Back in print at last, this classic memoir of Chester's high school obsession with Playboy Magazine disabused Hugh Hefner of his notion that Playboy was just good clean fun - but only for the five minutes or so it took him to put it out of his mind. Other, more engaged thinkers will hold onto this impression a bit longer. It's hard for most to realize in this day and age when the high school memoir is a major staple of the comics – or should we say, graphic novel – market, but when the comics that make up this volume, and its companion piece, I Never Liked You, were first serialized in the pages of Yummy Fur, they were like nothing anyone...

Whether the point of this novel is to show us the adult that lies latent in the child or to reveal to us the child that the adult never manages to quite fully outgrow is a question that is difficult if not fruitless to answer. What is certain, however, is that the novel Edwin Mullhouse is brilliantly conceived. It is also shockingly well written, replete with uncannily accurate descriptions of childhood perceptions that can at times be overwhelmingly sympathetic. It is at turns funny, sad, insightful, and even profound; but above all else, it is deeply creepy: It reveals -- almost imperceptibly at first, but then slowly, incrementally, the...

<<•>> edited by Alex Spiro; introduction by Paul Gravett <<•>> art by Stuart Kolakovic, Mikkel Sommers, Brecht Vandenbroucke, Luke Best, Rob Hunter, Jon McNaught, Ben Newman, Andrew Rae, Luke Pearson, Jack Teagle, Jon Boam, Jakob Hindrichs, Clayton Junior, Daniel Locke, Isabel Greenberg, Mike Bertino, Nick White, Rui Tenreiro, Sean Hudson, Luc Melanson, Katia Fouquet, Yeji Yun, Matthew Lyons & Liesbeth De Stercke <<•>> The fine folks at the London-based NoBrow Ltd. have produced their first anthology, and it's a doozy! Editor, Alex Spiro has assembled twenty-four artists and, with a nod to The Book...

YES! Olivier Schrauwen's one-of-a-kind masterwork is back in print, in this very nicely done French-flapped softcover edition. Fantagraphics has done right by this classic, carrying over the production specifics from the hardcover in this softcover: same crisp duo-tone (red & blue) printing, same toothy, flat, off-white paperstock. Very nice. The one significant difference is that it is printed in a slightly (roughly 15%) smaller size – 7 3/4" x 9 1/2" compared to the 9" x 11 1/4" of the hardcover. At last, those Copacetic customers who missed out on this during its original release can experience this mind-bending work.

Here's our...

Wow! The first issue of Liz Suburbia's newseries, Egg Cream, is a knockout! Her crisp,confident line in combination withartfullybalanced blackspottingcreatescomics that come alive in smartly arrangedpanelsfillingone well-composed page after another– 96 pages in all – in this squarebound volume ofall new comics work;printed just right in black and white on newsprint with cardsrtock covers.Startingoff with a hefty installment of the follow up,second volume of Sacred Heart, and concludingwith thegraphically advenutrous "Goth Ex GF,"Egg Cream is easily the best new series yet seen in2019!

Anyone unfamiliar with Liz Suburbia can get an idea not...

From the view here at Copacetic, it appears that Monica has received the highest profile debut of any book in Fantagraphics history – talk about buzz! When was the last time that a graphic novel made the cover / lead review of the New York Times Book Review? (those with access can read it here) Then there's the Washington Post (ditto, about access) Then there's the pieces in the LA Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and a pair of reviews in The Guardian (first | second), and that's just for starters.

In typical Clowesian fashion, Monica follows the titular character through one rabbit hole after another, as she searches for the meaning of...

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...

At looooong last – the first issue of Ganges was published in 2006 – the completeGangeshas been collected in this excellent hardcover volume from Drawn and Quarterly. And not just collected: In preparing this work for its permanent home, Huizenga went through the original issues with his inspector's hat on and tweaked this here and fixed that there, with the goal of bringing it all together in the best shape and form possible. Anyone who is looking for challenging, thought-provoking comics that push the boundaries of what comics can do – look no further, this is it!

In the meantime, we have written extensively on each of the individual...

FROM THE ARCHIVES

A run of nine consecutive volumes of Ranma 1/2 by one and only Rumiko Takahashi. Ranma 1/2 is a true classic manga series, whose influence on subsequent shoojo manga is hard to overstate. It also offers a wealth of humorous observations on gender norms and gender construction, to boot!

We came across this run in the archives; all new and unread. If there's anyone who picked up the first volume and is ready to read more, this is a perfect opportunity to do so!

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...