''Copper'' is a 2002

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be co ...

Kazu Kibuishi Kazuhiro "Kazu" Kibuishi (born April 8, 1978) is a Japanese-born American graphic novel author and illustrator. He is best known for being the creator and editor of the comic anthology ''Flight'' and for creating the webcomic ''Copper''. He is al ...

. Consisting of a series of short stories, ''Copper'' has a very irregular schedule, with a long hiatus that lasted from 2009 to 2016. Kibuishi's webcomic was nominated for an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

for Best Digital Comic, and the work was compiled into a print volume in 2010.

Development

''Copper'' began in April 2002. The pages of Kibuishi's webcomic make use of a large, square format, rather than using traditional comic book dimensions. Aside from the first page, all of the ''Copper'' pages are presented in color. The schedule of ''Copper'' is slow, new updates appearing once a month. Each page of ''Copper'' tells a self-contained story, though there are a few recurring characters. In May 2005 all of the 25 web strips that had been published to date were published as a series of 13" square archival prints by Nucleus, together with some other prints of Kibuishi's artwork. In July 2006, Kibuishi put the webcomic on hiatus again due to work on his graphic novel ''

Amulet An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...

'', among other projects, and it returned in September 2007. A single page was posted in mid-2009, after which ''Copper'' saw no further updates until December 2016, a period of nearly seven years.

Short stories

In each self-contained story the boy Copper and his talking

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

Fred journey through a detailed but economically drawn

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

- sometimes beautiful, sometimes bleak, sometimes surreal. Fred usually has some concise and forcefully expressive comment to make on their circumstances, while Copper is generally more cheerfully optimistic. The first three strips suggest that their adventures are dreams. After that the question is ''usually'' left open. In three of the strips, Copper is haunted by a mysterious girl: a

redhead Red hair (also known as orange hair and ginger hair) is a hair color found in one to two percent of the human population, appearing with greater frequency (two to six percent) among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and ...

who appears to be trapped inside a purple bubble that always floats just out of Copper's reach; a dark-haired girl with amber

sunglasses Sunglasses or sun glasses (informally called shades or sunnies; more names below) are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They can s ...

who taunts him from a distance, and a blond girl wearing a red shirt with a P on it. Fred also suffers girl trouble when, to his horror, he falls in love with a female dog owned by another girl. The first volume of Kibuishi's comic anthology '' Flight'' (2004) contains two short ''Copper'' stories: the 18-page "Maiden Voyage", and the 4-page "Picnic". A further story, "Mushroom Crossing", appeared in ''Flight Explorer Volume One''. All of these stories have also appeared on the website, but since they were designed for book publication they use traditional print-comic dimensions. "Maiden Voyage" sees Copper building an

airplane An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spe ...

from parts purchased at the local Plane*Mart

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

, while Fred constantly frets that the plane might crash. In the end his fears turn out to be justified. In "Picnic" Copper and Fred take an aerial

picnic A picnic is a meal taken outdoors ( ''al fresco'') as part of an excursion, especially in scenic surroundings, such as a park, lakeside, or other place affording an interesting view, or else in conjunction with a public event such as preceding ...

in an

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

, which Fred manages to sleep through. In "Mushroom Crossing" Copper and Fred cross a canyon, but Fred ends up falling into the canyon and finding himself with talking mushrooms, who let him back out of the canyon after yelling at him.

Print compilation

January 2010 saw the publication of ''Copper'' in book form, containing all of the existing pages as well Kibuishi's short stories for ''Flight'' and a step-by-step examination of Kibuishi's creation process.

Reception

''Copper'' was named one of the best webcomics of 2004 by ''The Webcomics Examiner'',

Joe Zabel Joe Zabel (born July 7, 1953)Zabel entry
Who's Who of Amer ...

describing it as "one of the most impressive achievements in webcomics" despite its low number of pages. The webcomic was nominated for an

for Best Digital Comic 2006. Rating ''Copper'' a 9 out of 10, Jiffy Burke of ''Sequential Tart'' stated that "each of the full-page, full-color vignettes revealed in ''Copper'' are stand-alone wonders of imagination." Burke compared its art to that of Jhonen Vasquez and

Bill Watterson William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is a retired American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip ''Calvin and Hobbes'', which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing ''Calvin and Hobbes'' at the end of 1995, ...

, and said that ''Coppers art is "consistently amazing and has unique personality".

References

External links

*
Old website, archived through the Internet Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Copper (Comic) 2000s webcomics 2010s webcomics Webcomics in print Web Cartoonists' Choice Award winners 2002 webcomic debuts