The Copacetic Blog

“Racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

It's been a devastating week here in the USA.  On top of the unnerving daily anxieties we are all living through with the Covid-19 pandemic – which has been compounded by the failure of the federal government to treat the crisis with the attention and focus it clearly merits, leading to a chaotic, poorly coordinated response – we as a nation must once again confront the horrific consequences of our failure to address the gross underlying inequalities in how our people are valued and treated as a result of perceived differences that have been constructed by the dominant culture with the primary purpose of maintaining power.  These constructions of difference must be deconstructed to reveal their largely fictional, imaginary and false bases.   We can do this, we can change.  We are all Americans, and, ultimately, we are all inhabitants of the one and only planet that will have us.  We are all in this together. 

Governor Wolf's office has transitioned the Covid-19 response of Allegheny County to "Yellow Phase" as of 12:01am, May 15, 2020, which allows the reopening of non-essential retail businesses.  There are, however, numerous restrictions, regulations and instructions in the official PA Guidance for Businesses that qualify this permission, and that would preclude our shop from being able to open at this time.  We here at Copacetic are in complete agreement with these restrictions as they are designed to protect both customers and workers.  

Among the bullet points in the outline version, under Social Restrictions state:

• In-Person Retail Allowable, Curbside and Delivery Preferable

Another, under Guidance, states:

• Conduct business with the public by appointment only, whenever possible

Thus, for the time being, while we work to bring the in-store Copacetic shopping experience in line with the current "Yellow Phase" regulations, the shop will remain closed.  We will continue to sell over this site for delivery and also offer our equivalent of "curbside" – which is pick-up from the first floor entrance vestibule at 3138 Dobson.  Anyone desiring to pick up their order, please just send a follow-on email to that effect, after placing your order, and we will respond to arrange date and time and we will then also refund the shipping charge that your order incurred.  Pick-Up orders may also be placed over the telephone.

We will simultaneously be working towards getting the store in shape for by-appointment visits/shopping in the future.  When will that be?  We are aiming for sometime in the first half of June.  Feel free to call or email for further details and/or with any questions you may have.  Someone is usually in the shop 9am to 2pm (occasionally later) most days.  Special orders continue to be an option as well.  Anyone looking for an item not listed on our site is welcome to call or email to place a special order for it.  Most special orders will continue to receive the Copacetic Special Order Discount of 15% off retail price.  

Over the last two months since the onset of the Covid-19 Emergency Restrictions, our online sales over this site have taken off to such a large degree as to make up for the lost in-store sales – and have us kept us very busy fulfilling them!  So:  a big THANK YOU to all Copacetic customers who have supported us with online orders during this time.  An extra thank you to all customers whose orders were delayed by supply issues on our end.  As a result of emergency restrictions in place all over the country (and world, for that matter) – and to varying degrees relative to each state's restrictions – we have experienced many delays in sourcing our stock.   While we are doing our best to fulfill all orders placed over this site within 48 hours, as previously, some orders may experience delays of up to 5-7 business days before being fulfilled

We will continue to do our best to keep the listings current and refreshed with new releases.

Also, PLEASE NOTE:  The compiler on the Copacetic Search has been fixed!  So, as of now, all items currently on the site should be returned in search results.  You may, of course, also check out the JUST IN and COMICS (and any others, of course) links at the top of the page to see whether any of the new releases you may be looking for are available yet at Copacetic and/or just to see what's new. 

We hope everyone is continuing to take all the recommended precautions.  Once again, here’s the Harvard Medical School Coronavirus Resource Center, which is being continually updated: 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus-resource-center

Take care! 

Please Note: Beginning Tuesday, March 24 and running through (at least) Monday, April 6, in addition to the shop being CLOSED, we will be UNABLE TO PROCESS INTERNET ORDERS due to the Governor of Pennsylvania’s just-issued "Stay at Home" Order (https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/governor-wolf-and-health-secretary-issue-stay-at-home-orders-to-7-counties-to-mitigate-spread-of-covid-19/ )

!!!SORRY!!! 

Thanks to all who placed orders during our first week of internet only sales.  We appreciate it!  We will post here as soon as we learn when we will be able to resume internet sales and/or reopen the shop.  Until then, thanks for keeping it Copacetic!

We hope everyone takes all the recommended precautions.  Here’s the Harvard Medical School Coronavirus Resource Center: 

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus-resource-center

Take care.

Dear Copacetic Customer –

As both the Pennsylvania State and Allegheny County governments have “strongly urged” all “non-essential” businesses to “close voluntarily” for – at least – the next 14 days seeing this as being an important component of the efforts currently underway to "flatten the curve" of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, we have decided to comply with these requests and close our shop at 3138 Dobson Street, third floor effective Monday, March 16 (as much as it may pain us to acknowledge that Copacetic is “non-essential”).

HOWEVER, we will be keeping our mail-order operations active and will continue accepting internet orders.  Given the situation, we will also, over the coming days, be stepping up the number of new listings here on our site.  Looking for something you think we may have, but don’t see it on the site?  Just email us and ask.  We will let you know whether or not it’s in stock.  If yes, we can then send you a custom PayPal invoice (which can be paid for using a credit card; PayPal account not required).  

We hope everyone takes all the recommended precautions.  Here’s the CDC page:  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Take care.  

We just purchased a major underground/alternative/independent comics collection of over 1000 pieces, total, running, roughly, from 1967 through 2007, including complete or near-to complete runs of Zap, Arcade, Weirdo, American Splendor, Zero Zero, Real Stuff, and much, much, much more – including lots of Crumb, Deitch, Griffith, Spain, Trina, et al.

These will be going out into the shop over the next several months.  It's going to take awhile.  We have only just started processing the collection.  Here's a look at some of what we've put out so far: