Summerland is a unique piece of comics work, one which turns the typical creative hierarchy on its head, with the coloring in the dominant position, followed by the inking, then pencilling, and with the scripting tacked on almost an afterthought. The boldly inked lines are minimal yet effective in delineating the scene, and to brace the colors and let them do their stuff, and what they do here is something new. In the pages ofSummerland, Ms. Dawkins has improvised an innovative approach to color, one in which she "plays" the color scheme using tone clusters and chords, rather than the normative approach of hitting single notes and then...

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...

Hot off the press!

John P. has this to say about his latest creation: "This All-Animals Issue features stories on possums, dogs, cats, Midwestern mountain lions, moths, horses, frogs, toads, and more! Plus Catcalls and Top 40 etc etc. A winner. 40 digest pages, black and white throughout."

The All-Animals Issue! Don't miss it!

And here's another reason to get up in the morning: a new release by Kevin H. This one is fairly convoluted in its conception and execution, but therein lies part of its appeal. Wild Kingdom had its humble beginnings in Super Monster 12 that was first published way back at the dawn of the millennium. This material was then bolstered and slightly reconfigured for the February 2006 release of the fourth issue of Or Else, his since discontinued Drawn & Quarterly series. And, now with Wild Kingdom, the material at last receives its apotheosis. The core meaning of Wild Kingdom is surrounded by a dense underbrush of irony that must be...

WOW!It's clear that Simon Hanselmann is intent on taking it to the next level, and withBad Gateway, hehas. It is a real beauty of a book, hisfirst in the larger, A4 (roughly, magazine) size.Prepare yourself for a sumptuous package, expertly designed by Mr. Hanselmann himself, with assists from Keeli McCarthy and production by the ever able PaulBaresh. Simon shows off his art (and arthistory) chops in theevocativecovers and series of endpapers and double page spreads, all fully painted. Once you get to the story itself, its page after page ofa relentless, unforgiving 12-panelgrid depictingnon-stop desperation andmayhem. Here, in Bad Gateway...

This book presents the strongest of David Collier's work and is one of our perennial best-sellers here at Copacetic. It is filled with extremely engaging stories of the lives of minor, obscure and offbeat Canadian figures. Some of these are full fledged biographies, such as the fascinating account of Humphrey Osmond, the Canadian scientist who was an early researcher into psychotropic drugs and reputedly coined the term "psychedelic." Then there's the life story of Ethel Catherwood, the Olympic high jumper known as the Saskatchewan Lily, who ended up obscure and reclusive. A more tightly focused tale is that of "Grey Owl," an enigmatic...

Here it is, the book that put Katchor firmly on the map when it was first published in 1996. While he has been regularly producing comics in and about NYC since the 1980s, and had already had one collection –Cheap Novelties– published by Penguin (and recently reissued by D & Q),Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographeris the book which finally attracted the attention that Katchor’s work had long deserved. Katchor’s pen and ink (and ink wash!) comics create a parallax lens which show a reality that is invisible to others, that transports readers through a crack in the surface of “reality” to reveal a magical series of vignettes that seem –...

I Am Young reads likea series oflushly renderedpostcards sent through time from eras past, eachaccompanied by an illustrated "soundtrack" consisting of classic LPs. Running throughout, as the main theme, is a ill-starred love story set to the music, lives and times of The Beatles. Other LPs incorporated into the narratives of love and heartbreak are Eddy Arnold's Anytime, The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, theTom Jones debut, Along Came Jones (ironic or not ironic? / that is the question), along withChuck Berry's greatest hits collection, The Great Twenty-Eight –and it all gets started with a Brunswick 78 rpm 10" of Cab Calloway's "St. James...

It's here! Five years in the making – by the team that brought you the Certified Copacetic Classic, This One Summer – Roaming is a triune portrait of youthful awakening into the dawning of adulthood. Over the course of its over 400 pages, the Tamakis weave layer upon layer of exuberence, curiosity and experience onto a ground of adolescent innocence. The entire tale takes place during a brief visit to New York City by the trio of Canadians at the center of this work (although there is a wonderful flashback shared by a pair of them that serves to illuminate the ground from which they are emerging). Roaming is a highly engaging work, the...