Stroppy is here: it's ALL NEW; it's a self-contained whole; it's by Canadian cartoonist extraordinaire, Marc Bell; it's...a giant-size, full-colour, underground comix classic presented to an unsuspecting [well, not for long] public in the guise of a hardcover graphic novella. Stroppy channels the vigorous populist cartooning energy that can trace its roots back to the classic comics strips – especially the depression-era Popeye by E.C. Segar and Harold Grey's Little Orphan Annie. This vital populism was an integral part of American life and lore, but with the advent of the war economy in the late-1930s, it was sublimated into the national...
This 320 page, full color, 8 1/2" x 12" hardcover volume is a fantastic collection of some of the finest prints ever produced. It presents full-page, full color reproductions of all 118 of Hiroshige's Edo prints, along with copious notes, supporting illustrations and an appendix of reduced-size, "thumbnail" reproductions of the numerous variations among the different versions of the print editions; hundreds in all.
Amazing! Recommended! Deal!
Here's from the publisher:
A landmark book presenting the early "deluxe" versions of Hiroshige's Edo prints for the first time!
Utagawa Hiroshige's unique landscape series One Hundred Famous Views...
Here it is: the final (>sob!<) Peanuts strips by Charles M. Schulz, the last of which, the final Sunday page, originally appeared on the same day as Schulz's obituary, as he passed on from this world (and doubtless onto the Sphere of True Comics) the day before its publication. The editors cleverly filled out what would have otherwise been a slim volume by bookending the conclusion of Peanuts with the complete collection of Schulz's precursor strip to Peanuts, L'il Folks. And, to top it all off, this volume is introduced by none other than the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama! A fitting finale.
This Giant-Size Special comic book (or graphic novel, if you prefer), is a mash-up of the famous D¡sn*y funny animal family and Charles Biro's Crime Does Not Pay comic book series that has been created with the "anything goes" spirit of classic underground comix, and that really does the job; it is – amazingly, fantastically, incredibly – successful. Cramming every classic noir trope into one non-stop roller coaster narrative, Michael Mouse is a rollicking radical read that runs through 69 1/2 pages of full color comics, employing a merciless 12-panel grid without let up; there is no pause, no chance to catch your breath; it just goes.
...
They bought our dreams... and turned them into comics. Sixty years ago, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon and their cohorts at Prize Comics, asked readers to send them their dreams. Readers did and they were turned into comics. The Strange World of Your Dreams only lasted four issues, but that was enough to fill this book. Sporting a soft, spongy cover, it embodies a bit of visual punning in that it could be considered a surrealistic pillow, of sorts. Comics have been linked to dreams from their very beginnings, but the comics collected here might be the most explicit connection made between the trade-off between individual/personal dreaming and...
Now enters is third year of publication with a makeover. With this issue, the paper stock has switched from glossy stock to a medium weight, flat white paper. Good call: itlooks and feels great; a bit more heft. As a result, it's price has increased to $12.99, but at a chock full 128 pages of great (mostly)full color comics,it's still a bargain!
And, more importantly, this issue features a stellar line up of comics creators, including many a Copacetic fave:
Inthe 21, full color pages of "The Gigs,"E.S. Glenn shows the comics reading world what he is capable of. Socially constructed barriers between memory, dream, fiction andreality...
A long time coming, Collier's Popular Press is a hefty softcover volume just released by Conundrum Press. It starts off with an introduction by noted Canadian comics scholar, Jeet Heer, who situates Collier's work here squarely in the tradition of "observational cartooning," for which he provides a concise history before ushering in a whoppin' 200 pages of Collier comics, originally published over three decades in a variety of Canadian newspapers and magazines – few, if any, of which have previously reached the straining eyeballs of stateside comics readers. In addition, a series of Collier's essays and personal recollections are mixed...
Sky in Stereo started out life in a series of digest-size, pamphlet comic books which were then collected with additional material as Volume One. Now, at last, we have the long awaited conclusion to (Sacha) Mardou's graphic novel of growing up in a nameless British location (that likely bears more than a passing resemblance to the Manchester of Mardou's own youth).
While all children must cross thesea of adolescence to gain the continent of adulthood, eachmakes their own personal and unique crossing, and while some find this crossingrelatively smooth, others may encounter stormy seas. Here in the pages of the second and final volume ofSky...
Five years in the making, The Carter Family comics bio,Don't Forget This Song, by David Lasky and Frank M Young is finally here – and it's a doozy! A great story well told. The Carter Family – and their times – really come alive on the page. This 192-page, full color graphic biography is beautifully produced, sporting an embossed hardcover and coming complete with a (18-minute) CD of rare Carter Family radio broadcast music. Lasky and Young have taken their time and done it right. This is a deeply researched and deeply felt account of the founders of American country music that sheds some much needed light on the subject and will help...
Having personally known and professionally worked with Ed Piskor for over twenty years, the news that he has, evidently, taken his own life, came as a deep shock here at Copacetic. We first encountered Ed while he was still a gawky, geeky teenager and had no inkling of the major force in comics that he would go on to become. As we followed his progress from working with Harvey Pekar to self-publishing – and very savvily marketing – Wizzywig, it became apparent that he was both very capable and highly ambitious, and, perhaps most notably, extremely focused on his goals. Once he launched his Hip Hop Family Tree series, he was truly in his element. He took off from there, and didn't look back.
As there is no longer any road ahead for Ed, we will take a moment to look back now and keep him in our thoughts.
We are death. This thing we think of as life is only the sleep of real life, the death of what we truly are. The dead are born, they do not die. These worlds have become reversed for us. When we think we are alive, we are dead ... Everything we consider important in our active lives participates in death, is all death. What are ideals but a confession that life is not enough? What is art but negation of life?
...
To consider our greatest anguish an incident of no importance, not just in terms of the life of the universe, but in terms of our own souls, is the beginning of knowledge. To reflect on this whilst in the midst of that anguish is the whole of knowledge. When we suffer, human pain seems infinite. But not even human pain is infinite, because nothing human is infinite, nor is our pain ever anything more than a pain that we have ... The pain of not understanding the mystery of life, the pain of being unloved, the pain of others' injustice to us, the pain of life crushing us, suffocating and imprisoning us ...
To some who speak and listen to me I must seem an insensitive person. However, I am, I think, more sensitive than the vast majority of men. I am, moreover, a sensitive man who knows himself and therefore knows what sensitivity is. It isn't true that life is painful, or that it's painful to think about life. What is true is that our pain is only as serious and important as we pretend it to be. If we live naturally, it would pass as quickly as it came, it would fade as quickly as it bloomed. Everything is nothing, and our pain is no exception.
...
Everyone and everything oppresses me, chokes me, and maddens me; I am troubled by a crushing physical sense of other people's lack of comprehension ... Seeing myself frees me from myself. I almost smile, not because I understand myself, but because, having become other, I'm no longer able to understand myself. High up in the sky, like a visible void, hangs one tiny cloud, a pale forgotten fragment of the whole universe.
– Fernando Pesoa, from The Book of Disquiet (translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa)
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