With the arrival of this, the second issueof the series, it becomes clear that the first was but a prologue. Here, in the 88 full color pages ofUnsmooth #2: BUM, E.S. Glenn opens up new portals and reveals previouslyunseen dimensions of what will henceforth be known as the Unsmooth Multiverse. Enmeshed within an encompassing framework of ligne claire bande dessinée, readers will encounter mechamanga (along with a snatch of horror hentai)– plus sub-titled anime videos – New Yorker cartoons (and anold school Penguin paperback), cartooned modern art (along with some graffiti),some classical, newspaper Sunday-pagestrips,photobooth strips,and...

Here's the one Copacetic customers have been ringing the phone off the hook about. And not without reason. Each issue of Ganges has managed to make something new with the comics form. Huizenga pretty much picks up here where #3 left off – it may very well be the very same evening, diegetically speaking – and continues exploring the twilight zone of consciousness that lies between waking and sleeping, where memory and fantasy mix with all kinds of thought: this time around, from list-making to self-analysis to pondering the nature and meaning of being and time and space and... well, you get the idea. Ever the innovator, Huizenga has here...

It's here – the graphic novel edition of Craig Thompson's epic memoir that centers on his personal relationship with ginseng, Ginseng Roots! While it starts out specifically focusing on his family roots in ginseng cultivation, it gradually spreads out into an in-depth historical biography of the humble plant itself, one that reveals the many unexpected ways in which ginseng's roots are deeply entangled in the history of America – both before and after 1492 – and that in the process touches on international cultures, war, world trade – specifically that between East Asia and the US – Christianity, family values, work ethics and much more....

FROM THE ARCHIVES

ONE nice, unread, but slightly worn copy (pictured) of this stellar (and long out of print) classic anthology just turned up.

Read our write-up HERE.

(softcover edition) Well, it's hard to imagine that any Copacetic customers missed this one the first time around, but you never know. There may be a few of you out there lurking in the shadows who have been patiently waiting to pounce on the softcover once it arrives. Well, if so, then those of you who did will be happy to know that your wait is over. Now available in softcover is the most heralded comics memoir since... well, ever (yes, there's Maus, of course, but, properly defined, it isn't really a memoir). We've long been fans of Ms. Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, and we gave Fun Home an enthusiastic review assoon as it was...

The tale Blankets tells is in most respects a classic coming of age story, but the place -- emotional as well as geographical -- that it is coming from may not be familiar territory for many readers: an abnegating Christianity built on self-denial ensconced in the harsh northern environs of Wisconsin and Michigan. Yet there can be no doubt that the core questions and values dealt with in Blankets are certainly universal ones. Craig Thompson has clearly devoted himself to a serious study of Will Eisner's late work -- from A Contract With God to the present -- and this study has really paid off here. The pacing, the placement of blacks,...

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...

Final Cut presents – for the first time in English – Burns's latest major work, that had up to now only been available in the French language editions published by Cornelius under the title Dédales. All three Cornelius volumes are collected here in an elegantly designed and produced, 224 page, full color, clothbound hardcover volume by Pantheon Books. Very Nice.

Anyone familiar with the work of Charles Burns will not be surprised to learn that Final Cut is a multi-levelled work; that there are layers within layers. Even the title, which has an obvious first level meaning, is open to multiple readings. The action is set, as per usual with...

And what better to follow the latest Kevin H. with than the latest by his longtime associate and fellow St. Louisan, Dan. Z., whose long promised graphic novel debut has at last arrived! Birdseye Bristoe is 72 full color pages of pure Zettwoch: set in a fictional (but perhaps even more authentic for being so) midwestern locale somewhere between St. Louis and Louisville, and filled with cut-away drawings, explanatory diagrams, maps and, of course, page after page of fun-filled comics filled with down home midwestern characters of all ages and stripes, it tells a story of industrial development and technological change that for all it's...

Beneath this less than satisfactory, unrepresentative cover, lurks an amazing assemblage of fantastic sketchbook samples from a host of talented (and copacetic) comics creators from across the specturm.

This massive*, 352 page, 9" x 12", full color, French-flapped softcover is brimming over with great – and inspiring – drawings, layouts, sketches, doodles, thumbnails and more.

When this book was originally released in 2012 (!) not only did the art department let this book down, so did the marketing department, as nowhere in the material assembled to promote this book did they list the actual artists it contains. Why not??? If only they...