<<•>>  edited by Scott McCloud  <<•>>   series editor Bill Kartalopoulos  <<•>>   
Whether you've been buying this volume every year since its inception in 2006, or you've yet to give it a try, we think everyone interested in what's going on in comics should check out this volume.  After shepherding it through nearly a decade of great comics, the original series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden have put the series in the eminently capable hands of comics scholar  (and comics festival organizer), Bill Kartalopoulos, who has teamed up with this year's editor, the one and only Scott "Understanding Comics" McCloud to produce what we are going to go out on a limb and declare the best Best American Comics volume yet. Organized into ten thematically unified sections, each with its own introduction defining and justifying the theme and selections, the comics included in this volume range far and wide, from the recognized masters of the form such as Jaime Hernandez (whose work graces the cover), Chris Ware, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb to amazing work by the up and coming generation of cartoonists like Theo Ellsworth, Michael DeForge, Lale Westvid and Sam Alden to boundary pushing works by the likes of Aidan Koch and Erin Curry.  And there's much more!  Readers will also herein find amazing work by many other creators of all stripes, including mainstream heroic fantasy, web comics, comics for young readers, newspaper strips, works of history in comics form (like an excerpt from Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree!), some particularly intense examples of the ever popular comics memoir, and more, including work by perennial Copacetic favorites like Ron Rege, Jr. and "C.F.".  We recognize that Copacetic customers are likely to already be familiar with if not already own many of the works found here, and so may be less inclined to consider it for themselves, but we all know someone who could greatly benefit being hepped to the dazzling spectrum of comics on hand here (and we are in full agreement with Kartalopoulos's "suggestion" that the material contained  in this single volume better represents the wide array of comics today than the entire "graphic novel" section of most bookstores), so consider pointing them in this direction...

Now out of print.  IMPORTANT NOTE:  Our copies are now nice – Very Good to Like New – after market and/or second hand.