NEW
STUFF
A SELECTION OF RECENT ARRIVALS
New for October 2025
Death in Trieste
retail price - $24.99 copacetic price - $21.75
Void Packer #4
Void Packer #4 has arrived!
This issue features the fourth installment of Lale's
ongoing saga, "Life and Limb", in which the story
begins to expand, heading both sideways in space and
backwards in time – and really starts to get
interesting! This is then followed by the comics cri
de cœur, "Tomorrow..." a story designed to serve as
an antidote to our toxic times – and to lift the spirits of
one all.retail price - $10.00 copacetic price - $9.25
Brownfield Action Family #1
.... (drum roll)... — > cymbal
crash! < = > TED MAY IS BACK! It's been
a minute since we last had a full length comic book from Ted
May – as in a full decade since his last comic
book, Men's Feelings #2 was published.
For anyone wondering: this isn't just some cobbling
together of odds 'n' ends. This is an entirely new
project that Ted has obviously been working on for quite
some time. Brownfield Action Family #1
is not only a whoppin' 57 pages of all new Ted May comics,
but it's the first issue of an ongoing series, with the
promise of plenty more to come. And, yes, he's still
got the chops Take a look and
you'll see what we're talking about; you won't be
disappointed.retail price - $7.99 copacetic price - $7.25
Magick Lantern
A brand new comic book by Shaky Kane! –
scripted by Jinx, no less. This team of expert hands
brings classic old school comic book tropes back to life by
injecting them with a mutant strain of punk attitude and
then splicing that with a deranged jumble of cultural and
topical referents to create... something... different.
Magick Lantern serves up a no-holds-barred,
off-the-wall take on The Fly that delivers
some solid insights into our current zeitgeist – and has
plenty of fun while doing it! Full color; 24 pages on
heavy, flat white stock; glossy cardstock cover.retail price - $4.99 copacetic price - $4.50
Key Change
Key Change offers up 32 packed
pages of 21st Century 20-something urban life,
comics-style. There's plenty of attitude, irony,
laughs and more. MacDiarmid knows his way around the
comics language. These pages have a density that well
embodies the up close and personal manner of urban
living. Readers are able to get right up to speed even
as they are plunged in medias res into
obviously long running relationships with plenty of
back story; not an easy trick to pull off. In
addition to great pacing, there's a leveraging of the
inherent qualities of the representational aspects of comics
language, as when characters' physical attributes are
employed as a shorthand for their personalities; and there
are plenty of great characters here. This is the first
of a promised three-issue series. It might be a minute
before the next one arrives, but we'll be waiting.retail price - $12.00 copacetic price - $10.75
Glaeolia #3
It took us awhile to finally get this one
in stock, but it was worth the wait. Glaeolia
3 is the biggest – and best – issue yet in this
series published by Glacier Bay Books. Its 400
pages bring together a wide range of great manga,
largely from little seen artists, many new to us and
unlikely to have been previously published in English.
Edited by emuh ruh and zhuchka, it features deluxe
soft-touch laminate covers and sewn binding. Offset printed
Winter 2021 (like we said: it took us awhile). Here's
the contributor list, to give you an idea: Fukitsu Reiji,
Hadena Kangofu, Isao Yamada, Junichiro Saito, Komachiya
Suzuka, Kondoh Akino, KOYUBI, Mitsuhashi Kotaro, Nishimura
Tsuchika, oratnir, Oumi Konomi, Yagi Nagaharu
and Yokoyama Yuichi! Translations by zhuchka,
rkp, Anna Schnell, and Jocelyne Allen. Get a look at a
bit of what's in store on this preview gallery on the
CopaceticTumblr. > LIMITED SUPPLY <retail price - $35.00 copacetic price - $35.00
Beautiful Monster
WARNING: This book contains EXTREME CONTENT + DISTURBING IMAGERY *
Suehiro Maruo is a singular creator
possessed of enormous – and disturbing – talent. His
career spans five decades and he has amassed a large
body of work in his native Japan, but his work has only
been published sporadically in English translation,
likely due to it being considered beyond the pale by
most publishers outside of Japan. As recently as
2024 none of his work was in print in North
America. That changed with this Bubbles Press
release of Beautiful Monster in the spring of
2025 and Last Gasp’s subsequent softcover reissue of The
Strange Tale of Panorama Island in the fall.
In addition to appearing, right out of the gate, to
be the product of a manga master, Maruo's work also
incorporates drawing techniques, visual stylings and
tropes from early 20th century illustration originating
in America and Europe. Maruo’s aim of generating a
sense of horror in the reader is not gratuitous nor
solely employed for shock value, but is in turn in the
service of other goals. Many of the 16 short
pieces collected here are narratively structured along
lines analogous to those of the classic EC horror comics
that were created in America during the early
1950s. Those, usually eight-page, comics that EC
produced employed horror motifs to critique social and
cultural mores and norms, to show the rot and decay that
dwelt beneath the gleaming surfaces of post-war American
abundance. Thirty years later, in the early 1980s,
Maruo created work similarly exposing rot and decay that
went far deeper, into the ancient roots of Japanese
society, where heretofore unsuspected skeletons lurked
in closets and previously hidden spirits had been
secretly haunting society’s margins, and which had
festered becoming ever more putrid – along with those
adjacent and associated skeletons and spirits from the
Western world – revealing the dark and debased side of
patriarchal rule and its support structures.
Maruo’s work is visually riveting, serving to pull
readers’ eyes further and deeper into the page… in order
to assault them! His signature motif of a tongue
to the eye can be interpreted as a potent symbol of this
aim. In Beautiful Monster, Maruo’s
depictions of the grotesque and perverse are
unrestrained, and unparalleled in their
particularity and detail, representing his pursuit
of an obscene carnality – one that can be seen as the
epitome of body horror, wherein horror is equated with
the human body per se. This volume has been edited
and translated by North America's foremost expert on
underground horror manga, Ryan Holmberg and includes two
short essays, one by Maruo, himself and the other
by Michiro Endo. For those readers intrigued
by Maruo’s artistry but preferring not to be subjected
to his more extreme obsessions we recommend the recently
reissued The Strange Tale of Panorama
Island, an exquisitely rendered
phantasmagoria in which Maruo’s impulses have been
somewhat restrained as a result of it being a comics
adaptation of a preexistent literary work.
|•|•| * By way of
illustration we’ll share the following anecdote.
“In the early 00’s, a professional comics maker, whose
work had been published adjacent to and within the world
of underground comics, and so was already well
acquainted with work containing strong imagery from the
fringes of society, asked (roughly) “what’s new
that would knock my socks off” and I recommended a then
in-print collection of Maruo’s work that contained some
of the same stories that are collected in Beautiful
Monster, which he then purchased. When I next
encountered him, I asked him what he thought of
it. His response was, ‘I wish you had never showed
me that book. It really messed with my
head.’”
retail
price - $24.99
copacetic price - $22.75
Saga de Xam
Full-on, 1967 / Summer of Love psychedelia
meets science fiction via Prince Valiant and Weird Tales in
this period classic. Starting out as what was an
unrealized science fiction film script by Jean Rollin, Saga
de Xam was adapted by cartoonist provocateur, Nicolas
Devil (née Deville) who, with the aide of some peers
including Philippe Druillet, Barbara Girard, ran
it through the psychedelic mixing bowl of the times to
produce a work that, together with its bookends – Guy
Peellaert's Adventures of Jodelle (1966) and
Iris (1968) by Thé Tjong-Khing, Lo
Hartog van Banda and Rudy Voorman – provides a sort of
unoffical trilogy documenting the swinging-psychedelic-era
of continental Europe, comics-style (And it's worth noting
here that the titles of all three of these works*
incorporate the name of their respective – and sexy [aka
sexualized] – female protagonists; which points to the fact
that thse comics – and so, by extension, this era – can be
defined at least to some degree as men looking at women
and thinking about (imagining) their bodies, and so
worked to bring to the surface of critical consciousness the
concept of "the male gaze"). This edition from
Anthology is a nice – and hefty – oversize (10" x 13")
hardcover that reproduces the complete original work in full
color and black & white (as it originally appeared) and
also includes a lengthy introduction by Christian
Staebler. Amazingly, this is the FIRST ever English
language translation of this work, courtesy Anna
Bialostosky. Learn more about this work and this
edition by heading over to TCJ.com and reading Joe
McCulloch's in-depth review, HERE. Learn
about its Lovecraftian elements – and get some peeks at the
original 1967 edition – via Bobbie Derie's write-up, HERE. AND,
we've posted a hefty gallery of spreads up on the Copacetic
Tumblr that will give you a pretty good idea of what's in
store, HERE.
|•|•| *Contrary to what will be the immediate
impression of most Anglophone readers, the "Saga" of the
title refers not to a saga, in the sense of a story, but
rather to the protagonist, Saga, a blue-skinned (alien)
woman from the planet Xam.
retail price - $60.00 copacetic price - $50.00
Donald Duck: The Lonely Lighthouse
on Cape Quack
As this is the 29th volume, it looks like
we're getting close to the finish line of the Fantagraphics
Complete Carl Barks Disney Library, however... While, when
this series was first announced, it was stated that it would
run 30 volumes in total, the fact that this volume
does not yet reach the end of the Barks run of Donald Duck
10-pagers from Walt Disney Comics & Stories –
along with the fact that there are over two dozen issues of
the Barks issues of Uncle Scrooge yet to be
collected – indicates that the series will extend several
volumes beyond its initially stated length. So, lots
more Barks still to come. Yay! The stories
collectied here are entirely from the 1960s, and we
experience the expiry of the long running Dell Comics
imprint and see the emergence of its replacement, Gold Key
Comics – but Barks just keeps on keeping on, here in
thirteen more classic ten-pagers, including "The Master
Wrecker," "Merry Ferry," "Movie Mad," "Raven Mad," the
titular "Cape Quack" and more! These are then followed
by a quartet of Junior Woodchuck tales scripted and laid out
by Barks at some point after he had ceased to draw himself
(likely the late 1960s and/or early 1970s; as of this
writing we're not sure). The four tales collected here
were re-drawn – in very Barksian fashion – at
the dawn of the new millennium by Daan Jippes. Good
stuff!
retail price - $39.99 copacetic price - $33.75
Keep an Eye on the
Figs!
retail price - $25.00 copacetic special price - $15.75
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
New for September 2025
Cannon
by Lee Lai
Lee Lai's much anticipated follow up to Stone Fruit has at last arrived! Cannon's 300 pages of expertly nuanced comics communicate a wealth of personal insight into the relationship dynamics that pertain to and manifest in family, friendship, workplace and romance – and how all of these are in turn inextricably entangled. Lee Lai successfully navigates the complex terrain of 21st century living: gay/straight/bi sexuality; Asian-American (or Asian-Canadian, if you prefer) identity in a multicultural society; workplace hierarchies and power structures, including the potential for abuse inherent in ownership, as well as the corollary importance of worker solidarity. At the center of it all is a tour de force representation of repressed anger and its effects which is likely to be very cathartic for some readers, and illuminating to all. D & Q has posted a a very generous preview of it online, so you can get a good idea of what's in store, HERE.
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.75
Miss Ruki Part of the original lineup of the Japanese magazine, Hanako when it debuted in June of 1988, "Miss Ruki" appeared roughly once a month through the end of 1992. These delightful full color comics – which have been collected in their entirety here – were created very much in the tradition of classic Sunday Comics pages in the USA, while fully retaining a Japanese character. They are very low key works relating the quotidian adventures of the quirky Miss Ruki along with a cast of supporting characters – most notably her (best) friend, and comedic foil, Ecchan – in page after page of cleanly drawn comics. Each of these strips run two columns to a page that are read vertically, from top to bottom, then right to left. With one or two exceptions, all of the strips are two pages – four columns – in length. Here, then, are 120 pages of relaxing and enjoyable bite-size works that are perfect for being read in snatches. Next time you feel yourself reaching for your phone, you can (once you have your copy) reach for this handy edition of Miss Ruki instead! Translated by Alexa Frank who also provides a seven-page "translator's note" – which is actually more akin to an introductory essay – that provides some context, history and insight. We've posted several strips along with some individual panels up on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $16.75
retail price - $4.99 copacetic price - $4.50
Lee Lai's much anticipated follow up to Stone Fruit has at last arrived! Cannon's 300 pages of expertly nuanced comics communicate a wealth of personal insight into the relationship dynamics that pertain to and manifest in family, friendship, workplace and romance – and how all of these are in turn inextricably entangled. Lee Lai successfully navigates the complex terrain of 21st century living: gay/straight/bi sexuality; Asian-American (or Asian-Canadian, if you prefer) identity in a multicultural society; workplace hierarchies and power structures, including the potential for abuse inherent in ownership, as well as the corollary importance of worker solidarity. At the center of it all is a tour de force representation of repressed anger and its effects which is likely to be very cathartic for some readers, and illuminating to all. D & Q has posted a a very generous preview of it online, so you can get a good idea of what's in store, HERE.
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.75
Miss Ruki Part of the original lineup of the Japanese magazine, Hanako when it debuted in June of 1988, "Miss Ruki" appeared roughly once a month through the end of 1992. These delightful full color comics – which have been collected in their entirety here – were created very much in the tradition of classic Sunday Comics pages in the USA, while fully retaining a Japanese character. They are very low key works relating the quotidian adventures of the quirky Miss Ruki along with a cast of supporting characters – most notably her (best) friend, and comedic foil, Ecchan – in page after page of cleanly drawn comics. Each of these strips run two columns to a page that are read vertically, from top to bottom, then right to left. With one or two exceptions, all of the strips are two pages – four columns – in length. Here, then, are 120 pages of relaxing and enjoyable bite-size works that are perfect for being read in snatches. Next time you feel yourself reaching for your phone, you can (once you have your copy) reach for this handy edition of Miss Ruki instead! Translated by Alexa Frank who also provides a seven-page "translator's note" – which is actually more akin to an introductory essay – that provides some context, history and insight. We've posted several strips along with some individual panels up on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.
retail price - $19.99 copacetic price - $16.75
Roy #1
Roy, the classic old school comics
enigma, is back – and there's and more! It's 26
pages of all new comics, plus covers, from Beto and
Naty (aka Gilbert Hernandez and his daughter
Natalia). Stream-of-consciousness surrealism and
science fiction mix it up with Catholic ritual and
mysticism in Beto's two tales of Roy, making for a heady
experience of the kind that only comics can deliver, while
Naty serves up a tale of aliens and a bit of benign
abduction in "Call of the Cow" (as well as an ace back
cover). The inside front and back covers are each
classic Beto one-pagers where a glib surface fronts for
profundities lurking within. Roy!retail price - $4.99 copacetic price - $4.50
Valley
Valley / Idella Dell
The latest from
Audra Stang has arrived! Valley Valley / Idella
Dell is a 48 page flip/double comic book (for
those unfamiliar with the form: basically, it’s two
24-page comics together in once comic book, each with
their own cover, that meet in the middle; you just flip it
over to read the other side) that has been produced in a
beautiful, hand-numbered risograph edition of 300 by Frog
Farm, who did a fantastic job with this
edition. Printed in Hunter Green, Brown, Medium
Blue, Bright Red, Aqua, Violet, Sunflower and Light Lime,
the colors pop on each page. Made up entirely of
one-page strips, each drawn in a three-tier grid of
three to six panels, Valley Valley / Idella Dell
is filled with angst and ennui, by turns ironic and
sarcastic, wistful and self-abnegating. Further, as the
protagonists, Valley and Idella, are comics-making
cousins, each side is a kind of inverted mirror of the
other, so a perfect use of the form. We've posted a
preview of it HERE. Nice!
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $18.75
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $18.75
Superspreader
#3
Edited and published in Columbus, OH by
Taylor Chiu, Nevyets, Rachel Moss, Okell Lee, and Mike
Wright, Superspreader #3 runs 86 full color,
magazine-size pages. Squarebound and printed on heavy
glossy stock, this anthology is filled with all sorts of
material: straight up comics, yes; but also illustrations;
computer graphics; collages of found items, photos and
drawings; essays; stories; concrete poetry; and more.
While beauty and horror intermingle, satire is dominant, and
irony is rife throughout. Ronald Wimberly's twelve page
contribution, in black and white and red, is a multi-leveled
masterwork of compression in comics form and is worth the
price of admission. You can get a good sense of what's
in store by checking out the gallery of this issue that
we've posted on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE.retail price - $25.00 copacetic price - $21.75
Megaton Man: Multimensions Don Simpson & Co. celebrate forty years of Megaton Man™ in this appropriately mega-sized softcover published by Cosmic Lion. In this 9" x 13" volume, readers will encounter 212 (almost entirely) full color pages of comix & stories featuring Don Simpson's Bizarre Heroes™ – first and foremost among them being, of course, Megaton Man – created by a team of (roughly) sixty creators, including Jim Rugg, Jared Catherine, Alan Davis, Matt Feazell, John Workman, Milton Knight, Jr., Amanda Stella Powers, Kate Workman, Scott Lost, Tom Powers, Trish Ellis, Grant Lankard, Larry Marder, Steve Bissette, Michael T. Gilbert, Ted Sikora, and, naturally enough, Don Simpson, himself! > This is almost entirely all-new material. < Also on hand are X-overs by other contemporary, creator owned characters as well as cameos by adjacent, 1980s indy comics characters such as The Tick™, Savage Dragon™, Cynical Man™, Mr. Monster™, The Rocketeer ™and more! – and then, from all the way back in the 1960s, Captain Action™, who has, apparently, somehow become part of the Bizarre Heroes Universe. Check out a wide-ranging gallery from the book up at the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE. Please note: We have only a VERY LIMITED SUPPLY here at Copacetic.
retail price - $40.00 copacetic price - $33.75
The Lexicon of Comicana
retail price - $27.95 copacetic price - $23.75
Atlas Comics Library No. 6: Shiver As You Read!
by Stan Lee & Co.
The latest oversize, full color, hardcover volume in the Atlas Comics Library being published by Fantagraphics collects ten complete issues from the early 1950s: Amazing Detective Cases #11-14 and Men’s Adventures #21-26. These comics offer up a potent mix of crime and horror and are chock full of what-goes-around-comes-around karmic payback tales in the grand EC tradition. Shiver As You Read! includes great work by Bill Everett, B. Krigstein, Russ Heath, Gene Colan, John Romita, George Tuska, Joe Sinnott, Dick Ayers and more – including some of Fred Kida's best stories. And while almost none of the stories have writing credits, it's a safe bet that many, if not most, of them are scripted by Stan Lee.
retail price - $44.99 copacetic price - $35.75
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
New for August 2025
LAAB #3 (THR33's COMPANY)
retail price - $20.00 copacetic price - $18.75
Society Is
Nix
And here's the alpha to LAAB's
omega, the place where it all began, well over a century
ago, in the pages of the giant, broadsheet Sunday funnies.
This long out of print collection from the formidable and
inimitable Sunday Press is now back in print at last in this
new, expanded edition co-published by Sunday Press and
Fantagraphics! In its 168, 13" x 17", full color
pages, Society Is Nix presents the reader with over
200 classic strips by over 75 different cartoonists –
including some of the earliest work by some best that ever
put pen to paper, such as R. F. Outcault, George McManus,
Winsor McCay, and George Herriman – most not seen in print
for over 100 years! Also included are essays by some
of the most respected comics historians, including Thierry
Smolderen, Bill Kartalopoulos, Paul C. Tumey, Brian Walker,
and Alfredo Castelli. Taken together Society Is
Nix provides an amazing look at the origins of
American comics. It's all here! And
you don't have to take just our word for it: "A
mind-blowing portable museum retrospective of the raw,
tangled ferocity and frustration that went into the making
of America." — Chris Ware "Never
thought anything like this could exist outside my dream
life." — Art Spiegelman
retail
price
-$100.00 copacetic price - $79.75
Hothhead
Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist
Most frequenters to this space are familiar
with Alison Bechdel's epic, Dykes To Watch Out For,
but there may be some who are unfamiliar with its less
patient contemporary, Hothead Paisan, Diane
DiMassa's cartoon channeling of lesbian anger into
"homicidally terroristic" fantasies of revenge that manage
the hat trick of venting that anger by transmuting it into
laughter, with a dark sense of humor that happens to also be
very, very funny. Running through the 1990s, Hothead
Paisan originally appeared in the form of a comics zine
(from Giant Ass Publishing, a [very] small
[friend-of-the-creator] press) of the type that would be
familiar to anyone who shopped at Copacetic, but a bit ahead
of the curve. These comics were then collected, also
during the 1990s, in two trade collections by Cleis Press
(who had a PO Box in Wilkinsburg at the same time as BEM;
wonder if we ever crossed paths...?), both of which have
been out of print for, what, twenty years? But now,
she's back! – arriving like the cavalry, right when
she's needed most – in this very nicely put together,
sure-to-be-definitive edition fron New York Review Comics,
which includes an introduction by Sarah Schulman and an
interview with DiMassa by Jay Graham, along with
wonderful-to-see scans of the original Giant Ass comicszine
covers and other rarities; 456 pages! retail price -$34.99 copacetic price - $28.75
Terminal
Exposure
Also from New York Review Comics, it's...
Michael McMIllan's Terminal Exposure!
There's something for everyone here. McMillan
produced a diverse ouevre that displays a native
tendency towards omnivorous scavenging that and wide-ranging
foraging in the forests of comics and art, and initially
inspired by the classic Fleischer Brothers animation of
Bimbo, Betty Boop & Co. We noticed hints of Kim
Deitch, (a PG-Rated) S. Clay Wilson on the one hand, Basil
Wolverton and C.C. Beck on another, a heaping helping of
Hairy Who with sides of Philip Guston and Red Grooms,
followed by a course of B. Kliban and Rick Geary, all thrown
together in an original synthesis that shows his fine art
tendencies mixing it up with his pop culture proclivities
that led to a form of comics that presages the likes of
Michael Kupperman, Eric Haven and Joan Cornellà, and
informing plenty more, all while, of course, making for
uniquely engaging reads in and of themselves. Edited
and with an introduction by Dan Nadel. And here's what
a couple of McMillan's fans have to say: "I am one
of the people who has been waiting for this collection for
a long, long time. I hope lots of us time travelers will
find this book and enter Michael’s unique, entrancing,
gently enfolding world.": —Gary Panter
"He is the purest artist I’ve ever known." —Bill
Griffith retail price -$39.99 copacetic price - $33.75
The Pit
It's been a minute, but Erik Kriek is back
with a new – and haunting – graphic novel. The
Pit is a full-size, 144 page hardcover, printed in a
duotone palette made up of an array of pastel green and
orange tones on flat white paperstock. Amsterdam-based
Kriek is renowned for his moody, woodcut style comics, and
he's in top form here in The Pit, a tale of coming
to terms with personal loss set in the rural countryside of
the Netherlands that takes some unexpeted twists and turns,
leading into a psychological territory where things may not
be what they seem... We've provided a taste of what's
in store up at the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE.retail price -$28.99 copacetic price - $22.75
Donald Duck
Finds Pirate Gold
It all starts here! At last, fourteen
years into their series collecting the entirety of the work
Carl Barks produced for Dell (and, later, Gold Key) Comics,
under the aegis of the Walt Disney Company, after
starting in the middle and then working its way out
both forward and backward through time, Fantagraphics
has at last made it all the way to the 1942 beginnings of
Barks's classic run, with "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold"
and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #31.
Yowza! Also included are several super-obscure (and
new to us) stories that were scripted – but not drawn – by
Barks, including the epic, 50-page "Pluto Saves the Ship,
with art by Bruce Bushman. Bonus! After this –
unless Fanta has a trick up its sleeve – only the last two
volumes on The Carl Barks Library remain to be published.retail price -$39.99 copacetic price - $33.75
And how about some art? Here are a pair of great museum catalogues:
Jack
Whitten: The Messenger
For many, the art show of the summer was Jack Whitten: The Messenger
at MoMa. The show has closed, but the catalogue lives
on! You can read a bit about it and also scope out
some of the works, HERE. The official exhibition page
is PACKED with info, including a (YouTube) video and 131 images of the installation.retail price -$75.00 copacetic price - $59.75
Gertrude
Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery
The highlight of the Carnegie Museum of
Art's 2025 schedule was their curation and exhibition of the
work of Gertrude Abercrombie – we believe the largest and
most complete to date – title The Whole World Is a Mystery.
The show closed in June and has since moved on to the Colby
College Museum of Art – but it lives on in this massive
catalogue of the exhibition published by Carnegie Museum of
Art and Colby College Museum of Art. Edited with text
by Eric Crosby, Sarah Humphreville. Foreword by Eric Crosby,
Jacqueline Terrassa. Text by Katie Anania, Donna Cassidy,
John Corbett. Chronology by Cynthia Stucki. A
lot of Abercrombie's work feels adjacent to old school
single panel cartoons for the New Yorker, et al from back in
the day; think Charles Addams.retail price -$60.00 copacetic price - $49.75
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
New for July 2025
Cornelius: The Merry Life of
a Wretched Dog by Marc Torices
Want to read some great comics? Look no further! This full color, 384 page, 8” x 11” hardcover is packed with them. Marc Torices knows his way around comics – and how to make them. The "wretched dog," Cornelius is a self-conscious, cowardly bumbler and deluded procrastinator who functions as an anti-superman everyman. These characteristics work to impede over-identification on the part of the reader, performing double-duty as a distanciation device to reinforce the readers' focus on the formal experimentation with representational strategies, which are the real story here. Torices takes a Warholian approach to visual variations on a theme that incorporates a wide variety of artistic disciplines from commercial design to graffiti and applies it to an approach to comics making that is in part derived from Chris Ware's work, especially his insights into classic Sunday page comics, and incorporates an all-star slate of historical styles from Floyd Gottfredson through Hergé to Michael DeForge, along with drawing in a host of styles that are extraneous to comics... and then uses all of that to inform his own specific goals of exploring the modes of signification and representation with the aim of deconstructing the cartooned anthropomorphization of animals – most notably dogs, and also cats, but plenty more besides (including an obvious nod to Matt Furie's Pepe the Frog). The comics are then followed by a detailed, 20-page, addendum which takes the form of a satirically ironic history of Cornelius that is beyond apocryphal, situating Cornelius in such a way that the character can be construed as a calculated construction of a cartooned corporate brand, and so also, by extension, of a world assembled from and by such structures. It's been well over a century since corporations were – at least legally – granted personhood. Ah, but what kind of person might a corporation be? Comics Makers of prior generations have offered us naively fantastic examples such as Batman® and Iron Man® – to name only two. In Cornelius, Torices may have provided us with a more realistic – and apt – answer. Here's what a couple of copacetic comics makers have to add: “It seems that Cornelius, like an archetype or a myth, has always existed. This is a comic beyond time in the eternity of dogs, where Italo Calvino rides through Gasoline Alley, in a trolley car. Torices cartoon magically as a shape shifter.” – Matthew Thurber | “Using the breadth of comic strip history, Marc Torices builds a monument of irrationality by way of his stooge, Cornelius the Dog. Like many of us, he can’t help but gnaw off his own leg time and time again in the face of life's perplexities. Thankfully – for us and Cornelius – the world still turns.” – Charles Forsman. >> D & Q has posted a hi-rez PDF preview HERE. Check it out! AND, we've posted a hefty gallery of pages and spreads from the book HERE!
retail price - $39.95 copacetic price - $33.75
Hidden Islands
Hidden
Islands has arrived! This 164-page,
magazine-size, squarebound volume collects four of
up-and-coming comics champ, Cameron Arthur's neo-classic
comics tales along with a new one created specifically for
this volume. Here's an excerpt from the
introduction:
Taking to heart some of the key approaches and primary
guidelines undergirding the method of his comics
mentor, Frank Santoro, Arthur builds his comics from
the ground up. Employing gutterless panels laid out in
a variety of tiered grids, each story’s layout is
designed to both set the narrative pace and provide
each aspect of the story with its proper weight.
These narratives often feel pervaded by a sense of
preordainment that can at times border on fatalism, and
the characters in these tales bear the marks of lives
emotionally flattened by the pressures of existence, yet
each of them remains propelled forward by their own
deliberate internal rhythm that moves to the beat
inscribed within their beings. These artfully constructed
comics work to æstheticize tales of adventure and
domesticity, effectively providing insights into the forms
as they are employing them. Within the vast ocean of
contemporary comics, they are indeed akin to hidden
islands and are well worth making the journey to
discover. And, we've posted a gallery of choice bits
from the book up on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE.
retail
price - $22.99 copacetic price - $20.00
Raging Clouds
This 364 page
black & white hardcover volume is the (print)
graphic novel debut of Korean comic book artist,
Yudori. A period drama, Raging Clouds
is a tale set in the patriarchal society of 16th-century
Holland that centers on an impoverished noblewoman married
to an up and coming merchant who then further allies
himself to an Asian mistress. This unlikely pair of
women then in turn create an alliance through shared truth
telling, and so manage to carve our a space that they can
be for themselves within and despite the limitations
imposed upon them by the patriarchy, and then use that to
move history forward through science. These two
central women are further enmeshed with a pair of servant
women with whom they share household duties in a
surprisingly egalitarian manner and whose efforts are also
crucial to the drama. Yudori is a talented and
skilled drawer with special strengths in rendering faces
and figures. In Raging Clouds she plays to her
strengths in advancing the drama through imagery and by
doing so, embodies its central thesis that the power of
personality holds sway over historical forces. We've
posted a gallery of spreads on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE, to give you a taste
of what's in store. And you can learn more about
Yudori and Raging Clouds by reading this short
interview with her at Publisher's Weekly, HERE.
retail
price - $34.99 copacetic price - $28.75
Ms.
Understood
As capitalism
ever further expands its boundaries, manifesting itself in
ever more humanoid forms – AI / robots, et al – which are
assuming ever more the roles, power and significance of
human (re)production, our species' animal function feels
ever more diminished and the physical energies of humanity
ever more displaced. As these energies have to go
somewhere, they are being transferred elsewhere, with one
clearly evident destination that of being translated into
the symbolic realm. Here, in the pages of Ms.
Understood, Juliette Collet has chosen the
particular corner of the symbolic realm occupied by the
pornographic film industry, where it can be seen as a
synecdoche for contemporary America. This aspect also
serves to highlight and forefront the impact of the
inscription of gender roles on the young women – and, in
particular, on their bodies and body images – that
predominate in its pages. Ms. Understood and her
high spirited supporting cast of characters demonstrate
great resilience as they gamely try to make the most of it
– although not without sadness – here in these playful,
colorful comics that portray a dual displacement of sex
and work, with each becoming the other and neither
existing independently, in a manner that is hinted at
through its cleverly indeterminate, quantum-state title,
where what is being shown both is and isn’t what is being
said – and vice versa – until the arrival of a decisive
moment… which need not necessarily ever arrive. Ms.
Collet can be counted among the most productive young,
independent comics makers in America, and this 96 page
full color work amply demonstrates both her drive and
abilities.
retail price - $22.00 copacetic price - $19.75
Misery
of Love
This 232 page softcover from the creator
of The Yellow Negro and Other Imaginary Creatures
is hot off the press and now in stock at Copacetic.
It is entirely composed in a series of two
landscape-formatted panels per page – so, four per spread
– rendered in lush ink washes in a vast multiplicity of
tones from off white to black, showing just how much
variety – and complexity – it is possible to produce using
the opposition between black and white. Themes
include trauma, change, intergenerational trauma,
racism/colonialism, and, centrally, patriarchal attitudes
and the sexism so engendered – and then how these all
intersect and manifest in sexual relations. The work
is largely visual, with limited dialogue and minimal
textual interventions. The back cover blurb makes
reference to Richard McGuire's Here, due to the
narrative being constructed employing temporal shifts and
spatial juxtapositions that largely (but not solely)
transpire within a single structure. We would add
that some of the aspects/elements of the visual
presentation – the landscape panels, the uniform spread,
the lush, painterly rendering – also bring to mind the
work of Frank Santoro, particularly PIttsburgh
and Pompeii. Also, it could be argued that
the work is better served by it's original French title École
de la misère (School of Misery), given both its
thematic concerns and the strong focus on physical
place and space, but it's probably a safe bet to say that
books with "love" in the title sell better than those with
"school" (at least here in the USA). Regardless,
this is a rich, beautifully rendered work that will reward
repeated readings
retail price - $12.00 copacetic price - $10.75
retail price - $34.99 copacetic price - $28.75
retail price - $25.00 copacetic price - $21.75
retail price - $45.00 copacetic price - $38.75
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
retail price - $22.00 copacetic price - $19.75
Misery
of Love
This 232 page softcover from the creator
of The Yellow Negro and Other Imaginary Creatures
is hot off the press and now in stock at Copacetic.
It is entirely composed in a series of two
landscape-formatted panels per page – so, four per spread
– rendered in lush ink washes in a vast multiplicity of
tones from off white to black, showing just how much
variety – and complexity – it is possible to produce using
the opposition between black and white. Themes
include trauma, change, intergenerational trauma,
racism/colonialism, and, centrally, patriarchal attitudes
and the sexism so engendered – and then how these all
intersect and manifest in sexual relations. The work
is largely visual, with limited dialogue and minimal
textual interventions. The back cover blurb makes
reference to Richard McGuire's Here, due to the
narrative being constructed employing temporal shifts and
spatial juxtapositions that largely (but not solely)
transpire within a single structure. We would add
that some of the aspects/elements of the visual
presentation – the landscape panels, the uniform spread,
the lush, painterly rendering – also bring to mind the
work of Frank Santoro, particularly PIttsburgh
and Pompeii. Also, it could be argued that
the work is better served by it's original French title École
de la misère (School of Misery), given both its
thematic concerns and the strong focus on physical
place and space, but it's probably a safe bet to say that
books with "love" in the title sell better than those with
"school" (at least here in the USA). Regardless,
this is a rich, beautifully rendered work that will reward
repeated readings
retail
price - $29.95 copacetic price - $25.75
Womb
Rider
Here's the latest from Danish cartooning
powerhouse, Emil Friis Ernst: Womb Rider!
What is it that drives men to race one another, desperate
to get there first? Hmmm.... perhaps Ernst has
provided us with the answer in the pages of this 32 page,
magazine-size comic book, printed in fluorescent colors on
heavy duty newsprint and cardstock cover, that focuses on
one supremely focused "rider."retail price - $12.00 copacetic price - $10.75
Big Pool
Chris Harnan's Big Pool is
another European creation that too employs a metaphoric
theme, and one that can perhaps be seem as tangential to
that of the above. Encoding a double-helix of visual
information that is designed to evolve your consciousness
as you turn the pages. Anyone looking to get
out of their head for a bit – and away from linear
thinking and cost/benefit analyses – might want to
consider diving into this 224-page optical
blast. It's safer than drugs – and cheaper in the
long run, as a renewable resource that can be revisited as
often as liked. The work is almost
entirely textless; the minimal text present is employed
more for effect than narrative purposes and is primarily
in English, with the rest in French. We've posted a
generous gallery from the book up on the Copacetic Tumblr,
HERE.retail price - $34.99 copacetic price - $28.75
Sex Work
/ Working Dogs
Bridget Trout’s
Sex Work / Working Dogs is boldly cartooned
satire of the American workplace that posits work as sex
as work on the A-side, with a dogs as bosses role
reversal on the flipside. Published by Neoglyphic,
its double-sided, digest-sized, 69-format and color
saturated artwork printed on newsprint is highly
reminiscent – and a welcome revival – of the aesthetic
of Ben Jones & Jessica Ciocci’s Cartoon
Workshop / Pig Tales. This is a comic book
that makes a mockery of the corporate workplace and has
fun while doing it!
retail price - $14.00 copacetic price - $12.75
retail price - $14.00 copacetic price - $12.75
Belfaust
#7
Break out the champagne! The
seventh issue of Belfaust, David Sandlin's
trans-Atlantic epic, the love, sex, booze and
drugs-fueled masterpiece of sin and salvation (or, as
it is here in the States "sell-vation), has arrived! As
with all previous issues, this one is a hand printed, four
color risograph by the hard working Cram Books – to whom
the publishing baton has now also passed; 24 pages +
16-page mini-comic insert. Belfaust!
| "In America, dreams become real." |
Another great issue!retail price - $25.00 copacetic price - $21.75
Existential
Comics
Existential Comics: Selected
Stories 1979–2004 presents a collection of 25 of
R. Crumb's comics from the 25 year span that ended in 2004
– along with a new, one-page comics foreword created
specifically for this volume – that has been
insightfully curated and introduced by Crumb's
biographer, Dan Nadel. And what's more, this 180
page, full-size edition is both sturdy and handsome,
printed on a slightly heavier version of the same cream
colored paperstock chosen by Crumb for his Book of
Genesis, with stitched signatures quality
bound into a heavy duty hardcover designed for a lifetime
of reading enjoyment. We've posted the table of
contents along with a sneak preview of some choice panels
and pages on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE.retail price - $45.00 copacetic price - $38.75
These items and more may also be found at our eCommerce site, HERE.
