NEW STUFF ARCHIVES
New for December 2024
Six Treasures of the Spiral presents a quarter-century (1995 - 2020) worth of Matt Madden's short comics pieces "formed under pressure". After an introduction by Ed Park, there follows 23 comics in 200 pages, 22 of which had been previously published and one, "The Others" appearing here for the first time (we think; if so, making this a must for all die-hard Madden collectors – but then, you'd have bought this anyway, right?). The "pressure" under which these comics were formed being, for the most part, a variety of constraints – either derived from or inspired by the (largely francophone) Oulipian tradition as translated into the => Oubapian, which serves the world of comics, or, in French, bande dessinée (thus the "ba" for bande dessinée in place of the "li" for littérature). A key feature of this collection is an appendix, "Additional Materials for the Curious" wherein readers will find twenty pages of notes explicating Madden's working methods together with the specific constraints applied to each story, and bits of biographical background that will help readers piece together the basis and formation of his practice – including the fact that Madden had already begun working in the Oulipian tradition before discovering its existence (although likely via the influence of work by others who had) – along with resources for further exploration. The title story to this collection, "Six Treasures of the Spiral," has been a favorite here at Copacetic since initially encountering it twenty years ago, when it provided the revelation, "oh, you can do that in comics!" so we're glad to see it put in the spotlight here. "Six Treasures" formally adapts the sestina, a somewhat obscure poetic form (that is thoroughly explained in the note for this story that is included in the aforementioned appendix). It is a multi-leveled work wherein the comics making process incorporates problem solving and puzzle building, and in which the reading experience becomes a sort of two-person remotely played parlour game between author and reader. Various aspects of this approach and combinations thereof are to be found in practically all of the pieces here, so it is – fittingly, in more ways than one – an appropriate choice for title story. And, for those readers unfamiliar with Madden's work, yes, the drawing/artistry/craft embodying all these ideas/practices/disciplines in comics is indeed up to the task as the comics collected here are readable, pleasing and engaging. Also worth noting is the fac(e)t of there being a strong undercurrent of sexual tension/desire – often, but not always, frustrated – running through many of these stories, continually presenting a sort of parallel problem in need of solving. In these pages, Madden brings a cornucopia of novel ways to think about, approach and create comics that, by being collected together here, create a repository of ideas that will serve to expand the boundaries and thereby increase the capacity of comics for years to come. Intellectually engaging, interesting, and fun! What more can you ask for?Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed Under Pressure
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.00
Here's the latest Snake Creek book from Drew Lerman. We snoozed on when it came out last year, but finally got it in. And we're glad we did, as its 176 square-formatted pages collect 160 fantastic four-panel comic strips that are freely drawn, and perhaps even more freely written, filled with dialect-heavy speech phonetically rendered, very much in the manner of George Herriman's writing in Krazy Kat – which is clearly a major influence, as the world of Snake Creek is cut from cloth patterned after that of Coconino County. What's not to like? There's quite a lot going on here. First and foremost Lerman has managed to grasp, tame and present the rhythms of regularly produced, classic four-panel comic strip cartooning. Reading contemporaneous material in this classic format is like feeling a fresh breeze entering a long closed room filled with stale air. It's quite refreshing! And what's more, he does so here the service of the form itself. Escape from the Great American Novel uses comics to confront the challenge presented by how best to manifest the creative communicative drive. Along with the novel, poetry and song are explored. Cultural identities, communal living arrangements of various sorts, private property and business interests, as well as conflicts between the public and the private, and the forces of nature and technology all figure in the narrative as it unspools amidst the lo-fi hi-jinx of scratchy ink delineated cartoon characters. An added dimension is that the cartoon characters populating the largely masculine world of Snake Creek serve as stand-ins for the unconscious drives that populate the male psyche. With Dav and Roy standing in for the ego and the id weaving through a Freudian obstacle course filled with emotional baggage that has obvious roots in Jewish history, embodies Hebraic attitudes, and that flowers in Yiddishisms. In the end, as the ontological frame within which the entire debate transpires, it is no surprise that it is the comics form itself that emerges as the most effective means of communitarian communication and the premiere instantiation of the creative drive, in its metonymically panoptic subsumption of all other forms.Escape from the Great American Novel
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $17.75
Acme Novelty Datebook, Volume 3: 2002 - 2023Well, here it is – seventeen years after the second volume (which arrived a mere four years after the first): the third volume of Chris Ware's "facsimile doodles, banal jottings and vengeful personal redress, 2002 - 2023"; aka The Acme Novelty Date Book, Volume Three. As expected, this volume is identical in format to the first two (and, for first rank Ware fans and completists, there is an empty slipcase designed to hold all three, available directly from D & Q, here). As with the first two volumes, this one is a very solid, elegant, smyth sewn, clothbound edition, printed in black & white and full color where each is called for, so as to effectively reproduce the original artwork, and running 208 pages. And, yes, this guy can draw. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this one is that it takes us (almost) right up to the present, and so can see what Mr. C. Ware has been ruminating about lately.
retail price - $49.95 copacetic price - $42.75
The Scrapbook of Life and DeathHere's a volume that's not for the faint of heart. In these 88, oversize, A4 pages, J. Webster Sharp applies her dazzling stippling technique (think Drew Friedman doing storyboards for Eraserhead) to translating the psychological underpinnings of the mental health issues that occupied Edwardian era egalitarian, George Ives, driving his assembly of a massive hoard of newspaper clippings that he collected into a lengthy series of scrapbooks over a period of 50 years (think Henry Darger as a scrapper). Hallucinogenic is the word that first comes to mind while scanning these images. Also, disturbing. At the conclusion of the volume, hand written transcriptions of some of the newspaper clippings that inspired the comics are appended. Anyone interested in some background on the creation of this work is encouraged to tune in to this 45-minute interview with J. Webster Sharp hosted by publisher Avery Hill.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $17.75
Dante's InfernoIn the 150 pages of this 8" x 10 1/2" hardcover volume, the Brizzi brothers, Paul and Gaëtan attempt an unlikely feat: to adapt Dante's Inferno to a graphic novel of modest length. Rendered entirely in graphite pencils, this work works to capture both the spirit of the Inferno and of the time and place – early 14th century Italy – in which it was originally created. You can get a solid feel for their approach by checking out this substantial online preview. See what you think...
retail price - $25.99 copacetic price - $22.75
War on Gaza collects Joe Sacco's "satirical broadsides" that were published on The Comics Journal’s website earlier in the year. It takes the form of a squarebound, magazine-size, 32-page comic book printed on heavy flat white stock with cardstock covers. Sacco is perhaps most widely known for Palestine, his groundbreaking work of comics journalism that originally appeared in a series of nine standard comic books, over a quarter century ago, so what he has to say now, and how he says it, are worth paying attention to.
War on Gaza
retail price - $12.99 copacetic price - $11.75
Rusalka – Whispers of the ForestRusalka – Whispers of the Forest is a 100 page, B5 (7" x 10"), perfect bound softcover. Beautifully rendered, and crisply printed, largely in a green and blue duotone, with occasional shifts into a brown-red-yellow register, it relates the tale of Rusalka, a mysterious water demon from Slavic mythology. It is the creation of Kamila Krol – who also goes by "Pigeon" – a queer Polish comics maker currently based in Cardiff, UK. Learn more about her work and scope out some samples, HERE (and, the top two images on this page are from Rusalka, to give an idea of what's in store). This is, evidently, the first part of an ongoing Rusalka saga; so more on the way...
retail price - $18.00 copacetic price - $15.75
Crepusculine #1Crepusculine is Conor Stechschulte’s new ongoing comics/zine series. 14 pages of this first issue are dedicated to the opening sequence of his in-progress graphic novel, Vacuum, which takes readers on the first leg of a dark journey. Hauntingly printed in midnight blue, this silent but deadly tale will leave readers simultaneously asking both “why?” and “what happens next?” This issue is 20 pages total, slightly smaller than a standard floppy at 6 1/4” x 9”, with a risopgraph printed interior and 2-color screen-printed cover. Nice. But dark.
retail price - $12.00 copacetic price - $10.75
And, here's a pair of all new self-published minis by Theo Ellsworth
Spook Home #1 is an all-new, 20-page, 6" x 8", black & white comic book, with fullSpook Home #1
color cardstock cover, from Theo Ellsworth. Yay! On one level, it's an insightful allegorical tale of seeking help for mental health issues; on another, its a fun-filled frolicsome adventure story packed with Ellsworth's wonderful and highly inventive drawing. It works both ways, and either way makes for a great read. The "1" in the title makes us wonder whether there'll be more. Here's hoping! Our copies are all signed in red by Theo.
retail price - $6.00 copacetic price - $5.75
House Shaped Hole #1Theo Ellsworth and Sean Christensen have teamed up to create this all new series! In this premiere issue, we are introduced to a pair of child protagonists, Patio and Tagliattelle, who meet on the street that delimits and determines their world, from its "mouth" to its "belly." Norms of behavior as well as heavy topics are discussed. Parents are largely absent. Also: Decider Ball. The creative space occupied by this neighborhood feels a bit like it could be right next to the one Lynda Barry created for Marlys & Co. in her long-running Ernie Pook's Comeek. 32 pages | 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" | black & white | full color cardstock covers
retail price - $6.00 copacetic price - $5.75
Resurgence!Cogently edited by Abigail Susik, Resurgence! presents a selection from the twelve-issue run of the (very) small press, agit-prop zine of the same name published from 1964 to 1967, along with photographs, ephemera, and other documentation, some of which has never been published before. The Resurgence zines were the print manifestation of the anarcho-surrealist Resurgence Youth Movement (RYM) led – or, at least, most closely associated with with – Jonathan Leake, that began life as an ultra-low budget mimeograph publication and maintained a "lo-fi" print æsthetic throghout its run. Also included is a series of essays by Susik along with Paul Leake, Maggie Wrigley Leake, Sean Lovitt and Penelope Rosemont that provide a much needed biographical background on Jonathan Leake, along with providing a publication history of Resurgence and its relationship to the RYM and also then contextualizing both within the era of "the sixties" in which they flowered. AND, there's also a selection form Jonathan Leake's own Root and Branch: A Radical Sixties Odyssey that was orignally published in 1992, in the same lo-fi, double-spaced, typed manuscript format. Timely and inspiring. softcover | 224 pages | 8.25" x 10.5" | print run: 500
retail price - $30.00 copacetic price - $28.75
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
New for November 2024
Hot House has at long last arrived here at Copacetic! The publisher, Fieldmouse Press, has produced a very nice, heavy-duty, oversize (9" x 11"), Smyth-sewn hardcover edition that runs 100 pages; in black & white, of course. A notably multidisciplinary artist, John Hankiewicz is best known among Copacetic customers for his comics work, which features a labored, detailed pen & ink drawing style that has gradually evolved over his quarter century of comics making. His comics work is also especially notable for its highly successful translations of verbal/textual poetic principles such as meter, foot and rhyme into their visual/comics equivalents, as well as elements analogous to those of musical composition: various rhythms, particularly contrapuntal; the flow from tension to resolution that translates arrangements of musical notes/chords/progressions into arrangements of visual elements/objects/symbols, occasionally forefronted to such a degree as to leave the narrative elements (often obscurely) in the background. He has created a wide range of comics work in a considerable variety of forms. Hot House is his first major work since Education, published by Fantagraphics Underground in 2017 – after being self-published a year or two earlier; so, it's been awhile. Hot House is in many respects his most formal work yet. While the superficial theme of the work may be taken to be that of a simple suburban domestic drama, within its 96 pages of “silent” (textless) comics, the diegesis becomes completely untethered from normative expectations, yet manages to keep the reading experience firmly anchored through its employment of a strictly uniform, four-panel grid. In lieu of the story-based narrative arc typically found in works of this length, Hot House takes an entirely different tack. The work is propelled by a multi-levelled set of formal polyrhythms that together serve to represent the complex rhythm of domesticity and its deep roots in the unconscious. This emerges in a play of visual associations between a variety of objects – carrying varying degrees of symbolic weight – within an ever shifting – and at times jarring – visual orientation of the interior and exterior domestic spaces, combined with a disjointed and constantly shifting temporal scale – often including split-second moments that would fail to be perceived in such a way by normal human perception – that, taken together, work to manifest an intricate interplay of memory, fantasy and dreams in the service of representing the inherently unstable – and deeply mysterious – nature of the domestic relations. You can start to get an idea of what we're talking about by spending some time with this preview hosted by SOLRAD. RECOMMENDEDGet ready for a 474 page graphic novel that entirely transpires on the one single day of the title. Move over Virginia Woolf, step aside Marcel Proust, get back James Joyce, Olivier Schrauwen is here to dilate time and fill it with consciousness, comics-style! Schrauwen's choice of imagery and manner of drawing it adds dimension and perspective to the stream of consciousness, creating meanings otherwise invisible – and in the process puts the comic in comic book. In addition to being a masterpiece, this is a very funny book. Schrauwen knows how to leverage the innate strengths of comics like few others. If you want to know what unflattening looks like, this is it. The eternal, innate connectivity inherent in consciousness is linked to the contemporary enhanced, hyper connectivity enabled by technology. Through Schrauwen's consummate – and constant – contrapuntal collaging of images and text – largely that of the protagonist's ceaseless internal monologue – connections multiply leading to an exponential growth in interpretations such that any possibility of stable definitive meaning seems finally out of reach and a sense of random and incomprehensible simultaneity pervades. Until it finally dissipates in the tour de force climax of the work, and meaning is revealed to be consubstantial with community. Sunday is at its core a portrait of consciousness as an isolated self-consciousness. But it is a self-consciousness that is, in turn, undercut by a pervasively intrusive authorial consciousness. This authorial consciousness, intriguingly, operates primarily on the visual plane, via its register of images. Thus it is through the contrasting imagery that the textually embodied isolation is revealed as demonstrably illusory. And, as a value-add, these authorial intrusions are both deftly insightful and sharply satirical, giving the work an equally pervasive comic air that is often laugh-out-loud funny. This is comics. Its text is so densely layered that the process of reading Sunday lifts one outside of oneself, delivering its readers from their mundane cares and into the spiritual promise once anticipated on that holy day. Its title also does double duty in pointing to another aspect of its construction, namely that it can trace its roots back to the early newspaper comics Sunday pages from a century prior, through which the language of the medium was forged, and which Sunday, to varying degrees, recapitulates the development of – most notably its slapstick elements. And woven through all is a through composed irony that eventually reveals itself be ouroboric in nature. We've posted a gallery of panels and pages on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE. You can read Matt Seneca's recent TCJ interview with Schrauwen, HERE.Sunday
retail price - $39.99 copacetic price - $33.75
Hot House
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $22.75
This rigorously produced volume takes the physical form of a 176 page, full color, oversize, smyth-sewn hardcover printed in Italy on heavy flat-white stock. It opens with a thoughtful and deeply engaged introduction by New York Review Comics co-founder, Gabriel Winslow-Yost and then proceeds through a judiciously selected – by Sammy Harkham, no less – array of CF’s work from the first decade of our current millennium, before concluding with a casual yet absorbing interview with CF, conducted by Rob Goyanes, that is surprisingly revealing, shedding significant light on CFs personality and process, and in particular on the crucial relationship between his music and comics practices. Distant Ruptures is a real gift to the comics creative community, providing a wealth of hard to find comics work by comics’ master renegade. Those new to CF or just getting underway and/or who are only familiar with his more recent work stand the most to gain from this volume, but even long-time CF devotees who are likely to have encountered the bulk of this material before, will benefit, as this edition does right by the material and it’s great to have it all together, where it takes on added significance. Endowing the comics form with the qualities of a sacred vessel, CF stashed his boyish exuberance within its hallowed confines. Guarding it carefully, and all the while maintaining his focus on his comics practice and meticulously honing his craft, he protected it through the traumas of adolescence and then smuggled it past the border guards of adulthood, and in doing so managed to channel unadulterated childhood perceptions and conceptions through a self-forged comics linguistics; a rare feat. CF deploys the language of comics to short circuit the hegemonic language employed by capitalism to assert and maintain control of the body. His comics embody the physicality of creativity, at times simultaneously demonstrating comics as a form of writing and writing as a form of drawing, making for a paradoxical project of merging the Lacanian pre-symbolic and symbolic in pursuit of expressing the ineffable. His comics tap into that “something” that is always just beyond the reach of conscious understanding, where memories, dreams and ideas mix it up and merge. Sometimes brutal, other times funny, often absurd, the comics of CF defy classification; they simply embody the essence of comics. Here's a gallery of pages from the book that we posted on Tumblr.Distant Ruptures: A Selection of Comics, 2000-2010
retail price - $32.95 copacetic price - $28.75
Fans of New Dheli cartoonist, Bhanu Pratap's first North American collection, Dear Mother & Other Stories have been chafing at the bit awaiting more work from this unique and powerful comics maker, and now, at last it's time to release the inner reading beast so that it can gallop through 100 (mostly) full color pages of new work that fill this just released full size (9" x 11 1/2") hardcover from the Fantagraphics Underground (FU) imprint. With maniac precision, in cold, cruel, harsh blacks, Pratap graphically brings to comics the underlying essence of "the shadow" as conceptualized by T.S. Eliot in "The Hollow Men," in 1925 (intriguingly, preceding by five years the emergence of the pulp character bearing that appellation). Reading – experiencing might be a better description – these works one feels at times as if one is being attacked via the optic nerves. Delineations of sharpness and angularity converge upon, contain and pierce soft blobby curves in ways that uncannily capture crescendoing anxieties that climax in panic before collapsing in despair. And always, there is the deep, black shadow... of the abyss. Cutting Season features 16 short comics pieces, ranging in length from short, mostly black & white or monochrome, 1-2 page pieces like "Star Gazing", "Anvil" and "Stuff-icked" to to longer, full color, 8 - 16 page works like, "Into Me", "Toddling Towers", and "Sediment" with the remainder falling somewhere inbetween. It feels like some of these pieces – for example, "Stuff-Icked" and "Sediment" may be from an earlier period in Pratap's development; if not, then they are simply less maniacly precise. Each of the pieces, to varying degrees, will tug at the reader's intelligence, nagging their consciousness for a solution to the enigma that they present. Like feeling an an itch in the brain demanding to be scratched, readers will find themselves returning to these pieces to unlock their riddles, and to sound their unfathomable depths.Cutting Season
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.75
Black Coal & Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars dramatizes in comics form a series of related instances of the intense violence that can be inspired by the struggle for control over energy resources – in this case, coal – and that took place in West Virginia – not far from us here in Pittsburgh, PA – early in the twentieth century. As it is up to our very day, the demand for control of energy resources comes from the holders of capital, as energy is the principle bedrock of the control of the systems that undergird the global capitalistic framework – at least since the dawn of the industrial era. When challenges to the control of energy rescouces emerge, the responses on the part of the "owners", are often harshly punitive. And, as shown through the progression of the four incidents recorded here, can easily escalate, leading to explosive violence. The challenges to control – here, that of coal extraction – come in the form of both organized labor and individual miners – with a particular focus on the figure of labor agitator, "Mother Jones". The forces at work are both simple and complex. Simple in that these "mine wars" were fought between capital and labor, complex in the actual ways in which the opposing sides organized and marshalled their respective forces and engagements with government officials and written law. It should be noted that this work, in delivering its sober message, records the extreme violence with which the labor resistance was met – and the impunity with which is was meted out by the mine owners and their agents, who acted with seemingly no fear of repercussions to themselves or their businesses. As such, it may not be appropriate for younger and/or sensitive readers. Regardless, such readers should proceed with caution. The author, Raymond Tyler, had his work cut out for him, as there is a tremendous amount of material – often involving conflicting reports of the facts on the ground – that needed to be both sorted through and then compressed into a story that could be conveyed in graphic novel form. A notable effort was made to bring to the fore the intersectionality of the labor struggle, with the acknowledgement that approximately one in four miners were Black at the same time that the United Mine Workers union (UMW) excluded Blacks from membership. This did not stop the Black mine workers from joining the fight against the depredations of capital. The artist, Summer McClinton clearly put a great effort into researching the people and places – as well as the historical epoch – (likely also studying the John Sayles film, Matewan for its dramatic effects in addition to other historical materials) and so effectively presents the action in a "you are there" fashion. Her artwork is especially effective in capturing the persona of "Mother Jones" and how it subtley shifted as she aged over the twenty-year period which is covered here. As mentioned above, the artwork does not shy away from depicting the violence that these strikes engendered – they are referred to as "wars" with good reason – but neither does it sensationalize or glorify the violence, quite the contrary. McClinton's art characterizes the violence as brutish senselessness. The 100 page comics dramatization at the core of this book divides the mine wars of the title into four battles, each of which is given their own chapter, and is bracketed by contextualizing essays by Gordon Simmons and Shaun Slifer at the fore and Paul Buhle at the aft. There are references to many supporting works of the history of these battles – as well as to the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum – for anyone interested in digging deeper. This book has been produced in affiliation with Working Class History, "an international collective of worker-activists focused on the research and promotion of people's history."Black Coal & Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars
retail price - $19.95 copacetic price - $17.75
We've long been fans of the comics of Sacha Mardou (aka Mardou) here at Copacetic. Over the last several years her comics work has taken a turn from roman à clef stories and thinly veiled autobio fiction towards crafting short pieces relating her experiences in therapy (many of which have been shared on her Instagram [you'll have to scroll down through her posts a bit, at present, to get to these pieces]). Now, with Past Tense – a 336 page, full color, hardcover edition – she has adapted her new approach to create this long-form memoir of her therapeutic journey. It starts off with a brief overview of her life leading up to therapy, revealing the sources of her trauma and anxiety, before plunging into her experiences with the therapeutic process. Readers who decide to accompany her on this journey will soon discover that there's a lot to process in these pages. Those who stick with it will share in the ups and downs, the emotional highs and lows, and so stand to gain new perspectives and the insights that go with them, emerging at the other side with an understanding of what drives people to "do the work."
Past Tense
retail price - $30.00 copacetic price - $25.00
You can't force the kind of inspiration it takes to make the kind of material found in the pages of Worn Tuff Elbow. In fact, this long awaited third issue of Marc Bell's long-running series marks its 20th anniversary! And, to celebrate, this 32-page magazine-size issue is in full color! While the centerpiece of this issue is largely a reprint of the story "Slogan Schnauzer" which appeared in Kramers Ergot #10, it is an enlarged and reformatted version, with new material – AND it appears here for the first time in glorious full color. That additional quality, added to it's enlargement, has a transformative effect on the story. Thus, here, in its rightful place in the pages of Worn Tuff Elbow #3, "Slogan Schnauzer" appears at last in its intended form, its potential fully realized. Bonus: Marc Bell draws himself here! – in both a foreword and afterword (of sorts), along with a couple short pieces. This 36-page issue is literally cover-to-cover comics! And of the kind you don't see every day, given that this 20th Anniversary Issue is only the third in the series!
Worn Tuff Elbow #3
retail price - $12.00 copacetic price - $10.75
Get ready for another JAM-PACKED issue of TIm Lane's single-creator anthology series, Mythologies and Apocrypha! In these pages, a mythic Steve McQueen takes both center stage and many forms. Supported here by screen co-stars such as, most notably, Frank Sinatra, (whose support also takes multiple forms), as well as those makers and intermediaries of American mythologies, Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson, who are shown here in their full-fledged mythic personas. The issue concludes with the apocryphal September 1935 issue of Funtime Funnies featuring "Li'l Stevie, Hero of Tomorrow", that originally appeared in NOW #12, in our review of which we then described it as "a hybrid work that seems to synthesize Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan and Peter Blegvad’s Leviathan – with a dash of Al Columbia’s Pim & Francie – and then graft it all onto Ernie Bushmiller’s early period Fritzy Ritz and Nancy in order to create a dark, drunken and twisted, but pathos laden – and still very Tim Lane – Golden Age comics take on... Steve McQueen's childhood." 32 hard won pages in black & white and full color crisply printee on flat white stock with glossy cardstock cover. Mythographies and Apocrypha gives readers more comics for their hard earned cash than any comic book out there.
Mythologies and Apocrypha #2
retail price - $5.99 copacetic price - $5.75
The sixth issue of Chad Bilyeu's tale of his DC drug dealing doings – created in Amsterdam in partnership with the outstanding artist, Juliette de Wit – pulls back from the developing action to poetically present a moment in memory that cuts through the hectic hubbub to reach towards an elusive truth. From both a dramatic and structural standpoint, this issue seems upon its conclusion to stand at an inflection point in the series' narrative arc, from which its contours begin to come more clearly into focus and the full dimensions of the canvas upon which it is being painted are revealed. Having worked together coming up on two years when they headed into the creation of this issue, it feels like writer and artist have organically enmeshed into a single creative organism, fully inhabiting their chosen format, with Ms. de Wit's three-tier pages clicking rhythmically through her well composed panels balanced in textured shades of black, gray and green to lift the reader up above the hurly burly of life in the ways that the weed often promised to, and once did, to reach behind pain into hidden recesses of the self. This issue is notable too in being the first to include a genuine letters page (a full four pages, actually). Re-Up readers step forward and reveal themselves to be fully engaged with the product and Chad's generous responses are both thoughtful and articulate, striking a near-perfect balance between empathy and sales pitch.
The Re-Up #6
retail price - $8.00 copacetic price - $7.50
For all those who either didn't learn about the limited series until it was too late, or were waiting for the collection – here it is: the Maple Terrace hardcover collection! Featuring over 100 pages of full color comics starring that cute comics drawing imp. L'il Noah™, Maple Terrace delivers a psychologically astute – and very funny (in a dark sort of way) – portrait of the comics artist as a young boy. As you would expect, it contains the entirety of the series, including all four covers, but, there is a twist: Here in the collection, each issue opens with a spread – meaning that the splash page occupies the left half of a spread rather than a stand alone page. This further means that, as a result, every single spread in the collection is different from those in the comics. Most readers won't even notice, but those who follow Frank Santoro's School of the Spread™ – where the spread is the fundamental basis of the comics reading experience – and already have the individual comics issues, will be able to compare the two versions and see what they think about the respective reading experiences. For what it's worth, we think the spreads work better in the book version. Accident, or design? Only Noah knows for sure...
Maple Terrace - hardcover
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $21.75
Caitlin McGurk has done the comics world a great service in rescuing from obscurity the enormous and unjustly forgotten talent of Barbara Shermund. This hefty, oversize (9 1/4" x 12 1/4"), 288 page hardcover is filled to the brim with excellent quality reproductions – black & white and full color – of Shermund's cartoons and illustrations for The New Yorker, Esquire, Judge and many other publications, as well as advertisements for clients ranging from Pepsi-Cola to Lux detergent. It also includes some examples of her early student artworks. This project has been long in the works, having its roots in a 2020 exhibition. The archive of Shermund's works deposited at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University, where McGurk is, respectively, the Curator of Comics and Cartoon Art and Associate Professor, forms the core of artworks reproduced here, but McGurk traveled further afield, accessing collections and archives from New York to San Francisco and places in between, so as to provide a fully rounded overview of Shermund's creative output. The book is filled out with McGurk's highly sympathetic and deeply researched biographical essay spanning Shermund's life and career. It traces her ancestry – on side, back to colonial America – and includes her childhood and early adulthood in San Francisco where, among much else, she experienced the great earthquake, before focusing on detailing the period of her life that she created the work for which she is known and which fills the pages of this volume. During these years – which began during the "jazz age" and continued on throught the depression, WW II and the post-war period – while living largely in New York City and upstate NY – interspersed with various peripatetic periods before moving to nearby coastal New Jersey – she shaped her career and formed her attachments. This life of Shermund is peppered with photographs throughout, documenting a variety of stages of her life. And while there is far more documentation of Shermund's career than her personal life, McGurk does her best to fill in the blanks and connect the dots to create a fully fleshed out portrait of the artist as a woman in a man's world. Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins makes an important contribution to the history of comics and will be a welcome and treasured addition to many a library and collection.Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund
retail price - $45.00 copacetic price - $38.75
To mark the 100th anniversary of its 1865 release, Tove Jansson embarked on an illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which was released the following year. Now, just in time for the holidays, NYRB Kids has released a spiffy new edition of this long out of print 1966 edition of Alice's Adventure in Wonderland. Illustrated by the one and only Tove Jansson, this 6" x 9" hardcover is packed with black & white line drawings and full color plates that bring alive Lewis Carroll's timeless classic with a verve and splendor that is unique in the annals of this work. We've posted a few of the pages featuring Jansson's artwork on our Tumblr, HERE to help you get an idea.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
retail price - $19.95 copacetic price - $16.75
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New for October 2024
This release has been years in getting across the finish line, but it's finally out – thanks to Perfectly Acceptable Press – and copies have at last arrived here at Copacetic! While the publication of this book was originally planned – and long scheduled – to take place under the auspices of 2dCloud, now that we are holding the actual book in our hands, it feels like it was its destiny all along to be published by Perfectly Acceptable Press, and that it had to take this long and winding road in order to finally emerge in this physical form. It is a sturdy, hefty, well constructed hardcover with smyth-sewn binding that is well suited for the numerous reads and years of use that these volumes will surely experience. And most importantly, a tremendous amount of attention was paid to the production and care was taken with the printing to ensure that these works the best possible final form. This book has what is unquestionably one of the greatest titles in history: Grand Electric Thought Power Mother. Think about it. It collects six works originally published between 2014 and 2017 in small batch, digest-size, comicszine form, together with one newer, previously unpublished work created 2019-21. And as for the comics themselves... well, it's a challenge to describe in words alone what transpires during the course of reading – experiencing is probably a better word – the works collected here, but we'll give it a go... Lale Westvind is a singular talent whose work uniquely employs images and tropes associated with classic comics genres such as science fiction, tales of the fantastic, and jungle adventure to embody emotional states – particularly experiences of of longing. In the earlier pieces, the textual elements primarily take the form of narration, but, gradually, dialogue and their attendant word balloons – which, as the narration gives way to dialogue, are largely rectangular when they initially appear, before later rounding to the "balloon" shape that give them their name – emerge. There is a strong feeling of urgency to both the drawings and writings as they combine to build narratives that work to communicate existential states defined by the ecstatic (we're thinking here particularly of the original Greek senses of going out of one's mind and/or self; deranging/transcending). There is an intuitive modulation to the manner of the drawings – especially in the earlier pieces – that serves to convey the subjective experiences of the protagonists that is rare in comics, found most notably in the works of Frank Santoro. These are comics as spiritual journey. | To get better idea of what's in store, eyeball our Tumblr post on Grand Electric Thought Power Mother , HERE. | And to delve deeper, you can read our original reviews of four of the comics from when they first appeared: Now & Here | Double-Head Tour; Tornar and Riparna | Yazar & Arkadas | MaryGrand Electric Thought Power Mother
retail price - $40.00 copacetic price - $35.75
Final Cut presents – for the first time in English – Burns's latest major work, that had up to now only been available in the French language editions published by Cornelius under the title Dédales. All three Cornelius volumes are collected here in an elegantly designed and produced, 224 page, full color, clothbound hardcover volume by Pantheon Books. Very Nice. Anyone familiar with the work of Charles Burns will not be surprised to learn that Final Cut is a multi-levelled work; that there are layers within layers. Even the title, which has an obvious first level meaning, is open to multiple readings. The action is set, as per usual with Burns, during an unidentified period that reads as being at some indeterminate point in the 1970s. What is different this time around is that the levels are less obvious, the layers more deeply – or, at least, differently – concealed within and/or below the surface level of the mise en scène, which is here more normative than in previous Burns works. Gone are the experientially subjective irruptions of undifferentiated alternate realities directly into the primary narrative plane. Here, in the pages of Final Cut, the layers of consciousness are channeled within the narrative in a normative fashion, through the (then) dominant cultural forms of Hollywood movies (several in particular) – consumed both in theatres and on TV – and then through the more intimate, small scale cultural forms of 8mm films and drawing – as well as the purely subjective world of dreams, which are here more clearly demarcated as such – the combination of which is, more or less, comics. The primary focus of Final Cut is the personal relationship dynamics within a tightly knitted group of four friends: Brian, Laurie, Jimmy and Tina, along with an orbiting more typical couple, James and Dana for contrast. This allows its central male protagonist, Brian, to be held more at arm's length by the narrative, seen more from the outside – particularly from the point of view of his opposite, mirroring, female co-lead, Laurie – rather than experienced form the inside. This narrative opening creates a space for empathy that is more accessible than Burns's previous works. This empathy for the other is (to varying degrees) omnidirectional, and the reader can feel themselves relating to each of the characters (although Jimmy remains largely an intriguing cipher). All that said, Final Cut is, in every way, unmistakably a work by Charles Burns, and maintains all the pleasures of his previous works – if in a gentler, less overpowering way – and is highly recommended.Final Cut
retail price - $34.00 copacetic price - $28.75
[cue Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra] Yes, after long journeying through the comicsphere, it has finally arrived in book form ... Longboxes! (Volume One) Close to four years in the making, this 288-page compendium – with page dimensions that are close to exactly halfway between an issue of Grixly and an issue of a standard modern comic book – includes all officially designated "Longboxes" comics from Grixly #50 - #68 (And, yes, you are correct, #67 & #68 have not yet been released), along with ten pages of earlier precursor comics, from earlier issues of Grixly, that foreshadowed the coming of Longboxes – plus an even dozen bonus pin-ups by Nate's peers (and also obvious Longboxes fans). What more can be said about the epic that is Longboxes? Quite a lot, we think. Longboxes is filled with page after page of expertly paced and humorously drawn comics presenting spot-on observations of the manners, protocols, friendships and camaraderie on the highways and byways of the comic book back issue market – all, of course, centered on the people that populate it – along with plenty of madcap foible-filled zaniness; but there's more to it. We have all heard the saying that, "the business of America is business." So we cannot be surprised by the transactional nature of so much of life in these United States. Longboxes contains (many) tales regarding how one's sense of self can become inextricably bound up, with and to commercial concerns: not only "I am what I buy" and "I am what I sell", but also " I am how I buy" and "I am how I sell", "I am who I buy from" and "I am who I sell to", "I am where I buy" and "I am where I sell" and, ultimately, "I am when I buy" and "I am when I sell." That might sound trite, but think about it for a half a minute. "Down these mean streets must walk a man who is not himself mean," is the long-cherished description of Raymond Chandler's detective-hero, Philip Marlowe. It can be adapted here to fit the wheeler-dealer hero of Longboxes (aka, Nate), as an ethical intermediary, who, like all the rest, is trying to make a buck – but not at the expense of personal integrity and human decency. As such his character then serves double-duty as a guide to fair and square comics dealing. And then, hovering over it all, an inescapable sense of the absurd. For the uninitiated, we've posted a selection of panels and pages from Longboxes on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE. Longboxes!Longboxes
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $16.75
Hot off the press it's Part One (of Three) of Broken Wires, the first continuing series from the Texan comics creator who we are happy to say is currently living and working here in Pittsburgh, allowing us to bestow the "Made in Pittsburgh" honorific upon this production, the first of his to be so designated. Cameron Arthur is the master of the slow burn, and with Broken Wires being divided into three issues, he can really stretch out. This 24-page, Golden-Age-comic-sized issue is pretty much all set up, but a great set up it is. Four characters – Marcy, Ben, Ruben and Artie – are all met in medias res, in Texas, – on the job, on the road or in the home – and each is given six pages in which their situation is laid out and their characters – along with the barest hints at the plot – are revealed, in page after page of tightly controlled, well-paced comics, leaving you waiting in anticipation for the next issue, just like a good comic book should.
Broken Wires #1
retail price - $6.00 copacetic price - $5.75
Cram #4: Bad News for Big RubesHere's the fourth issue of the hand crafted comic book anthology, Cram! Edited by Andrew Alexander, this issue features 50 pages of risograph comics each of which takes its own approach to storytelling comics making and color (including two contributors who eschew it all together), all enclosed by a frenetically detailed wraparound cover by Max Burlingame. The drawing on hand here ranges from clean line to rat line, the layouts from 30-panel pages to the full page splashes, all in the service of highly imaginative comics. Artists featured this issue are: Kim Deitch, Gabriel Mason Howell, David King, Katie Lane, Paul Peng, Jake Terrell, Marc Torices & Beatrix Urkowitz. And don't forget: handmade = limited quantity; the first two issues of Cram are already out of print, and the third won't last much longer...
retail price - $15.00 copacetic price - $13.75
Here's a great issue of The Comics Journal, co-edited by Austin English ad Kristy Valenti. While the centerpiece of this issue is Gary Groth's 110-page illustrated interview of Gerald Scarfe that jprovides an in-depth overview of his close to 70-year (!) career, there's plenty more on hand here as this issue runs a jam-packed 300 pages. The highlight of this issue for us here at Copacetic is the conversation between Lale Westvind and Aidan Koch, moderated by Austin English. It's amazing, don't miss it! Also on hand is RJ Casey's interview with up-and-coming cartoonist, Juliette Collet. Then there is the achance to explore the work of a couple artists whose work is somewhat hard to come by: an eight-page comics story by Allee Errico, "'You Get Me Closer to God': Explaining Music to Dogs" along a twenty-page excerpt from the sketchbooks of Jess Johnson. This issue's "Blood and Thunder" is particularly interesting, as it deals with what is perceived as the tenuous state of the market for comics aimed at adult readers which includes a notably insightful response from erstwhile Pittsburgher, Audra Stang. And there's plenty more. There is a bountiful preview of the issue up at TCJ.com, HERE. But if you want the hard copy to have and hold, don't wait too long, as TCJ has a low print run these days, and this one is going fast (the bookstore distributor is already sold out and we only have a handful of copies, so don't say we didn't warn you).The Comics Journal #310
retail price - $24.95 copacetic price - $21.75
Nexus: The Newspaper Strips Volume 2 - Battle for Thuneworld | COMPLETE SET #1 - 5
by Steve Rude
Old school heroic fantasy comics fans – especially Nexus fans – and, of course, Steve Rude fans are hereby granted an amazing, fantastic, heroic – and fun! – comic book story, spread over five standard, full color, comic book issues and filled with page after page of stunning art by Steve Rude (who also wrote the script this time around – and did the lettering; with the coloring chores handled by Glenn Whitmore, who did a bang-up job). Readers who have not heretofore encountered the Nexus universe may feel a bit overwhelmed at first, joining this multi-decade epic in medias res, but will be drawn in nonetheless and enough pieces will fall into place that it will be possible to hold on and enjoy the spectacular ride that this series provides. The approach to the art and storytelling in this series – as the subtitle, "The Newspaper Strips" implies – is that of a series of full page, full color Sunday pages, so that each page is complete in and of itself, but each subsequent page follows and builds upon what came before (think Hal Foster's Prince Valiant). Nexus captures the overall look and feel – the vibe – of the classic mid- to late-'sixties Kirby/Lee Fantastic Four and Thor which were filled with cosmic concepts spread over interplanetary action involving alien worlds and civilizations, and splices it onto the mid- to late-'sixites, Alex Toth designed Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Space Ghost, featuring the titular character flying through space with his kid sidekicks, discovering planets, having adventures and confronting aliens – with always at least one epic battle. While the story mechanics driving Battle for Thuneworld are a bit clunky at times, and the thread of the narrative occasionally frays, Steve Rude's artwork carries on the tradition embodied by these great 'sxities works in grand style. He has managed to capture that magical moment in comic book history and bring it alive once again in the present, in the pages of Nexus; he is a true master of the form. AND, Rude is now self-publishing Nexus (through his Rude Dude Productions) and offered a special price on this particular five-issue series, and so we snapped up a stack. Copacetic is, in turn, at this time, discounting that special price further and offering this entire five-issue series – ALL five issues – for the price of one single comic book. It's hard to imagine getting more comic book bang for your buck than what is offered here. Check out this gallery of page spreads that we posted on Tumblr to get an idea of what we're talking about (and it also includes spreads from The Art of Steve Rude 2024).
copacetic price - $3.99
Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make ZinesGet ready for 448 pages of zines! Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines is the catalogue created to accompany – and represent – the exhibit of the same name that was held earlier this year at The Brooklyn Museum. It a very nicely produced French-flapped softcover volume that assembles reproductions of and from zines created from the 1960s to the present, almost all of which have been scanned (at high resolution) directly from copies of the actual zines, and fabulously printed in the UK. The selection encompasses a wide variety, largely chosen for æsthetic reasons and/or artistic merit, with a notable focus on punk and queer zines. Most of these zines have been rescued from obscurity, and will likely only ever be encountered by the average citizen here in the pages of this collection, but there are also sprinkled among the hundreds of reproductions works by better known artists who have done important work in the zine field, most notably Raymond Pettibon and the Destroy All Monsters crew, along with Richard Kern, V. Vale and others. There are a pair of introductory essays that provide an overview, and then also six specialist essays that focus on particular aspects of zine culture and history. But mostly, there are zines! Here's the publisher page which includes a dozen images of/from the book. While this book was published in the first half of 2024, this is the first holiday season (Christmas) that it's been available.
retail price - $49.95 copacetic price - $42.75
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