It took a full nine months for this issue to gestate, but Now 11 has at last been delivered, and it's a little bit of everything!  While including some familiar names from across the USA and Canada, #11 is quite the international issue, with amazing contributions from Argentina, Australia, Belgium and Mexico making up over half the page count.  The centerpiece of this issue is Australian artist, Stacy Gougoulis's "Mandorla".  It's 32 pages offer up a philosophically wise and artistically insightful exploration of the ultimately subjective experience of human temporality in a highly informed way that showcases the expressive capacities of comics in a manner that intersects with the work of Chris Ware, Jon McNaught, Eleanor Davis and Kevin Huizenga, among others, but maintains a powerfully cohesive unity of form and content throughout: a masterwork of melancholy.  This story alone is reason enough to pick up this issue, but there are plenty more great comics on hand here from all over the creative map as well as the geographic one!

It's about time... for the new Now.  The twelfth issue is a mind bender with perhaps the widest ranging material yet.  From the rhythmic abstractions of Cynthia Alfonso's "untitled" to the old school satire, "The Cartoonist" by Matt Lawton and Peter Bagge, this issue spans the generations and the form itself.  The æsthetic center on which the issue pivots is Kayla E.'s "Precious Rubbish", a series of post-modern mash-ups that bring together a variety of texts ranging from personal reminiscences to the Old and New Testaments and combining them with her personal, signature-style comics, here largely derived from a selection of old school comic book pages, including several from Matt Baker's Canteen Kate (!).

Many readers will get their first look at the piercingly acute and dizzyingly strange artwork of Bhanu Pratap in his story, "Big Head Pointy Nose" which is the first work of his we've seen in color. 

Francois Vigneault's "The Bird Is Gone" is a moving tale of the passing of the Passenger Pigeon.  No matter how many times you hear, see or read the facts that are related in this story, it always boggles the mind.

For us here at Copacetic, #12's highlight is Tim Lane's "Li'l Stevie", a hybrid work that seems to synthesize Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan and Peter Blegvad’s Leviathan  – with a dash of Al Columbia’s Pim & Francie – and then graft it all onto Ernie Bushmiller’s early period Fritzy Ritz and Nancy in order to create a dark, drunken and twisted, but pathos laden – and still very Tim Lane – Golden Age comics take on... Steve McQueen's childhood.  This work won't appeal to everyone, but those who think this sounds up their alley won't want to miss it.

Another great issue of Now!

Already out of print!  BUT, we have two copies remaining...

It’s been a minute, but the new Now has finally arrived!  This lucky thirteenth issue runs the gamut, bringing readers comics from France, Spain, New Zealand, Australia and, of course, the U.S. of A. representing a diverse and far ranging take on the form: from the 24 pages of abstract comics from Cynthia Alphonso to the classic one-page Paul-Schrader-driven gag comics from Nathan Gelgud; from Caitlin Skaalrud's lyrical and sensually drawn pæan to the creative life, “How to Make Comics,” to Stacy Gougoulis’s cooly rational and tightly drawn inspection of the thin walls separating life and death; from Emil Friis Ernst’s Apollonian techno-managerial metaphysics to Ross Murray’s Dionysian family-dynamic disfunction;  a couple signature quickies from Roman Muradov and Steven Weissman, showcasing their pithy wit to Kayla E’s full-on, 1990s-Chris-Ware meta-comics tackling despair with equal doses of rigorous deconstruction and slapstick humor.    In short:  another great issue! Kudos to Eric Reynolds for keeping the torch held high.

Believe it or not, Mineshaft #45 is the 25th Anniversary Issue!  How?!?

It features a trippy-yet-appropriate wrap-around cover by Aaron Horkey, along with a slew of new work by a bigger than ever roster of contributors, including R. Crumb, Drew Friedman, Aaron Horkey, Billy Childish, Mary Fleener, Christoph Mueller, Gunnar Lundkvist, Simone Baumann, David Collier, Glenn Head, Aaron Lange, Kim Deitch, Sophie Crumb, Bill Crook, Max Clotfelter, Robert Armstrong and Kayla E.

Also:  letters from around the world & more!

We have it on good authority that this issue will be selling out (from the publisher at least) faster than usual.  So... you know what to do.