[cue Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra] Yes, after long journeying through the comicsphere, it has finally arrived in book form ... Longboxes! (Volume One) Close to four years in the making, this 288-page compendium – with page dimensions that are close to exactly halfway between an issue of Grixly and an issue of a standard modern comic book –  includes all officially designated "Longboxes" comics from Grixly #50 - #68 (And, yes, you are correct, #67 & #68 have not yet been released), along with ten pages of earlier precursor comics, from earlier issues of Grixly, that foreshadowed the coming of Longboxes – plus an even dozen bonus pin-ups by Nate's peers (and also obvious Longboxes fans). 

What more can be said about the epic that is Longboxes?  Quite a lot, we think.  Longboxes is filled with page after page of expertly paced and humorously drawn comics presenting spot-on observations of the manners, protocols, friendships and camaraderie on the highways and byways of the comic book back issue market – all, of course, centered on the people that populate it – along with plenty of madcap foible-filled zaniness; but there's more to it. 

We have all heard the saying that, "the business of America is business."  So we cannot be surprised by the transactional nature of so much of life in these United States.  Longboxes contains (many) tales regarding how one's sense of self can become inextricably bound up, with and to commercial concerns:  not only "I am what I buy" and "I am what I sell", but also " I am how I buy" and "I am how I sell", "I am who I buy from" and "I am who I sell to", "I am where I buy" and "I am where I sell" and, ultimately, "I am when I buy" and "I am when I sell."  That might sound trite, but think about it for a half a minute. "Down these mean streets must walk a man who is not himself mean," is the long-cherished description of Raymond Chandler's detective-hero, Philip Marlowe.  It can be adapted here to fit the wheeler-dealer hero of Longboxes, as an ethical intermediary, who, like all the rest, is trying to make a buck, but not at the expense of personal integrity and human decency, and as such then serves double-duty as a guide to fair and square comics dealing.  And then, hovering over it all, an inescapable sense of the absurd.

For the uninitiated, we've posted a selection of panels and pages from Longboxes on the Copacetic Tumblr, HERE.

Longboxes!