Communism has, in the United States, served as a black mirror of Capitalism (and, yes, this mirror functioned vice versa, as well). It is onto communism thatcapitalism’s fears of its own unseen weaknesses, failures and flaws have, historically, been projected. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in1991, and the “victory” of capitalism, this mirror was put away up in the attic, where it has been gathering dust. Without it, the USA has to a significant degree lost its ability to see itself, and understand its subsequent transformations. But the USSR has not been forgotten! Here, in the pages ofMtsyry: Octobriana 1976Jim Rugg has dragged...

This is perhaps the longest awaited work in the history of comics (No? Let us know what, in your estimation, beats it.). Over ten years in the making, Mazzucchelli's first ever solo graphic novel is also his first major work since his 1994 graphic adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass, a trailblazing, highly influential work which put him at the forefront of the then nascent "serious" graphic novel movement. David Mazzucchelli's work with Frank Miller in the mid-80s -- Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One -- made him amainstream comics superstar, but then he walked away from it all to pursue his own calling of an independent,...

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...

<<•>> WAREHOUSE FIND <<•>> Much to our amazement, a heretofore unknown secret stash of the original 1995 newspaper edition of Storeyville has been unearthed! Each copy had been sealed in a polypropylene bag and the entire box had been taped up and stored away in a corner where it was eventually forgotten... until now! We haven't seen a copy of this for sale anywhere for years (except for one that was on sale on Amazon for $1000!) so, if this is something you've been thinking about, don't debate about it too long, as there's only this one box, and when it's empty, that's it! A perfect match of form and content, ...

It's hard to believe, but with this volume, the seventh in the new format, the repackaging of the first volume of Love and Rockets is now complete! While the first six volumes gave us the massive mythologies of Hoppers and Palomar, this issue collects all the odds 'n' ends and bric á brac that the fertile imaginations of los Bros unleashed when they were kicking back; as well as the story that started it all back in Love and Rockets #1, Gilbert Hernandez's BEM. Let us rhapsodize for a moment: It was with BEM that Gilbert Hernandez -- comics' own St. George -- slew the dragon of derivative, formulaic heroic fantasy comics by ripping out its...

They bought our dreams... and turned them into comics. Sixty years ago, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon and their cohorts at Prize Comics, asked readers to send them their dreams. Readers did and they were turned into comics. The Strange World of Your Dreams only lasted four issues, but that was enough to fill this book. Sporting a soft, spongy cover, it embodies a bit of visual punning in that it could be considered a surrealistic pillow, of sorts. Comics have been linked to dreams from their very beginnings, but the comics collected here might be the most explicit connection made between the trade-off between individual/personal dreaming and...

edited by Ivan Brunetti Published by Yale University Press, this awesome anthology is a worthy successor to McSweeney's 13 as the must have comics collection of the foreseeable future. Editor, Brunetti goes all out to offer us a (OK, well, his) canonical assemblage with the 400 pages of comics here on display, where it is the form itself that is always at the heart of the work represented. The work we find here -- while, of course, being comics -- is also, at some level, telling us something about comics, and this latter value-added feature can be attributed in no small part to Brunetti's editorial approach in assembling this work, which...

Whilethis book has been enthusiastically soldin ourshop since shortly after its publication, we now feel thatitshould also be offeredhereas well. The single most important work of history to arrive at Copacetic during the course of its operation, Stamped from the Beginning is a tour de force that will foreveralter our views of the history of race – and racial relations – in America, first and foremost, but, ultimately, throughout the entire world. It’s author, Ibram X. Kendi has written a book that embodies atrulyrare combination of abilities: that of the dedicated, focused, rigorous research needed to marshalhistorical facts; that of the...

It's here! This year's comics message from Jaime and Beto, akaLove and Rockets: New Stories #6. As readers of this space are no doubt already aware, this year Fantagraphics is celebrating thirty years of publishing Love and Rockets (at this point it's actually 31 years, but the celebration shows no sign of letting up). This issuereflects (refracts?) a bit of this hurly burly in that in contains two dozen inter-related tales! The wait is over, now it's time to settle into an easy chair with a reading light and be transported to the Perfect Sphere of True Comics, with the Hernandez brothers as your guide. See you there!