edited by Michel Choquette  Well, here's something you don't see everyday:  a comics anthology that has been completed but unable to find a publisher for nearly forty years, finally being published!  As readers of The Comics Journal #299 – the cover feature of which was an in-depth article on the history of this volume – already know, this volume had reached a legendary/mythical status.  Robert Greenfield's introduction squarely situates the work contained in this volume as a document of "The Sixties," While comics critic/historian Jeet Heer's foreword provides ample context and background for the comics work the book contains as well as a chronology of its epic 40-year journey from inception to publication.  We've barely dipped out toes in this majorly oversize – 11" x 17" – 216 page, full color hardcover volume containing 120 comic strips by 169 creators, so we're not going to say much about the contents at this time, but we will provide you with some of the contributors, and let you do the math:  Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, C.C. Beck, Wallace Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Arnold Roth, Don Martin, Gahan Wilson, Bobby London, Trina Robbins, Vaughn Bodé, Steve Englehart, Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, Ralph Reese, Alan Weiss, Herb Trimpe, Frank Zappa, Harlan Ellison, William S. Burroughs, Roy Thomas, Barry Smith (before he added Windsor) Guido Crepax, Ralph Steadman, Leo & Diane Dillon, Walter & Louise Simonson, Justin Green, Bill Griffith, Red Grooms, Russ Heath, Jay Kinney, Denis Kitchen, (a very young) Art Spiegelman, (also very young) Stan Mack, Ever Meulen,  Joost Swarte, Tom Wolfe,  Federico Fellini, and many, many more!  Also included is a "92-drawing take on Choquette's travels by Michael Fog" that parallels and brackets the comics the volumes contains.  Surprisingly (at least to us), the intent to create an interweaving bracketing tale was a component of the original volume's conception, and blank spaces were deliberately left in many of the pages at Choquette's instruction.

Long delayed – which was no surprise; when it comes to Swarte's work, we're used to waiting – the (near) entirety of the career of Holland's pre-eminent cartoonist is now available in this aptly named volume.  Swarte made a a big splash in the US during the 1980s, appearing to wide critical acclaim in the pages of both Heavy Metal and Raw.  His instantly recognizable ligne claire style (he purportedly coined the term) is commonly associated with Hergé and his followers, but Swarte's own "clear line" style is much more closely related to that of George McManus, upon the foundation of whose consummate linework Swarte built a strongly architectural storytelling style that has had a global influence out of all proportion with the relatively tiny volume of work he has produced over his 40-year career.  In addition to his cartooning, he produced a mass of illustration and graphic design work.  And not only that – he designed furniture and at least one building!  Anyone unhep to Swarte's work should take a gander at this full-story preview. 

Please Note:  This is the softcover edition. Now also out of print.

editing, art direction and design:  Sam Arthur and Alex Spiro
This is the second of the new NoBrow double-sided, flip-cover format.  Half fabulous doublepage-spread illustration, half way cool four-page comics stories, NoBrow 7 is all good.  This volume's theme is "Brave New World" and all the various interpretations that can be made of that theme.  The comics section is full of surprises, beginning with a new one-pager by the elusive Joost Swarte it continues with page after muted, flat color page of fresh, new work by the likes of Michael DeForge, Eleanor Davis, Joseph Lambert, Luke Pearson, Jillian Tamaki, Tom Gauld, and many others including yet another stylistic experiment from Anders Nilsen, before finishing up with a dash of continuity in the clever recapitulative pair of "Space Cadet" strips by a new-to-us creator, Andrew Rea, that combines the theme of last issue ("The Double") with this issue's "Brave New World."  On the illustration front, there are thirty vibrant spreads by a group of amazing artists the name of most of whom will be unfamiliar to Copacetic customers – now – but after checking out their work here, they will transformed into names worth remembering; among them, Angie Wang, Ana Galvañ, Céline Desrumaux, Sergi Solons, Lotta Nieminen, Mayumi Otero and Robert Mackenzie – just for starters.

From off the back streets of The Netherlands, comes... Scratches Magazine!  Scratches is a Euro-centric comics anthology edited by RAW alum, Joost Swarte, that places a special focus on Dutch and Belgian creators.  All the comics are, however, in English.   And, yes, it does have a bit of a RAW-esque feel to it, beginning with it's oversize 23 x 33 cm (9" x 13") format that favors the vertical, and continuing with its strong production values, and most of all through the selection of work it showcases.  (It's format perhaps most closely resembles that of Drawn & Quarterly Showcse [anyone remember that?].)

This issue – the second – includes work by Joost Swarte, Charles Burns, Henning Wagenbreth,Tobias Schalken, Brecht Evens, Theo de Feyter, Charles Guthrie, Typex (whose 10-page piece on Andy Warhol that places special emphasis on Edie Sedgwick, is an issue highlight), Helge Reumann, Brecht Vandenbroucke, Solko Schalm, Sam Ki, François Ayroles, Erik Kriek, Tiger Tateishi, Kristina Tzekova, Bendik Kaltenborn, Wasco, Lukas Verstraete, Aline & Robert Crumb and Ludwig Volbeda.  It also includes two illustrated historical essays:  on the non-Gasoline Alley comics of Frank King, by Warren Bernard and Peter Maresca; and on Bob van den Born's Professor Pi comics, by Matthijs van Boxsel. And, there's a bonus insert of The World Observer, a fold-out infographic comic by Jochen Gerner!

ONLY FIVE COPIES AVAILABLE.  Limit:  ONE per customer.

GONE! (We may [or may not] be able to get more.  Should you be interested, please send us an email with Scratches 2 in the subject)