Finally, a new edition of the seminal novel,You Can't Winby Jack Black. Here's a book thatcan lay claim –if any can –to having launched the "outlaw" literary counterculture, way back in 1926. This edition sports an intense black and white cover drawn by Joe Coleman, taken from his set of illustrations of this novel originally published inBlab!(#3?); also included is a full color reproduction of the Coleman painting that graced the 1988 Amok Press republication of this classic. The foreword by William Burroughs written for that edition is also here (although we recommend that this be read as an afterword, as it gives away some plot...

Hidden Islandshas arrived! This 164-page, magazine-size, squarebound volume collects five 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 of Bill Boichel's introduction to help prepare the ground:

Texas native, Cameron Arthur has been making comics since he was a teenager. Gradually – and meticulously – he has developed his craft, through six issues of his self-published, single-creator anthology series, Swag along with a variety of stand alone comics zines, as well as the occasional contribution to other publications. His diligence has...

The most formally ambitious issue yet in theRetrofit Comicsseries published by Box Brown, Andrew White'sWe Will Remaincontains five shorts works which together serve to showcase White's native abilities as well as demonstrating that he has absorbed some of the key lessons ofFrank Santoro's comics correspondence course. Recommended for those who appreciate the work of David Mazzucchelli and Dash Shaw, as well as Santoro,We WIll Remainstarts off with a dramatic shift from the micro to the macro as the small scale personal work "The Deep End" gives way to the cosmic conundrum of "Travel" before heading into a trio of formal experiments, "As...

Reid Paley's now classic 1999 debut solo LP, Lucky's Tune has at long last been released on (140g) vinyl, in a limited, SIGNED, gatefold edition of 1000 copies from Demon Records in the UK.

A key architect of the Pittsburgh punk scene, among whose many roles were show promoter, gig securer, venue locator, press liaison, actor in the seminal Pittsburgh punk film, Debt Begins at Twenty and, oh yeah, being the front man for Pittsburgh's greatest punk band (which later relocated to Boston), THE FIVE, Reid Paley has gone on to have a lengthy solo career, based in Brooklyn, NY where he continues to write, record and perform his unique brand of...

From the Midwest to the Middle Kingdom, Ginseng Roots spans global history through the lens of this humble plant in Craig Thompson’s latest epic work – the first of his works to be serialized in individual issues. Now, all twelve issues are available in a nifty collector box designed by Craig specifically to house the series, along with a few bonus doodads, all for less than the price of the individual issues alone. Ginseng Roots is engrossing – it’s hard to stop reading – educational – you’ll definitely be learning plenty you didn’t know before, about ginseng, about American and Chinese history and culture, and much more besides – and...

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (JCTSKOE) is, first and foremost, the tale of the development of the American super-ego, it’s human cost, and its relationship to the comic book super-hero. Ware’s choice of the Chicago Exposition of 1893 to serve simultaneously as historical signifier and the origin of his narrative is key in this regard. It is with the exposition of 1893 -- most importantly, at least as far as JCTSKOE is concerned, in its design and architecture-- that the USA reveals its fantasy of, and implicit ambition towards, empire in the classical Greco/Roman mold. It was Walt Whitman’s fever dream made flesh-- or at least...

Here at Copacetic Comics, we've long been fond of calling Hicksville "the Watchmen of small press comics." This is useful in that practically all comics readers are familiar with and have positive associations with The Watchmen, and we feel that Hicksville is a similarly ambitious, successful and important work, and so is one that we like to draw attention to, and comparing it to the Watchmen is a cheap and easy way to do so. Whether or not this is a good, right or fair thing to say in regards to to the themes and content of the respective works, we're not going to try to defend. The comparison's validity rests more on a historical point...

Yes, here it is: the most talked about book in comics. Five years at the drawing board hath wrought Crumb's own pen & ink rendering of the West's origin myth. Crumb, as he warned and as we would naturally expect, hasn't pulled any punches and has illustrated this tale as written, warts and all. Crumb says it best himself in his introduction: "I, R. Crumb, the illustrator of this book, have, to the best of my ability, faithfully reproduced every word of the original text... Every other comic book version of The Bible that I've seen contains passages of completely made-up narrative and dialogue, in an attempt to streamline and...

As the increasingly pervasive mediated reality in which we find ourselves here in North America, in all its ever-more-varying-(and dazzling!) forms, gradually gains ground in its encroachment on the natural reality that we had formerly, and throughout the entirety of human evolution, taken for granted, our sense of who we are and what constitutes appropriate behavior in the broad spectrum of human endeavor and social interaction, is undergoing a shift. Lucky for us, Dash Shaw is here to help us find our way with this insightful comics examination of the changes that are going on right behind our noses.