What can you say about a book that opens with a Galactus quote from Fantastic Four #49, drops more comics references -- particularly to the classics of the 1980s -- than any novel we've ever read, clearly shows the influence of Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar and, especially, Luba stories, AND won the Pulitzer Prize for best novel of 2007? We'd say, "This is a must read! Particularly suitable for fans of Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and Michael Chabon's (also Pulitzer Prize winning) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." And then we'd add: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a gigantic meditation on the inner life of the...

Finally! A new – and very improved – edition of Seiichi Hayashi's manga masterpiece of alienation has been releasesd by Drawn and quarterly. This new edition has a nice heft and feel, and the design has been slightly tweaked for a mild aesthetic improvement, but the big change is the addition of a 60 page, illustrated essay by manga/gekiga/Garo scholar, Ryan Homberg. The inclusion of this essay will enable all readers to better situate Hayashi's work in manga history and better appreciate his achievements. As Red Colored Elegy is over 45 years old, andHayashi's work is far from typical manga fare, Holmberg's essay is a crucial improvement...

Theo Ellsworth's tour de force of imaginiton is at last back in print in this "deluxe" flexibound edition. Capacity has been a favorite here at Copacetic since day one and is one of the singular works of 21st century comics. We are excited to be again be able to offer it here at Copacetic, especially so that those who have come to the world of personally expressive, small press comics while this work was unavailable will now have the opportunity to experience the joys of entering into the pen and ink land of Capacity!

Here is our listing of the original release, and here is a preview we just posted to Ello (as part of a post announcing...

What more can be said about the genius of Carl Barks? It towers over the landscape of comics history like the statue of Duckburg's founder, Cornelius Coot (erected by Uncle Scrooge in "Statuesque Spendthrifts" fromWalt Disney's Comics and Stories#138; collected inA Christmas for Shacktown),towers over that fair city. The title tale of this latest volume in the 15 year project to collect the entirety of Barks's Disney oeuvre, "The Old Castle's Secret" is a classic book-length tale of eerie mystery that was originally presented inFour Color#189, published in the summer of 1948, that provides the first fleshed out iteration of Uncle Scrooge...

This 200 page, full size hardcover volume is primarily what the title indicates. From thumbnail breakdowns toidea sketches and on through to profoundly beautiful fully realized illustrations of related to the themes and characters of the Edena Cycle, this book is filled with amazing art. But there's more: there are also comics that were not included in The World of Edena. Some are variations on sequences that you've seen before (presuming that you've already read the aforementioned World of Edna [if not, what are you waiting for?]), others are new, and only tangentially related – but from the same period – such as two pieces related to...

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...

Dare we believe our eyes? Yes! A new issue of Capacity is here, delivering page after page – 44 in all – of new pen & ink creations that transport readers into Theo Ellsworth's personal inner universe. Inspired graphomania that will turn your mind inside out in no time, Capacity #8 offers its readers a simultaneous unpacking of the reading experience as it occurs, making this issue a work of meta-comics. Employing his highly personal visual vocabulary, fabricated in the Thought Cloud Factory forges, and matching it with his own unique storytelling process, Mr. Ellsworth provides in these pages a voyage through the mind's eye that is...

A fresh talent with an immediately recognizable style that Copacetic customers have gravitated towards,Jon McNaught continues to produce original, finely crafted work that will appeal to fans of Seth and Chris Ware, as well as – and perhaps more significantly– to those non-comics readers who appreciate an informed aesthetic sensibility but haven't yet been able to find what they are looking for in comics.McNaught came to comics from a print-making backgroundand brings with him a well developed understanding of the strengths of a limited color palette.His solo works,Birchfield CloseandPebble Island, aswell as his standout contribution to...

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 ofstunningly good work. The Tamaki cousins 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 that stand as a synecdoche forinnocence’s discoveringthe mysteries of sexual...