<<•>>  edited by Charles Burns; series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden  <<•>>   Well, Crumb is a tough act to follow, but we'll give it a shot with this star-studded anthology filled with the best and the brightest from the last twelve months of comics, as judged by Charles Burns.  In a book like this, we feel that the contributor list says it best:  Doug Allen, Peter Bagge, Gabrielle Bell, Matt Broersma, Daniel Clowes, Al Columbia, Robert Dennis Crumb, Sammy Harkham, Tim Hensley, Gilbert Hernandez, Kevin Huizenga, Ben Katchor, Kaz, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Michael Kupperman, Jason Lutes, Tony Millionaire, Jerry Moriarty, Anders Nilsen, Gary Panter, Laura Park, Mimi Pond, Ron Regé, David Sandlin, Koren Shadmi, Dash Shaw, Art Spiegelman, Ted Stearn, Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, Dan Zettwoch.  'Nuff said.  Well, actually, we can't help but add that while the material contained in this anthology is absolutely fabulous, the quality of its reproduction is, mysteriously, not up to the same standard as the three previous volumes in this series, which were excellent in that department.  This shouldn't stop anyone from picking up this fine volume, but it is worrisome.  Let's hope that this was a one time aberration and that next year we'll find the fine folks at Houghton Mifflin have figured out what went wrong and put things in the production department back on track.

edited by Glenn Head Hotwire is a giant oversize celebration of the real and true comicbook.  In the words of editor Head:  "HOTWIRE doesn't believe that comics need to be elevated out of the "gutter" or put on a pedestal to be art.  HOTWIRE believes that comics with great style and cool stories are already art, and no critic, museum, or journal can change that; not one whit.  An individual cartoon-voice, and a goofball worldview that is the artist's own... that is the onlly requirement.  An unsuspecting reader with hungry eyeballs looking for a taste, could complete the picture."  Hotwire pretty much features the who's who of comics practitioners who adhere to this credo (and some who probably don't quite):  Doug Allen, Max Anderson, Johnny Ryan, R. Sikoryak, David Lasky, Tony Millionaire, Onsmith, Mats!?, Carol Swain. Sam Henderson, Michael Kupperman, Matt Madden, Ivan Brunetti, Tim Lane, Mack White, Rick Altergott, Mr. Head himself, and quite a few others fill up 136 pages of good, not-so-clean fun, in full color and black and white.

Now out of print – but we have a nice copy.

Here's an anthology to boost your start to 2025!  Alive Outside takes the baton from Kramers Ergot, Mould Map and Freak Buck and heads out into the unknown armed only with a  free-for-all editorial approach and an anything-goes æsthetic.

The first thing you notice about Alive Outside is its funkiness as an object, with it’s hand-folded outer wrap (by Lilli Carré?), the four 6” x 8” insert comics – two 8-pagers, two 16-pagers – and then the 20-page, full-size, bound in, underground-comic-book that is printed on a different, newsprinty paper stock, along with an amazing variety of art styles within.

The focus, if there is one, is on exploring through drawing, following the impulse, building on it, seeing where and how far it will go.  The results of these explorations range from work focused on the process(es) and their production of imagery to observational drawing to caricatured cartooning and through straight-up sequential comics all the way to mythographic world building.  It’s all here.

The editing, curation and sequencing have a DJ vibe, making for an experience that’s part reading, part gallery exhibit, part dance party/rave.  Taken as an organic whole, it feels like being led on a tour of the hive mind.  Moving through the book is like being led deeper and deeper into the swarm, until reaching the pulsing center in the sequence of Andy Cahill, Lukas Weidinger, Marc Bell & Christian Schumann and Trenton Doyle Hancock, and then being slowly led back out again.

And, a special highlight for us here at Copacetic is the 10-page full color meta-story, "Hyper Curious” which covers all the bases, providing an internalized avatar for the reader, and then proceeding to insert it into a story that could be taken as a narrative of the experience of reading the book being read; worlds within worlds.

Alive Outside is a work that pulls you in, and that you will find yourself returning to – dipping in, flipping through and/or poring over – to fathom its mysteries and find clues for existing today.

Also note:  Alive Outside has been produced in an edition of 900 copies.

Neoglyphic has this to say about their creation:

"ALIVE OUTSIDE: An anthology to obliterate the impending monoculture! A convergence of new voices joining verifiable legends, all tearing at the walls of expectation. Cultural innovation as an impulse. Algorithmically-born tastemaking be damned! This is elemental vitality pressed into a wood pulp manifesto for the messy comedy of creation ~”

ALIVE OUTSIDE collects previously unpublished work from an international cast of artists, including:

Aapo Rapi, Aaron Rossner, Andy Cahill, Angela Fanche, Becchi Ayumi, Bridget Trout, Christian Schumann, Clayton Schiff, Dongery, Doug Allen, Dylan Jones, Eden Veaudry, J Bradley Johnson, Jordan Rae Herron, Joe Grillo, Joey Haley, Julie Doucet, Julien Ceccaldi, Kari Cholnoky, Keith Jones, Leomi Sadler, Lilli Carre, Lukas Weidinger, Marc Bell, Mark Connery, Matt Lock, Poncili Creation, Roman Muradov, Ron Rege Jr., Shoboshobo, Steven M. Johnson, Susan Te Kahurangi King, Theo Ellsworth, Trenton Doyle Hancock

Edited by Cullen Beckhorn and Marc Bell

248 pages, multiple inset booklets, mixed-process 6-color offset, and extraneous Risograph materials.