawn of the Love and Rockets era; an energy that anyone and everyone can tap into, and which has been, and will continue to be, an inspiration to us all. >> Pages: 408 | Format: Hardback | Black and white | Dimensions: 10.1" × 13.3" | Weight: 6.25 lbs. <<Love and Rockets: The Sketchbooks
retail price - $75.00 copacetic price - $59.75
Here it is, a brand new comic book series from Tim Lane! This premiere issue of Mythologies & Apocrypha delivers 32 pages of exquisitely rendered pen & ink, primarily black & white comics (there is one page partially in full color, and several with dropped in fields of red, á la the cover image) focused on bringing to our dimension Lane's comic book mythographies of Life in these United States, derived largely from the realities experienced during the middle 1/3 of the last century. Here we have larger than life figures such as Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, Sammy Davis, Jr., Walter Cronkite and, yes, even Howard Cosell, remixed in off the wall, alternative reality, and science fiction settings, to deliver psychological truths that reality alone cannot. Come for the art, stay for the stories, linger for the myths.
Mythologies & Apocrypha #1
retail price - $5.99 copacetic price - $5.75
How War BeginsMasterful cartoonist, comics maker, editor, designer and publisher, Igort has visited this physical and emotional terrain before in The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks, his harrowing account of the forced starvations imposed by Stalin during the 1930s USSR, most notably in the Ukraine. Here is his personall account of the war Iin Ukraine, aptly sub-titled, "Dispatches from the Ukranian Front." It takes a hybrid form combining journaling, illustration and comics. The visuals here have all been created in the service of edited transcriptions of telephone calls from people in Ukraine – and also Russia – providing a blow by blow illustrated accounting of the human costs of the Russian invasion from day one through day one hundred – day by day at first, then week by week – interspersed with relevant historical background that will assist readers with context and enable greater understanding. The material is printed in full color – but the colors in which it has been rendered are very muted; almost everything towards the red/brown/black end of the spectrum, as this is very dark stuff. Reading it now, it once again becomes immediate, and it is hard to believe that over two years have past since the material chronicled here transpired. Woe, indeed. Translated from the Italian by Jamie Richards. | hardcover | 168 pages | 7" x 10" | full color |
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $24.75
Dummy #1
Froggie World, Vol. 1: "Love. Angel. Music. Bike."This first volume of Froggie World provides 64 pages of funky risogrsph printed autiobio comics that chronicle one young woman's journey through life in early 21st Century NYC employing a variety of artistic media, approaches and styles that, taken together, work to convery the variety of states of mind that can – and do – occupy a single being.
retail price - $15.00 copacetic price - $13.75
The Art of Steve Rude 2024From J.C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell, George Bridgman and Andrew Loomis, Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Noel Sickles and Milton Cannif, Jack Kirby and Will Eisner, Alex Toth and Russ Manning, Jim Steranko and Paul Gulacy comes... Steve "The Dude" Rude! Yes, The co-creator of Nexus continues to hold high the ideals of fine comic art illustration and he's still at it! Here in this 176 page, full color softcover yearbook, you'll come face to face with roughs, sketches, work-ups, drawings, studies and paintings, all executed by Rude, and almost all in the past year (2023). He's still got it! This book will, of course, primarily be of interest to long time fans of Rude's work, but any working comics artist or illustrator will come away from studying this volume with an appreciation of Rude's dedication and hard work – and, more importantly, a greater understanading of "how it's done."
retail price - $24.99 copacetic price - $21.75
Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: The Definitive Collector's EditionThis 320 page, full color, 8 1/2" x 12" hardcover volume is a fantastic collection of some of the finest prints ever produced. It presents full-page, full color reproductions of all 118 of Hiroshige's Edo prints, along with copious notes, supporting illustrations and an appendix of reduced-size, "thumbnail" reproductions of the numerous variations among the different versions of the print editions; hundreds in all. Amazing! Recommended! Deal!
retail price - $39.99 copacetic price - $32.75
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