Copacetic Christmas 2014

COMICS
• classics
• kid stuff
BOOKS
MUSIC - CD
CINEMA - DVD
CRAZY DEALS
GIFTCERTIFICATES

COMICS

HAVE A MADE IN PITTSBURGH CHRISTMAS
We're starting out our Christmas Gift Catalogue once again highlighting the many outstanding works produced right here in Pittsburgh; with such amazing comics made in our hometown, it's easy to give local!

Hip Hop Family Tree, Volume 2: 1981-1983
by Ed Piskor
The Hip Hop Family Tree Express has reached the next station in its epic, era-spanning journey, and so is ready to deliver up this second, Treasury Edition sized, flexi-bound, full color volume that collects another year of HHFT strips from Ed's weekly Brain Rot feature, hosted by BoingBoing, along with a pulse-pounding panoply of bonus pin-ups by Michel Fiffe, Ben Marra, Katie Skelly, Wilfred Santiago, Jasen Lex, Matt Bors, Jarrett Williams, Kagen McLeod, Scott Morse, and Tom Neely.  Highlights included in this volume:  the moment when RUN-DMC takes the stage; the creation and unleashing of era-defining hits such as Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message”; the filming of the crucial hip hop movie, Wild Style; and the arrivals of NWA, The Beastie Boys, Doug E Fresh, KRS One, ICE T, and early Public Enemy.  Also included are cameos by Dolemite, LL Cool J, Notorious BIG, and, sadly, New Kids on the Block.  The introduction to this volume was penned by Wild Style director, Charlie Ahearn, no less.  
retail price - $27.99  copacetic price - $24.75

Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 1-2: 1975-1983 Gift Box Set
by Ed Piskor
Should there be anyone on your list who has yet to be initiated into the Hip Hop Family Tree Experience™, The choice may have to this instead:  the deluxe box-set.  It's a textured slip-case containing both of the volumes of Hip Hop Family Tree that have been released to date - BUT, while the contents of each volume contained in this box set is identical to the stand-alone volumes, each of the volumes has a new and completely different cover.  PLUS, this box also contains a 24-page comic book — Hip Hop Family Tree #300 — specifically made for this boxed set.  It is a mock Image Comics era "ashcan" edition that deconstructs the comic book production process while presenting an epic Hip Hop / Comic Book crossover tale of the Rob Liefeld / Spike Lee team-up that occurred in the process of making a Levi Jeans TV commercial; with special appearance by Eazy E.  And we're offering a special price on this that works out to basically the same cost as the two stand alone volumes, making this a value-priced point of entry to the series.
retail price - $59.99  copacetic price - $49.99

Street Angel
by Jim Rugg
The latest incarnation of the skateboarding ninja-fighter from Wilkesborough is a nifty 176 page hardcover that includes the complete five issue series, along with all the additional material from the earlier Slave Labor softcover, plus additional never-before-collected material such as short strips, full color front and back cover reproductions of all issues including the original mini, and more!  This edition is published by AdHouse Books, who have generously posted this PDF preview. 
retail price - $19.95  copacetic price - $17.77

The Abyssal Yawn #1
by Bill Wehmann & Ed Steck
Hot off the press, it's the latest Made-in-Pittsburgh release!  This full color 32 page comic book sports a card stock cover and is printed on high grade glossy stock throughout.  These heavy duty production measures were necessary to carry the weighty concepts that are herein delivered.  The Abyssal Yawn is a far-flung multi-dimensional science fiction tale in the tradition of Jack Kirby and Jim Starlin – think the Silver Surfer and Warlock – that took a detour through the meta-comics dimensions of Fort Thunder and navigated the Kramers Ergot force field with the aid of contemporary post-modern literary techniques and a bit of gage.  This unique comic book blend has been made available in a print run of a mere 300 copies.  Like anything this far off the beaten path, it's going to take some time for the comics market to catch wind of it, but once it does, these won't be around long – so make sure to check it out while you still can.  You can see more of Wehmann's work, and watch The Abyssal Yawn come together (albeit in reverse, as you scroll down) at the Pacific Reverb Society Tumblr.
retail price - $8.00 copacetic price - $8.00





The Garden
by Ed Steck
And why not make it an Ed Steck Christmas this year!  Adding a copy of The Garden together with The Abyssal Yawn will have our giftee decoding the dense, elliptically referential prose on hand in Ed Steck's most substantial work yet.  Employing novel organizational strategies, grafted vocabularies, and arcane grammars, Steck linguistically reveals the tectonic shifts in consciousness perpetuated by technology, which will boost the brain power of anyone who tackles it. 
retail price - $16.00  copacetic price - $15.00

Tomorrow and Tomorrow
by Thomas Sweterlitsch
We can't deny that this volume is a bit on the dark side, and may not be the most appropriate choice for a holiday gift.  Add to that the fact that it's plot involves a fairly harsh – if implicit – critique of certain aspects of Christianity in America and it would probably be wise to rule this one out as a Christmas present for most... but not all!  Dominic Blaxton is an insurance investigator, a cross between Walter Neff (née Huff, in the novel) and Philip Marlowe, a hard luck case whose pregnant wife was killed, and he feels he should have been as well, and so is barely able to drown his sorrows.  While working on a claim, he stumbles on a dead body and finds himself caught up in a complex web of money, power, sex, religion and guerrilla art.  Except... this is happening some thirty years or so in future, and nothing is what it seems.  The central irony of Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Pittsburgh author, Tom Sweterlitsch's debut novel, is that in order to "put Pittsburgh on the map" of literary locales, he had to completely annihilate it:  before the novel opens, Pittsburgh has been vaporized by a nuclear blast.  Then, through the course of the novel, and Blaxton's mission, a simulacra of the non-existent city is gradually (re)assembled out of "The Archive," the massive digital storage which, in the future posited here, contains the records of a nearly – but, crucially, not completely – total surveillance of every instant at every location in which every action of every person at every place at every time is recorded and stored.  Through this particular device, Sweterlitsch hits on a vital metaphor for the literary imagination itself.  For what is writing but a replacing of reality with an imaginative construct built out of the materials of memory (this applies to film-making as well, and it will come as   no surprise to anyone who reads this work that it has been optioned for a film, as the imaginative reconstruction that takes place in the pages of Tomorrow and Tomorrow is of a highly visual nature).  The plot of the novel turns on the twist that the memory out of which reality is recalled here is man-made:  The Archive.  As it is man-made, it can be man-unmade as well, and this is precisely what happens as the murder mystery at the core of the plot involves a hacking of The Archive that attempts to rewrite memory and hide the crime(s), echoing concepts explored in William Gibson's Neuromancer and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (based on Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), which are now thirty years old and very much in need of the updating which they get here.  But there's more!  The digital recollection and subsequent reconstitution of the entire population of the annihilated city of Pittsburgh adds another – allegorical – layer.  Although unstated in the novel, employing the parlance of the present, The Archive storing the virtual afterlives of the dead would be located in "the cloud," which repository then becomes the simultaneous locus of both history and heaven, wherein the facts of the past can be accessed and lost loved ones revisited, and wrongs righted; or not.  Current and former residents of Pittsburgh will have the added bonus of finding aspects of their current (or former) environments reconstituted in these pages, as the human memory powering the novel draws on its own recollections of the city and its people.  
retail price - $26.99  copacetic price - $24.00

You Can Did It #1
by Nils Balls with Mike Carretta
There were doubters, who said this day would never come – but they were wrong!  The yinzer beer lover's comic book has arrived.  You Can Did It is a paean to the potent powers of fermented hops and the life that goes with its consumption right here in tha 'Burgh.  Mitch and Ollie are a couple of regular guys who are also regulars at their local tavern.  In a twist on the mythical origin of many a super hero icon, the pair hit upon the secret formula for the ancient ur brew – the apotheosis of ale – and life takes a turn for the better – or at least it seems to; we'll have to wait and see what the rest of the story brings.  The real enjoyment here, however, is in soaking up the genuine Pittsburgh vibe that permeates every line.  Here is a pen and ink slice of life that you can almost taste.  And, to be clear, this is not just any old comic book.  As any beer connoisseur knows, the best beers tend to be made by small-scale, "micro-" and home-brewers such as Mitch and Ollie; the same holds true in comics.  You Can Did It is a finely crafted comics work that Nils and Mike took their time on to make sure they hit all the right notes; we're here to tell you that they did it.  Readers will savor every page and smack their lips with satisfaction as they close the cover and lay it back down on the bar.  The only downside here is waiting for a refill.  It's likely to be awhile before you'll be able to toss back the next issue.  But as we all know, you can't rush quality; as with the process of fermentation, you have to take your time to get it right; you'll know when it's done.
retail price - $5.00  copacetic price - $5.00





Dog City 3
edited by Juan Fernandez
This third volume in the Dog City series of boxed comics collections is the first we've listed here for the simple reason that the others sold out before we had the chance to!  This time around we're making a point of getting the word right out with the hope that someone new will get a chance to lay their hands on one of these hand-made (in Pittsburgh and Vermont) box sets containing a baker's dozen books.  Contributors this time around are Amelia Onorato, Jenn Lisa, Allison Bannister, Tom O'Brien, Simon Reinhardt, Caitlyn Rose Boyle, Luke Healy, Sophie Goldstein, Iris Yan, Tom Dibble, Reilly Hadden, Laurel Lynn Leake, Steven Krall, Dan Rinylo and editor, Juan Fernandez.  Limited to 120 copies!
retail price - $20.00  copacetic price - $20.00

I Saw Him
by Nate McDonough
Here's one for the brooder on your list.  Dante’s Divine Comedy begins, "In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost,” establishing a narrative paradigm that has taken many twists and turns before arriving here in Pittsburgh, channeled through the ceaselessly drawing hand of Nate McDonough and taking the form of this work.  I Saw Him has been delivered to the Copacetic Made-in-Pittsburgh Table™ just in time to steep in the spirits of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, and is tailor-made to pre-chill your bones in preparation for the long winter to come.  Set in the proverbial Woods, I Saw Him communicates a mood of pervasive anxiety about mortality that may put some readers in mind of American progenitor of the tale of existential dread, Edgar Allan Poe (to whom, we can’t help but note, its protagonist bears a passing resemblance) while the setting and action may bring to mind Nathaniel Hawthorne and Jack London.  McDonough’s notes indicate that he was accessing this mode through the 20th century cinematic works of Tarkovsky and Bergman, which makes sense, but the feeling here, while arguably more old country than new world in flavor, is distinctly pre-modern.  Regardless of all precursors, the aim here has been to create a timeless sense of mortal fear, one that can plug right into our own contemporary dreads that make up the daily news.   Nate has striven to capture a wintry walk through a light snow that doubles as a metaphor for the isolating effect of mortality and delivers his strongest art yet, with subtle snow fall and cold wintery breaths exhaled in a leafless and bare forest of varying density boldly delineated in strong contrast to the surrounding whiteness and grey sky, creating an interplay of tones that together set the stage for the bringer of the terror:  the pack of roving wolves; each of which are drawn with such devotion that readers will find themselves squirming in their armchairs as they close in…  The plot is bare bones, but takes twists and turns as it moves through the woods of its theme; by the end, you too will be able to say, “I saw him.” 
retail price - $8.00  copacetic price - $6.95

Morgan
by Frank Santoro
Out of the blue, it's an all new work by Frank Santoro, one that could be the perfect stocking stuffer for the discerning comics aficionado on your list.  Morgan is a nearly wordless, 32 page, horizontally formatted, 6.5" x 5" Risograph printed in royal purple.  Myth and symbol merge in a series of sensual images that link nature, sexuality and power within a framework that hinges on the inherently deceptive character of appearances. Once again, it's all about the spread.  The narrative of Morgan is biplanar in construction, grounded in two, alternating modes of perception – asserting any fixed view of "reality" (or history) as being inherently unstable, illusory and based on self-deception, willful or otherwise – and challenges the reader to synthesize the story's latent content in the collision at the center:  to read each image first individually and then in tandem, the spread as a single unit; to incorporate the basic principle of Eisensteinian montage in simultaneously reading both images to identify a new, synthetic meaning that rises out of their combination.  The uniform sensuality of both the drawings and the images serves to formally adhere the layers, while momentum is built through parallel storytelling occurring on two planes of reality, primarily – but not solely – represented across the spread, and the climax occurs at their intersection.  All this in 32 highly compacted images.  Needless to say, you'll want to read this one through multiple times.  Anyone unfamiliar with the Arthurian legend and/or Morgan Le Fay's role – which has been, over the centuries, highly mutable and often debated – is hereby directed to delve a bit deeper into this foundational legend that is a primogenitor for much in Western myth, including a significant swath of that underpinning the heroic fantasy genre, aka superheroes.  Britannia.com's Morgan Le Fay page is one good place to start as it includes a bibliography of sources for further reading.  Santoro's Morgan has been produced in an edition of a mere 200 copies, so don't snooze on this one!
retail price - $10.00  copacetic price - $8.00

Top of the Line, Compete Set: 1 - 8
by Dan McCloskey
In his 8-issue series, Top of the Line, writer/artist Dan McCloskey takes a look at our contemporary environment through a science fiction lens that shows readers how the world around us is likely to appear to the evolved perceptual apparatuses that are embedded a few layers down in our consciousness.  The human nervous system, evolved over millions of years in which everything it came into contact with was nature-made and animation (movement) was primarily associated with life (anima, from which animate and animal derive, is Latin for life soul) is as a result hardwired to equate movement with life.  Over the last three centuries an ever increasing number of devices and machines which are in actuality inanimate (i.e, not alive) have been designed and manufactured to behave in ways that not only make them appear to our senses to be animate/alive, but, increasingly of late, aided by sophisticated software, to lead us to interact with them as "living" things.  This tendency has many side-effects, not least of which is a need to parse and often then to repress the urge to reciprocate in kind to the illusory anima, which in turn leads to a host of (mal)adaptive issues.  Top of the Line opens up this phenomenon up for a bit of comics exploration that yields some interesting results.   Other aspects of our world are given alternative encoding in this series as well, such as the gaping divide between the haves and have-nots and the exploitative media that functions to maintain this divide by creating a society of the spectacle that fans of The Hunger Games should be able to appreciate.  But please don't let all this talk of intellectual investigation give you the wrong idea –  most of all, Top of the Line is a rollicking comics adventure of youth in revolt drawn with a vibrant line embodying the exuberance of its creator.  Each issue is progressively more colored, with the final issue being full color and double-sized and sporting a hand silk-screened cover.  Check it out!
retail price - $26.92 copacetic price - $20.00

AND NOW, THE REST OF THE WORLD...


The Love Bunglers
by Jaime Hernandez
When in doubt, give the best.  It's hard to know where to begin with a work as remarkable as this.  Originally published in six chapters in Love and Rockets: New Stories 3 & 4  in 2010 and 2011, it includes a flashback chapter titled "Browntown" that, in comic book parlance, could be said to be the – or, at least, a – "Secret Origin of Maggie", as readers are finally made privy to heretofore undisclosed primal scenes at the root of significant swaths of Maggie's personality and character.  While it may be a commonplace to state that character is forged in the crucible of family, it is rare indeed to be given the opportunity of witnessing an incidence of this that has been prepared with such consummate skill that it achieves the degree of verisimilitude achieved in The Love Bunglers, sharing such startling psychological insights in the process.  Naturally, parents predominate in scenarios set within the family arena; their characters are asserted and consequently imprinted upon the children.  This scenario certainly plays out in "Browntown", but intriguingly – and crucially to the understanding of Jaime's world view and working method and sense of character construction – much of what is revealed here, that is linked to the formation of Maggie's persona, transpired in her absence, to other members of her family.  Here, the unintentional looms large, as revelations of hidden parental acts become keys in the children's hands, used to decode their parents' motivations and values and learn the actual reality undergirding the constructed reality as it had been given to the children by the parents.  The drama here simultaneously reveals the quotation marks around "truth" and the effect that this revelation has on all concerned – in one of the great three-panel sequences (establishing - POV - reaction) in the history of comics as one particular revelation is is registered.  There are the corollary experiences of Maggie's brother, Calvin (adding yet another layer to this historically significant name...), which, while primarily serving the self-contained narrative of The Love Bunglers, carry the added charge of immediately registering to long-time Love and Rockets readers as being integral to the development of Maggie's character and personality.  And, finally, the family-is-destiny theme returns with a vengeance in the novel's climax.  Employing the heretofore hidden sequence of events revealed in "Browntown" as the dramatic catalyst, Jaime triggers the release of thirty years worth of potential energy and converts it  into an emotionally devastating catharsis of great power.  Upon reaching the conclusion of The Love Bunglers there is an inescapable feeling of finality and closure to the the saga of the life and times of Maggie Chascarillo.  While it is almost certain that we will be seeing more of Maggie in future issues of Love and Rockets, Jaime's discovery of these hidden pieces of the puzzle of Maggie's persona seems to have allowed him to at last reach the holistic understanding of her character and it's fundamental relationship to Ray as its terminus that he had been striving for these thirty years – and communicate this understanding to his readers in this magisterial work.
retail price - $19.99  copacetic price - $15.99


Bumperhead
by Gilbert Hernandez
Gilbert's follow up to 2013's Marble Season, Bumperhead is another full-size, hardcover graphic novel from Drawn & Quarterly, but it is much more than just a follow up.  It's not going too far out on a limb to proclaim Bumperhead Gilbert's most fully realized work outside of the Love and Rockets continuity.  He is in the zone here, playing to his strengths as a storyteller and artist as he relates life events, group dynamics and how all is rooted in the family to character formation and the Hernandezian Arc of Life™.  It's almost magic the way Bumperhead's players are brought so vibrantly to life that the reader comes away feeling that they know the pen & ink people that populate this volume's pages, especially – and unsurprisingly – the girls/women (as they mature and age as well [or not, as seems to be the case with the character that seems to be intended as the manifestation of a Platonic ideal]).  Divided into five sections, Bumperhead provides a highly condensed life story of a Mexican-American member of the generation that came of age during the punk rock era, from childhood to middle age.  It is presented in a historical frame that roughly parallels that of Gilbert's own, with a focus on the musical evolution that took place in the early to mid-seventies rock from prog and glam to punk and hard core that is filled with band and LP references that will ring a bell in anyone conversant with the music of that era and/or Gilbert's own musical history and taste.  There are several unexpected/unusual twists – like a character who walks around with an iPad... in the 1970s!  This is a narrative device that takes a moment to get used to; it feels like Gilbert had the urge to do it and just went with it (you can almost hear him saying, "if they don't get it, fuck 'em") ... and he manages to pull it off as a sort of quasi-Brechtian chorus-like [Verfremdungseffekt] device to reference our contemporary consciousness.  Like Marble Season, this is at most a semi-autobiographical work and most definitely not "the Gilbert Hernandez Story" (not even a roman à clef).  That said, it is nevertheless almost irresistible to attempt to tease out what is taken from Gilbert's own personal experiences and what is novelistic invention; in the process adding another layer of enjoyment for the long time fan; speaking of which, this is a book that is sure to resonate with and be savored (and treasured!) by the original generation of Love and Rockets readers, but one that will also, of course, be easily enjoyed by any and all comics readers – especially those whose identities are inextricably entwined with their life's mix-tape soundtrack.  RECOMMENDED!    
retail price - $21.95  copacetic price - $19.75



This One Summer
by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
This One Summer is a finely nuanced portrait of pubescents at the dawning of their age of sexuality that will have readers slowing down if not stopping in their tracks to pause and soak up every line of this amazing work.  The Tamaki sisters enter Hernandez brothers territory here, with their deftly characterized and deeply empathic portraits of each pen & ink participant in the drama that unfolds on these pages.  There are echoes, too, of Charles Burns’s Black Hole, in the presentation of the protagonists' stumbling upon detritus strewn outdoor settings, which stands as a synecdoche for innocence’s discovering the mysteries of sexual fecundity, flesh, decay and death to come.  Innocence and its loss, the gaining of reproductive maturity and its consequences, the linkages between character formation and parental nurturing styles and much more besides are eloquently delineated page after page of incisive story-telling powered by breathtakingly good illustration.  While the narrative is likely to particularly resonate with those readers in the demographic portrayed, we can unstintingly recommend This One Summer to all who appreciate fine comics:  it is a real stand out; miss at your own peril.  Available in both hardcover and softcover.  This is a book is a treasure.
softcover -- retail price - $17.95  copacetic price - $16.25
hardcover -- retail price - $21.95  copacetic price - $19.75




Megahex
by Simon Hanselmann
This would surely be an excellent gift for many.  Unfortunately, it will out of print through the holidays!  We have a bare handful of copies left and are unlikely to locate more.  So if you had this one down on your list for someone, act now!!!  Working under the radar of North American comics fans for years, this Tasmanian native currently residing in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, has at last crashed through the invisible barrier and has arrived on our shores with a big splash.  With his characters Megg, Mogg and Owl (along with a supporting cast foremost among whom is Werewolf Jones) Hanselmann has created the apotheosis of the Stoner Roommates Drama (SRD) that has a long and distinguished lineage dating back to Gilbert Shelton's The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, includes the denizens of Pete Bagge's Hate, and whose most direct precursors are to be found in the pages of Paper Rad (Ben Jones, particularly) and Matt Furie's Boys Club.  The comics here, along with those Simon has produced for 'Truth Zone' and elsewhere threaten to be the last word on the subject.  Get an idea of what we're going on about with this PDF preview, then, get up to speed with  Simon H. circa 2013, here and/or circa 2014, here.  The first printing has sold out – BUT, we still have copies on hand, for now...
retail price - $29.95  copacetic price - $29.95



Incomplete Works
by Dylan Horrocks
Incomplete Works provides, indirectly, an intimate, informative, entertaining portrait of the artist as a young cartoonist – who goes on to age gracefully and productively – with a large degree of creative independence – into marriage, fatherhood and middle-age (which is no small feat).  It does so while simultaneously fulfilling its primary function of being a treasure trove of short comics of all stripes.  Auto-bio, fantasy, literary, historical, humorous, scientific, and meta-physical comics can each be found here, all handled by Horrocks with dextrous aplomb.  That he has been able to accomplish all this may have something to due with his being a New Zealander, but we're not sure... This well-produced 192 page collection was, in any event, published by Victoria University Press, located in Wellington, New Zealand's capital (Horrocks resides in Auckland, New Zealand's major metropolis).  VUP is also Horrock's New Zealand publisher of his two major works, Hicksville (published in North America by Drawn & Quarterly) and Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen (forthcoming in North America, from Fantagraphics).  To the best of our knowledge, there are no plans to publish Incomplete Works in North America, but we were able to track down copies from a distributor who imported them.  And we're glad we did!  This excellent collection provides an excellent look at a quarter-century long (and counting!) career that takes a look at available career (and life) paths, approaches to to the medium, technical as well as stylistic and philosophical.  This feat is accomplished in part by the volume's well thought out, largely chronological, organization in combination with its providing concise, informative end notes, which serve to contextualize the contents.  RECOMMENDED!
retail price - $19.99  copacetic price - $19.99


Syllabus
by Lynda Barry
The professor is back and class is now in session!  From the moment you lay eyes on this anti-professorial text book disguised as a student's composition book (which, of course, it also is; as Lynda Barry is nothing if not a life-long learner) you know you are going to be in for a treat.  You know this book is going to be different.  You know that you will gradually realize that you don't know. At the outset, Barry (self-designated as Professor Long-Title) states that Syllabus is, "a book of notes, drawings, and syllabi I kept during my first three years of teaching in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The chronology is rough and mixed up in places but all kept by hand on pages of either legal pads or in standard black and white marbled composition notebooks."  Syllabus asks:  "What is an image?"  But Lynda Barry knows that no book can answer this question by itself, that it is up to the reader, and so she guides us through "the unthinkable mind" in order to discover "what it is" and so be able to "write what you see" and ultimately be at one with "making comics."  Not only will you see her lessons and observations, but also a judicious and seamlessly integrated selection of students' work and turned-in assignments. (check out these preview shots to rev up your anticipation another notch)   This facsimile is sure to inspire many an actual composition-book filling and what could be better than that?  And, as a supplement to her Syllabus, you might want to make a visit to Lynda Barry's Tumblr page, The Near Sighted Monkey, where, when class is in session (and even when it's not), you'll get the chance to learn along with Lynda as well as occasionally get a look at what her students are up to.
retail price - $19.99  copacetic price - $17.77



The Lonesome Go
by Tim Lane
The long awaited follow up volume to Abandoned Cars has arrived.  The Lonesome Go is a giant oversize volume packed with more carefully placed ink lines than any book this side of Black Hole.  Taking a hint from the Legend of Duluoz, St. Louis resident and Washington University lecturer, Tim Lane takes a turn down a Lost Highway  on a Savage Night, where A Good Man Is Hard to Find and a sprawling chaos of comics ensues, recorded employing a visual lexicon that is part Charles Biro and part Charles Burns and shines a light on those parts of the American psyche that are usually left festering in the dark, all in the service of creating an acutely observed and fully realized vision that will knock your socks off.  The work contained in this volume – some of which has previously seen the light of day in Lane's self-published series, Happy Hour in America, some in other various and sundry publications, and some here for the first time – is suffused with the spirit of the 20th century – "The American Century":  Train engines, boxcars, tracks, yards, switches, signals; warehouses, factories, back alley hotels, bars and nightclubs constructed of bricks, wood beams, iron and steel, all connected by heavily riveted bridges that are mystically immune to rust; hobos, psychos, the helpless, the hopeless; coffee, cigarettes, booze of all stripes; guns, knives, truncheons, lead pipes.  This volume is not for the faint of heart.  Truly Hollow Men haunt these pages, where sadism mixes with the violence of a nonchalant misanthropy which is even more frightening.  Adventure and risk are here, as well – as one would expect from the Great American Mythological Drama that Lane is crafting here.  Yes, all is delineated with grim, determined care, to ensure the reader doesn't miss a thing, but there is also poetry here, of a decidedly romantic bent, that evokes – to simultaneously celebrate and mourn – the America that is no more...
retail price - $39.99  copacetic price - $33.75


The Walking Man - hardcover reissue
by Jiro Taniguchi
FINALLY!  The long promised hardcover reissue of – believe it or not – the best-selling manga in Copacetic history has arrived.  The Walking Man is a sui generis work of pen and ink contemplation, a book filled with page after page of microcosmical meanderings that follow the whim of the moment, ungoverned by any societal dictate, yielding neither to appetite but only to impulse, following the life force in page after page of disciplined and reserved yet discreetly joyous artwork that sympathetically stimulates the senses in a work freed from consciously directed narrative to wander where the heart roams.  Here's what we wrote when the book was first released: "his 160-page french-flapped softcover volume collects eighteen zen-like tales of the "man who walks."  Reflective, insightful meditations on the modern, suburban condition, these stories embody the soul of manga.  While the landscape through which our hero walks is indisputably Japanese, the stories told and the lessons learned on his brief treks are indisputably universal.  Taniguchi has managed a unique feat here.  The comics work in The Walking Man is stripped of all extraneous elements.  There is a near total absence of narrative in the pieces collected in this volume.  With extraneous temporal distractions removed, the pure essence of comics remains and we are left face to face with a direct, graphic communication of the here and now.  These are comics that dig deep into the mind and trigger a panoply of sensations: the heat of the sun on one's back, a cool breeze along the side of one's face, the smell of flowers, the cold, creamy taste of ice-cream, the hard exertions of a fast run, the overall feel of the encroaching darkness, the sounds of children laughing, water flowing, a passing train... all these sensations and more are triggered by the series of images that the reader is presented with as the pages are turned and the walking man goes on his way.  To get a better idea, check out this preview.  Recommended.  And then, at any time before, during or after reading The Walking Man, we also recommend that you read the essay that laid the foundation for the philosophy (or, at the very least, its American branch) that suffuses this work, "Walking" by Henry David Thoreau.
retail price - $24.95  copacetic price - $22.22



Sugar Skull
by Charles Burns
Charles Burns has been creating and publishing his own unique brand of finely polished comics of life on the edge of sanity for well over thirty years.  He forged an instantly recognizable pen and ink style from his earliest outings on, one that has influenced legions of comickers and illustrators (and writers and filmmakers) around the globe.  He was a key contributor to RAW Magazine and helped redefine, as well as expand the boundaries of, comics during the 1980s.  He has produced numerous genre-defying works such as El Borbah, Big Baby, and Black Hole – and he's still going strong!  Sugar Skull is the third and final volume in the trilogy that began with X'ed Out and continued in The Hive.  While this trilogy has taken Burns over five years to complete, that is just the tip of the iceberg, for it has spent almost a lifetime gestating.  Its earliest roots are in Burns's childhood love for / obsession with Hergé's classic series of TinTin albums.  This is the frame onto which Burns stretches his canvas and paints an elaborate, multifaceted and multidimensional (multiversal?) portrait of fantastic inner landscapes as seen through his mind's eye. Drug addled confusion mingles with late nights, odd ball performers, and punk rock femme fatales, precipitating failures in psychological integration which turn reality inside out, wherein comic book inspired dreams become real.  It doesn't get any better than this.
retail price - $21.95  copacetic price - $19.75


Moonhead
by Andrew Rae
Another fabulously produced, full colour, hardcover NoBrow graphic novel is here, and it's designed with indy rock music fans – and, especially, the budding musicians among them – in mind.  It's about how being different – like, for example, having a moon for a head – makes life different and how that alters viewpoints and changes life paths – like, for example, becoming an indy rock musician.  Lush full color art depicts the development of Moonhead's person and career, and includes plenty of nods and references that will resonate with the initiated.  Here's a review (accompanied by a very generous preview) by Big Boing Boinger, internet writer (whose upcoming book, Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age, we'll have in soon) and comics scripter, Cory Doctorow (whose recent collaboration with Jen Wang, In Real Life, we'll be posting about here before long).
retail price - $24.99  copacetic price - $22.22
 



Shoplifter
by Michael Cho
Born in South Korea, but immigrating to Canada at age six and a current resident of Toronto, Michael Cho is a widely respected illustrator who moonlights as a comics creator.  Shoplifter is his first graphic novel, and an impressive debut it is. In its pages, Cho manages the feat of creating an elegant synthesis of contemporary Canadian cartooning.  Combining the deftly dynamic page layouts of Darwyn Cooke, J.Bone & Jay Stephens, the reflective ennui of Seth, the urban introversion of Chester Brown and the urbane sophistication of Ethan Rilly into finely nuanced work of life in that part of North America that continues to swear allegiance to the Queen.  The story told in Shoplifter is that of one young woman's lonely struggle to find her place in world.  The tale is solidly constructed, well balanced, filled with strongly delineated characters and likely to please the readers it is intended for.  Cho's protagonist, Corrina Park demonstrates a great vulnerability, naivete and sincerity, and Shoplifter ends on a upbeat and hopeful note that makes this excellent work an appropriate holiday gift.
retail price - $19.95  copacetic price - $17.77




It Never Happened Again
by Sam Alden
Courtesy of Uncivilized Books, we finally have a Sam Alden collection, an actual book, with a spine!  It Never Happened Again collects two works:  the 64 page "Hawaii 1997" and the 90 page "Anime."  "Hawaii 1997" is the work through which many readers first encountered Alden.  When it was first posted on Tumblr, it blazed through the eyeballs of many an internet surfer.  The pencils here are strong, bold and decisive, executed with quick, deft strokes which crackle with emotional energy.  The figures and landscapes in "Hawaii 1997" feel like they are flowing non-stop out the tip of Alden's pencil and onto the paper in an automatic recollection that is magically transmitted from the mind to the hand.  In this respect the energetic linework recalls some of the pages in Frank Santoro's seminal masterwork, Storeyville, which was originally published in 1995.  Like "Hawaii 1997", "Anime" is a story told largely through images.  It is a more calibrated work, however, one that spans family, work, relationships and continents in a bold attempt to portray the perceptions of a personality that had been led to, and a consciousness that has been shaped by, animé.  Employing an informed and disciplined use of the grid, Alden is successful in implicitly conveying a sense of the irrevocable ticking of the clock, as time marches on while the concurrent personal growth necessary to survival sometimes has trouble keeping up...
retail price - $11.95  copacetic price - $10.00



Bohemians: A Graphic History
edited by Paul Buhle and David Berger
Published by one of the leading lights of the Left, Verso Books, this anthology is jam-packed full of engaging, entertaining, enjoyable and, especially, educational comics about a wide swath of historical figures – ranging from Walt Whitman to Charlie Parker and including Gertrude Stein, Mabel Dodge, Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker and far too many others to mention here – that have been collected together under the umbrella of "Bohemians."  There are some great comics on hand here, by the likes of Sharon Rudahl, Dan Steffan, Sabrina Jones, Matt Howarth, Lance Tooks, David Lasky, Milton Knight, Ellen Lindner, Peter Kuper, Afua Richardson, and the late, great Spain Rodriguez, whose participation here indicates that this has been a long fermenting project.  All in all it makes for a great read, and it's a good deal!  Laugh and learn, for less.  Recommended.
retail price - $16.95  copacetic price - $15.25





World War 3 Illustrated: 1979 - 2014
edited by Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman
Here's one for the radical leftist comics reader on your list.  The longest running, politically active, North American comicszine anthology of our time, World War 3 was (and still is!) unabashedly radical left and NYC-centric in its outlook.  Shepherded for over three decades by Kuper and Tobocman, who in addition to editing and publishing WWIII, produced a substantial percentage of the work that graced its pages, the best of which is reproduced here – in black and white and full color – along side that of a diverse group made up of many other contributors, including leftist luminaries like Sue Coe, Eric Drooker, Spain Rodriguez, Art Spiegelman, Tom Tomorrow and many others whose work is not as widely known and whose presence here is perhaps the greatest attraction of this hefty 300+ page hardcover volume, as readers encounter their work for the first time.
retail price - $29.99  copacetic price - $27.50





Best American Comics 2014
edited by Scott McCloud; series editor Bill Kartalopoulos
Should you be looking to being anyone up to speed on what's been happening in comics over the last year or so, look no further!  After shepherding it through nearly a decade of great comics, the original series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden have put the series in the eminently capable hands of comics scholar  (and comics festival organizer), Bill Kartalopoulos, who has teamed up with this year's editor, the one and only Scott "Understanding Comics" McCloud to produce what we are going to go out on a limb and declare the best Best American Comics volume yet. Organized into ten thematically unified sections, each with its own introduction defining and justifying the theme and selections, the comics included in this volume range far and wide, from the recognized masters of the form such as Jaime Hernandez (whose work graces the cover), Chris Ware, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb to amazing work by the up and coming generation of cartoonists like Theo Ellsworth, Michael DeForge, Lale Westvid and Sam Alden to boundary pushing works by the likes of Aidan Koch and Erin Curry.  And there's much more!  Readers will also herein find amazing work by many other creators of all stripes, including mainstream heroic fantasy, web comics, comics for young readers, newspaper strips, works of history in comics form (like an excerpt from Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree!), some particularly intense examples of the ever popular comics memoir, and more, including work by perennial Copacetic favorites like Ron Rege, Jr. and "C.F.".  We recognize that Copacetic customers are likely to already be familiar with if not already own many of the works found here, and so may be less inclined to consider it for themselves, but we all know someone who could greatly benefit being hepped to the dazzling spectrum of comics on hand here (and we are in full agreement with Kartalopoulos's "suggestion" that the material contained  in this single volume better represents the wide array of comics today than the entire "graphic novel" section of most bookstores), so consider pointing them in this direction...
retail price - $25.00  copacetic price - $22.22




God and the Devil at War in the Garden
by Anders Nilsen
Here's a good choice for the adventurous comics reader/collector.  This is a self-published, limited-edition, saddle-stiched, black & white, oversize edition collecting recent miscellaneous works by the inimitable Mr. Nilsen.  The mainstay of the collection is the 16-page "An Angel of Heaven," executed employing the silhouette technique of Rage of Poseidon.  The accompanying pieces – along with the massive wraparound cover – are rendered in the detailed stipple and line technique of Big Questions.  All of the works in GatDaWitG are both visually pleasing and intellectually stimulating.  In other words:  what are you waiting for ?  Every copy of our initial stock comes with a BONUS: a copy of his dialectical allegory in mini-comic form that takes on Amazon.com, Conversation Gardening.; rendered in a rough approximation of the cartooning style of the Monologuist books.
retail price - $18.00  copacetic price - $16.25





Ant Colony
by Michael DeForge
It's here:  the deluxe full color, 112 page, horizontally formatted hardcover collection of Michael DeForge's internet work, Ant Comic.  A high intensity allegory rendered in dazzling full color and employing DeForge's personal cartooning language to great advantage, Ant Colony is a wholly original work that is not to be missed.  In the words of no less a comics authority than Jaime Hernandez, "DeForge is one of those rare comics naturals and Ant Colony proves it."
retail price - $21.95 copacetic price - $19.75




Heroes of the Comics
by Drew Friedman
Years in the making, Drew Friedman's epic mash note to the bygone greats of comics has at last arrived, and what a treat it is.  Talent, not fame, is the key to entry here, so we have titans of the industry such as Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee rubbing shoulders with collector favorites like Ogden Whitney, Boody Rogers, Dick Briefer and Ramona Fradon – and many more inbetween.  Also included are industy figures such as Max Gaines and Harry Chesler, and with a nod to history, the book closes with Frederic Wertham!  Over 80 portraits in all – and what portraits they are!  Take a gander at Drew's meticulous renderings and heartfelt meanderings, HERE.
retail price - $34.99  copacetic price - $29.75







Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World
edited by Monte Beauchamp
comics by Drew Friedman, Dan Zettwoch, Mark Alan Stamaty, et al
Here's a perfect gift for the hard-to-buy-for comics collector who has seen it all and already everything.  Between the staid and stolid covers of Masterful Marks is a riot of colorful comics homages to the giants of comics, by a great assemblage of currently working cartoonists.  Among the pieces you will find here are Mark Alan Stamaty on Jack Kirby, Beauchamp and Ryan Heshka on Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster, Dan Zettwoch on Tezuka Osamu, Denis Kitchen on Dr. Seuss (and yes, for those of you who don't know, he started out doing comics), Peter Kuper on Harvey Kurtzman, and Drew Friedman turns in what may be the best comics work of his career with "R. Crumb & Me."  And there's plenty more, including comics-packagers/promoters Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner.  So, make sure to pry open this one when you see it, and take a look. 
retail price - $24.99  copacetic price - $22.22



An Age of License: A Travelogue
by Lucy Knisley
Here's one for the young traveler on your list:  an engaging tale of a young American woman abroad, 21st century comics style!  As opposed to the introverted tales of angst and woe that we have come to associate with the autobio comics genre, here we have an extroverted (and, as it turns out, exogamous) tale of European adventure wherein our heroine heads off to gain new experiences and fresh perspectives, in what is, after all, a travelogue.  Readers may vicariously share in her fun and far-ranging travels as well as her various interludes and escapade.  Knisley has done one previous travel memoir, 2008's French Milk,which we were only lukewarm about, but her cartooning abilities have vastly improved in the interim, and the story she has to tell this time around has a lot more going for it, so fans of travel comics, fans of autobio comics, and fans of Knisley's popular foodie comic, Relish, all have something to look forward to here in this 200 page book; a mix of black & white and full color.  Take a sneak peek at it, here in this PDF preview and see what you make of it.
retail price - $19.99  copacetic price - $17.77





Infomaniacs
by Matthew Thurber
The creator of 1-800-MICE returns with this one-of-a-kind graphic novel that lies on the comics spectrum somewhere between Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle and Chester Brown's Ed the Happy Clown.  Infomaniacs provides readers with a hardcover volume filled with 192, 8" x 11" pages of stream of consciousness comics exploring the ongoing mutations occurring in human consciousness as a result of our ever increasing engagement with and reliance upon internet connected computing. 
retail price - $22.99 copacetic price - $20.00
 


Seconds
by Bryan Lee O'Malley
It's here:  the all new, full color, hardcover graphic novel from Scott Pilgrim creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley.  As might be expected, this one features characters a bit older than those found in the Scott Pilgrim, allowing for the aging of the original demographic of readers of that amazingly popular series (the indicia of our latest reorder of the first volume showed it to be the 30th printing!).  Seconds centers on the character of Katie, a 29-year old chef and would be restauranteur.  A current fling, an Ex-boyfriend, a boss, a partner, and  batch of co-workers round out the cast.  Oh yeah – and a house spirit with the power to grant the wish of a second chance to do things over.  This dash of fantasy spices up the already lively goings on.  And, while O'Malley currently makes his home in Los Angeles, the setting of Seconds is clearly his native Canada.  An entertaining and fun read that is sure to enjoyed by the first generation of Scott Pilgrim fans, and is likely to click with anyone looking for a little magic in graphic novel form...
retail price - $25.00  copacetic price - $22.50




On Loving Women
by Diane Obomsawin
A GLBT-friendly gift, On Loving Women is a pithy collection of vignettes from this Francophone Montreal native who grew up in France, each comprising the recounting of a first love of a woman by a woman.
retail price - $16.95  copacetic price - $15.25

 


Cat Person
by Seo Kim
For the cat-person in your life, Cat Person is a charming portrait of learning to live with – and, ultimately, love – the quotidian frustrations of cat-centric existence.  Cat Person is filled with short but sweet comics vignettes that will provoke pleasing bursts of neurotransmitters in most readers; pick it up and read a few next time you're in and see if doing so puts you in touch with your inner purr.
retail price - $20.00  copacetic price - $16.75






Neurocomic
by Dr. Matteo Farinella & Dr. Hana Ros
Wow! a work of science comics – neuroscience, to be more exact – by actual, practicing, PhD-holding, (neuro)scientists.  Who knew scientists could make comics, and not just any old comics, but, solid, eminently readable and thoroughly enjoyable comics!  Neurocomic is another beautifully produced volume from NoBrow, who have this to say about it:  "Neurocomic is a journey through the human brain: a place of neuron forests, memory caves and castles of deception.  Along the way, you'll encounter Boschean beasts, giant squid, guitar-playing sea slugs and the great pioneers of neuroscience."  Could be just the ticket for someone...
retail price - $24.95  copacetic price - $22.22






Stray Bullets: Über Alles Edition
by David Lapham
This one may be a bit on the dark side for a holiday gift, but it is a massive package of hi-octane comics that we're sure many would like the chance to dig into.  It's all here, all 41 issues of the definitive noir comic book series which has spawned a host of imitators.  This 1000+ pages tome is a lot for anyone to handle.  Page after page of cons, retribution, vengeance and loss, filled with surprise, pain, shock and trauma.  It is perhaps the greatest irony of this series that these expertly produced comics, painstakingly constructed with an eye towards precision timing and fully constituting the author's original formal vision, created a masterpiece the aim of which was to paint a portrait of a known world slipping away into chaos.  
retail price - $59.95  copacetic price - $49.95


Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream
published by Locust Moon
Anyone wanting to think BIG this holiday season might want to consider this truly gigantic tome.  A whoppin' 100 cartoonists and illustrators have paid tribute to Winsor McCay's masterpiece by creating new Little Nemo strips that riff on the original in 100 different ways, from the far out to the fanciful, from the reverent to the heretical, and all reproduced at the same size as the original Little Nemo strips:  the amazing, gigantic, stupendous, broadsheet newspaper-size of 16" x 21".  A feat first made possible in the mega-book size pioneered by Peter Maresca's Sunday Press in reproducing the original Little Nemo Strips in their equally massive LIttle Nemo collections.  Contributors to Dream Another Dream include Paul Pope, Bill Sienkiewicz, Peter Bagge, Farel Dalrymple, Nate Powell, David Mack, Theo Ellsworth, Jeremy Bastian, Jeremy Baum, John Cassaday, Jim Rugg, Jasen Lex, Michael Allred, Scott Morse, Tom Scioli, Yuko Shimizu, David Petersen, J.G. Jones, Denis Kitchen, Stephen Bissette, Ronald Wimberly, P. Craig Russell, JH Williams III, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon, among many others.  You really have to see this one for yourself.
retail price - $125.00  copacetic price - $106.25



The Complete Zap Comics
edited by Gary Groth
Any customer who received a particularly large holiday bonus this year and wants to go with an extra lavish gift,  could go all out in style with this Five-volume hardcover boxed set, that is a "Limited, single-printing edition" that runs 920  9” x 12”pages,  printed in black & white with color, as per the originals it is collecting.  Fanta sez:  "There scarcely was an underground comics world before Robert Crumb's classic solo first issue of Zap in 1968. By Zap#2, he had begun assembling a Seven Samurai of the best, the fiercest, and the most stylistically diversified cartoonists to come out of the countercultural kiln. All of them were extremists of one sort or another, from biker-gang member Rodriguez to Christian surfer Griffin, but somehow they produced a decades-long collaboration: a mind-blowing anthology of abstract hallucination, throat-slashing social satire, and shocking sexual excess, that made possible the ongoing wave of alternative cartoonists like Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Charles Burns. The Complete Zap Comix collects every issue of Zap — every cover and every story, and even the Zam mini comic jam among the Zap artists — in a multi-volume, slipcased hardcover set. It will also include the 17th unpublished issue with work by Crumb, Moscoco, Wilson, Rodriguez, Shelton, Mavrides, and Williams. Plus, an introduction by founder R. Crumb and an oral history of Zap by Patrick Rosenkranz, and other exclusive bonus features and items."  This one is so pricey that just our discount on it is more that the price of every other item in our holiday gift catalogue, with the exception of the above Little Nemo book!
retail price - $500.00  copacetic price - $450.00






Classic Comics Collections




Young Romance 2
by Jack Kirby with Joe Simon
Defying the norm, this second collection of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's classic romance comics – a genre which they created, by the way; Young Romance #1 was the very first romance comic book – is a better book than the first volume, with both stronger stories and superior reproduction.  Romance was among the most successful of comic book genres in the history of the form, and was the most popular during its heyday of the late '40s and early '50s – the period on display in this excellent volume.  Many people have a negative perception of romance comics as cliche ridden melodramas of brainless women duped into marriage by paternalistic, condescending men.  While there is more than a grain of truth to this in the later romance comics created after 1955 under the proscriptions of the definitively paternalistic Comics Code Authority, the early years of romance comics were full of vital tales of women in search of their own destiny.  While of course these stories employed the reductive approaches to narrative necessitated by the requirement that major life episodes be squeezed into 8 to 12 pages of comics, the stories, and especially the characters that populate them, on display in the works contained in this collection are head and shoulders above other comic books being produced at the time and set high water marks for the medium.   The advent of romance comics was a crucial chapter in comics history.  The early years of the genre revitalized the medium; some of the very best comic books ever produced are romance comics, and the comics contained in this collection are among them.  Recommended!
retail price - $29.99 copacetic price - $25.00


Cannon
by Wallace Wood
In some respects, Cannon could be seen as the end of romance – with a motto somewhere along the lines of "make war, not love (have sex)" – in which purely male concerns have usurped any hope of an enduring, loving rapprochement between the sexes.  Comic book men don't get any more manly than Cannon.  Created by Wallace Wood for a primarily military readership, Cannon started out in a one-shot comic book, Heroes Inc., in 1969, before going on to be serialized in the U.S. Army's Overseas Weekly, beginning in 1971.  Big men with guns and naked women are the signature tropes on display in this Vietnam War era series, which was imbued with cold war themes of communists and brain-washing, with some fairly negative hippie stereotypes thrown in for good measure.  Clearly, these themes resonated with Wood, one of the titans of the Atomic Age of comics, and he turns in some forceful, engaging work that provides as vital a portrait of this particular mindset as one is likely to find; yet it is a mindset that is clearly tinged with bitterness (see a naked woman, fire a gun; repeat).  Taking a historical perspective on this work, viewing it as a report from the cold war trenches, wherein highly sexist paranoia was the norm, can provide mitigating benefits.  While we may have long since emerged to our current, relatively enlightened age, the allure of the behaviors and values on display here remain, albeit in altered forms.  As William Faulkner so notably said, "The past isn't dead.  It isn't even past." 
retail price - $34.99 copacetic price - $29.75

Witzend
by Wallace Wood & Co.
Here's a gift that is guaranteed to make a big impression.  One of the classic old school greats of comic book illustration, Wallace Wood was also among the earliest champions of creator rights for cartoonists, and Witzend was perhaps his most important legacy in this regard.  Produced during the heyday of underground comics, Wood saw that "the kids" were taking control – and creative ownership – of their work.  As, of course, had his colleague, Harvey Kurtzman with Humbug & Help.  Witzend was Wood's contribution to evolving the commercial framework in which comics were made and sold, and the comics  and supporting material herein produced reflect these aims.  Fantagraphics has produced the definitive collection here in this full size, two-volume, slipcased edition.  And, realizing that they're going to have to go the extra mile to convince readers to part with the hefty chunk of change that is required to purchase this masterwork*, Fantagraphics has provided their biggest ever PDF preview.  Do yourself a favor and check it out.  *(here at Copacetic, we've done our part to ease the pain by offering an extra hefty discount; see below).
retail price - $125.00  copacetic price - $93.75






R. Crumb: The Weirdo Years
by R. Crumb
This hardcover volume from original Weirdo publisher, Last Gasp presents a complete collection of Crumb's work for this legendary magazine that kept the freak flag flying through the 1980s.  The 250+ pages of Crumb, include his foto-funnies, and his hugely influential historical/biographical pieces on Krafft-Ebing and Philip K. Dick.  In addition, all of his covers are reproduced in full color. 
retail price - $29.95 copacetic price - $26.75


Barnaby, Volume Two
by Crockett Johnson
Speaking of long-awaited follow-ups, here's the second volume of the complete collection of Crockett Johnson's one-of-a-kind comic strip masterpiece, Barnaby.  Covering the years 1944 and 1945, this volume also comes packed with bonus material, including a foreward by Jules Feiffer, and an afterword and appendix of allusions by Barnaby scholar, Philip Nel.  Art Spiegelman states that Barnaby, "radiates human warmth and whimsy... The artist's brilliantly written characters keep their feet planted in the all-too-real world of 1940s America while flying off on pink wings into one of the greatest fantasy strips ever made."  Cushlamachree!
retail price - $39.99  copacetic price - $34.75



Miss Fury:  1941 - 1944
by Tarpe Mills
In glorious full color at last, here are the first four years of this wildly original series of Sunday comics pages – that were also collected in comic book form by Timely (Marvel, back when) Comics.  These are the strips that inspired us to write the following upon the occasion of their reprinting in black and white a few years back under Greg Theakston's Pure Imagination imprint:  "You want a gorgeously drawn, action packed, golden age super hero comic book, that centers on the adventures of an occasionally costume-clad heroine that's written and drawn by a woman and that, while it doesn't shy away from presenting its readers with a gaggle of curvaceous gals, is clearly the product of feminist thinking?  What's that?  You thought no such thing exists?  Well, that's where you'd be wrong, as Miss Fury by Tarpe Mills fits the bill in spades.  As these comics were created during WWII, Miss Fury is not only compelled to deal with thugs, burglars and blackmailers -- as well as a femme fatale, a petulant boyfriend and an amoral seductress bent on getting him -- but also Nazi spys and soldiers:  the major villian is a Nazi general, who, while clearly evil, is nevertheless surprisingly presented as courageous and heroic -- a far cry from the typical comic book caricatures of vicious bunglers, and a highly unusual example of ambivalence in the face of the enemy.  Perhaps most fascinating is that during the Nazi invasion of Brazil (we told you this story was action packed) a fiery Latina forges an alliance with rugged gauchos and rainforest indians to repel the Nazi attack (assisted by Miss Fury, naturally) -- shades of today's leftist alliances to save the rainforest from rapacious multinational conglomerates.  This book is a revelation!"  This new, full color, oversize hardcover edition is beautifully printed.  It is edited by Trina Robbins, who has assiduously included plenty of bonus features, including rare earlier work by Ms. Mills.  Check it out!
retail price - $49.99 copacetic price - $44.44



Canteen Kate
by Matt Baker; introduction by Bob Burden
Long suffering Matt Baker fans are at last rewarded with this full color hardcover collection of the complete Canteen Kate.  Featuring 160 pages of humorous hi-jinx from the early 1950s, the stories that make up this volume comprise a silly symphony of fighting man fantasies featuring the curvaceous Kate Revere, her comic foil and "everyman" marine, Private Al Smith and the bane of their respective existences, the ever angry Major Herringbone.  Comics books like they used to be!
retail price - $28.99 copacetic price - $27.77





The Complete Peanuts 1950-1954 (Vols. 1 - 2) Gift Box Set – Softcover
by Charles Schulz; w/ intros by Walter Cronkite and Garrison Keillor
It's hard to go wrong with Peanuts!  Anyone who missed out on the initial hardcover iteration of Fantagraphics' Complete Collected Peanuts, now has a second chance to start in right at the beginning of the softcover edition of the series with the attractive and quite reasonably priced two-volume, slipcased set of the first four + years of Peanuts strips (dailies and Sundays!) just released in time for the holidays.
retail price - $39.99  copacetic price - $35.00






 


Comics (and Books) for Younger Readers

Providing the perfect segue from classic comics to comics for younger readers (of all ages) are two new volumes in the Fantagraphics series collecting the timeless classics from Carl Barks!







Walt Disney's Donald Duck Christmas Treasury Gift Box Set
by Carl Barks
And is there a better way to confer the Christmas spirit than with a specially priced box set containing both the aforementioned Donald Duck: Christmas on Bear Mountain and last year's Donald Duck: Christmas for Shacktown?  No!  So here it is, look no further.
retail price - $49.99  copacetic price - $44.44









The Trail of the Unicorn and Other Stories
by Carl Barks
One comics creator whose work can truly be appreciated by all ages is Carl Barks.  ALready gave someone the above box, and they're hungry for more Barksian wonder?  Here is another splendiferous hardcover volume in the fifteen-year Fantagraphics Books project of bringing the entirety of his work for The Walt Disney Company back into print in a complete, thirty-volume edition of The Carl Barks Library.  This is the sixth volume to be released  (but is the eighth position, chronologically speaking, of the series as they are being released out of order) so it looks like we're a fifth of the way there.  In this volume readers will get the chance to enjoy Barksian takes on the world of 1949 in graphic novellas such as the titular "Trail of the Unicorn", along with the mega-classics “Luck of the North” and “Land of the Totem Poles.”  And another  Christmas classic is also on hand here –  "Letter to Santa", the most boisterous of the Christmas tales, featuring a battle between Uncle Donald and Uncle Scrooge over who can best fulfill Huey, Dewey and Louie's Christmas wish – along with a bevy of immortal  WDC&S 10-pagers and a handful of one-pagers.  This volume is introduced by Diary of a Wimpy Kid creator, Jeff Kinney.
retail price - $29.99  copacetic price - $25.75




Basewood
by Alex Longstreth
A great read, Basewood is a younger reader-friendly, meticulously drawn and beautifully produced, hefty hardcover volume that is quite modestly priced.  Once you've picked it up, it's hard to put down.
retail price - $19.95  copacetic price - $17.77





Web customers may now purchase these items – and more – directly, from our online gift catalogue at Copacetic 3.0, our new 24/7 eCommerce site.
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BOOKS




The Bone Clocks
by David Mitchell
The Bone Clocks is a book into which Mitchell tries to squeeze in everything under the sun, and moon, and, especially, that which is under neither.  He opens up literature's bag of tricks and grabs everything he can carry.  He starts with the framework of a classic 19th century British novel – think George Eliot – and works in the likes of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Twin Peaks, and Mai, the Psychic Girl, before delivering an action-packed, climactic denouement that is possibly the closest a work of prose has come to portraying a cosmic Marvel Comics superhero battle; roughly the equivalent of pitting Dr. Strange and the X-Men against Dormammu, Eternity and Magneto in the Dark Dimension (penciled by Steve Ditko in mid-60s but then shelved for twenty years and inked by Bill Sienkiewicz in the mid-80s).  The entire work is constructed in a series of Mitchell's trademarked, finely crafted first-person voices, each occupying their own temporal slot.  The overarching narrative is propulsive, but also meditative, and it is the meditative component that is the most compelling.  More than anything, The Bone Clocks is a work about the role of literature – all literatures:  secular, religious, fictive, scientific, mythological – in linking together mortal humans in an immortal chain of knowledge, wisdom and tradition that is made possible by the creation and implementation of symbolic systems, such as – one among many – the English language.  While each of us individually is destined to shuffle off this mortal coil, collectively we experience immortality through our interactions with the works of art and literature that withstand the tests of time, wherein we are immersed in a stream that is simultaneously connected to both the past and future.
retail price - $30.00  copacetic price - $25.75





The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
by Marcelo Gleiser
A good book to read after finishing Bone Clocks?  Check in with this review on physics.about.com and/or this one at The Nation and/or  listen in on this conversation with Dr. Gleiser on KERA and see what you think.
retail price - $28.99  copacetic price - $25.75










Capital in the Twenty First Century
by Thomas Piketty
retail price - $39.99  copacetic price - $35.00

The Society of Equals
by Pierre Rosanvallon
retail price - $35.00  copacetic price - $32.50

The French have come to save us from our own animal spirits (and the "invisible hand" that guides them), under the ægis of Harvard University Press and via the translations of Arthur Goldhammer (what a great name for a translator of economic texts!).  Ignore at your own – and our entire society's – peril...  You can actually start right in reading The Society of Equals on GoogleBooks.







and two by Stuart Dybek: 
Ecstatic Cahoots (retail price - $14.00  copacetic price - $12.50)
Paper Lantern Love Stories (retail price - $24.95  copacetic price - $21.75)
Here's his hometown paper's take on both.










The Secret History of Wonder Woman
by Jill Lepore
Wonder Woman appears to be undergoing a cultural renaissance at the moment, and this epic tome by Harvard scholar and New Yorker staff writer, Jill Lepore is right at the heart of the storm.  While much of what falls under the rubric of "secret history" has been common knowledge to old school comic fans for decades, Ms. Lepore does manage to uncover a few bits that will be news to all but the inner circle, and, more importantly, contextualizes the history of Wonder Woman within the overarching history of women in America, and American cultural history in general, and in the process provides keys that unlock hidden reserves of cultural and intellectual capital that have been residing in this costumed character all along.  There's a quite lengthy piece she wrote for the New Yorker which provides a distillation of some of the book's points, "The Last Amazon," which is certainly well worth the time of anyone interested in Wonder Woman's backstory.  Do yourself a favor and set aside a half hour to read it, and should you feel left wanting more at the end, you'll kneed to look no further.
retail price - $29.95  copacetic price - $25.75





Comics:  A Global History, 1968 to the Present
by Dan Mazur & Alexander Danner
Anyone with a comics historian on their list need look no further.  Comics: A Global History provides a much needed corrective to the USA-centric comics histories (as well as it's cousins, the Euro-centric and manga-centric histories), by providing a look at what was going on in each of these areas simultaneously, readers are better able to see the relative progressions made in each region's respective scene as well as their relative strengths, focuses, trends, and reciprocities.  Comics/manga/bandes dessinées/et al each take their turn on the stage of this global history.  Mazur and Danner know their stuff, choosing the primary creators and pivotal works that define each era and area, and providing a rich, broad and detailed tapestry in the process.  Anyone searching for an introduction to the world of comics, need look no further.  Recommended.
retail price - $39.99  copacetic price - $35.00



What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present
edited by Dan Nadel
Dan Nadel strikes again!  What Nerve! is a unique and original amalgamation of -- as the sub-title succinctly states -- alternative figures in American art, 1960 to the present.  Here together under one cover for the first time are a widely diverse, and, at least at first glance, wildly divergent artists.  Only in this colleciton will you find work by The Hairy Who's gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt and Karl Wirsum along side of Destroy All Monster's Mike Kelly, Niagara and Jim Shaw alongside Jack Kirby and H.C. Westermann, Gary Panter and Forcefield's Mat Brinkman, Ara Peterson, Jim Drain and Leif Goldberg... and many more besides!  What Nerve! accompanies an exhibit of the same name running at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum from 19 September 2014 thorugh 4 January 2015 that was put together with Judith Tannenbaum.  The book is dvided into ten sections, each devoted to a particular artist or group of artists, and each accompanied by an essay written by a diverse body of art scholars including Nicole Rudick, Robert Cozzolino, Naomi Fry and, of course, Nadel himself.  Check out publisher D.A.P.'s page on the book where you will be able to take in the rave reviews and links to further info.  Once you spend some time with this collection, the connections amidst the diversity become manifest and a fresh narrative emerges.
retail price - $40.00  copacetic price - $36.00


Plenty more giftable books may be found by clicking on the "online gift catalogue" link immediately below...
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Web customers may now purchase these items – and more – directly, from our online gift catalogue at Copacetic 3.0, our new 24/7 eCommerce site.
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MUSIC - CD

MORE CD listings up soon!
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Web customers may now purchase these items – and more – directly, from our online gift catalogue at Copacetic 3.0, our new 24/7 eCommerce site.
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CINEMA - DVD

We've put in a solid stock of a far reaching variety of quality cinema on DVD  and Blu-Ray with gift giving in mind.  Here's a look at just a few:

       

And, of course, we continue to offer our excellent selection of  DVDs bargain priced at $5.99 2/$9.98 as well as plenty more, including box sets of all stripes, from Looney Tunes to Werner Herzog.

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Web customers may now purchase these items – and more – directly, from our online gift catalogue at Copacetic 3.0, our new 24/7 eCommerce site.
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Crazy Deals


Are You My Mother? hardcover
by Alison Bechdel
This is the long awaited and hotly anticipated follow up to Bechdel's mega-hit memoir, Fun Home.  While Fun Home concentrated on Bechdel's coming of age and her relationship with her father, this time around, as the title clearly declares, it is her relationship with her mother that is detailed.  At 288 pages, this work is noticeably longer than its precursor.  It is also more controlled in its structure.  In fact, control – primarily of the self – and the lack thereof, is one of the themes running through this work; a thread that tethers the subject to its object as it is buffeted by the elemental forces of the psyche.  Ms. Bechdel turns herself inside out to locate the exact nexus in her psyche where her mother continues to direct traffic, to extricate her own self from that of her mother's, and to finally define and manage her own subjectivity.  Plenty of psychology  is employed here, from Freud to D.W. Winnicott to Alice Miller.  In fact, one of the most significant contributions made by this work is to familiarize the uninitiated with the processes and values of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, along with their theoretical underpinnings.  These are additionally linked tangentially to the example of Virginia Woolf's life and work, from which much strength is derived. This is a thoroughly engaging work in which the author's personal struggles come alive on the page.  Are You My Mother? is well worth the while of not only fans of Ms. Bechdel's previous work, but anyone who enjoys an engrossing story well told, and especially to those intrigued by the possibility of gaining insights into the psychological approach to attaining personal growth in the process.  Alison Bechdel continues to to produce work that rises to the challenge of portraying a life of the mind in comics form.  SPECIAL PRICE:  We're offering the original hardcover edition for substantially less than even the paperback!
retail price - $22.00  copacetic price - $10.00



Essex County
by Jeff LeMire
Here's a super deal for the rural native on your list.  Set in an imaginary version of Jeff Lemire’s hometown in rural Canada, Essex County is an intimate study of an eccentric farming community, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. This is the work that put LeMire on the map, here collected in its entirety in this 512-page softcover graphic novel with French flaps, 6 1/2" x 9".
retail price - $29.95  copacetic price - $12.75






Tales of Woodsman Pete
by Lilli Carre
Ms. Carre's rookie release remains a perennial favorite here at Copacetic, and to make sure this tradition continues, we're now offering it at HALF PRICE through the 2013 holiday season.  This perky little 80 page book full of folksy folk tales is a delight and makes for a perfect casual gift or stocking stuffer.
retail price - $7.00  copacetic price - $2.50

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Can't make up your mind?  Afraid they might already have it?  Not to worry, we offer a full complement of deluxe instore gift certificates:  currently available in $10, $20, $25, $50 & $100 denominations...

and, now, finally:  online gift certificates that can be redeemed at www.copaceticcomics.com, so that you may spread Copacetic cheer worldwide.

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And, yes, we do third-party shipments (i.e. we will ship direct to a recipient at a different address from the purchaser), and we will gift wrap for a nominal charge (it's free for in-store purchases).

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Web customers may now purchase these items – and more – directly, from our online gift catalogue at Copacetic 3.0, our new 24/7 eCommerce site (payments through PayPal, now with no membership required – any credit card will do).

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ordering info
 
 

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