5 out of 5

This is, hands down, a perfect conclusion to a long-running series. I suppose fifty issues isn’t as long as others – even those by single creators or teams – but fifty issues of a self-published book, where the creator handles everything (lettering, coloring, packaging, shipping…) is a massive accomplishment, not to mention the other books Copra-er Michel Fiffe made in the meantime, not to mention periodic newsletter updates, not to mention some Copra miniseries, not to mention crafting a co-release deal with Image Comics while still maintaining his own publishing.

And I’ve had my critiques here and there, as this book grew from a tribute to Fiffe’s influences into its own influential thing, but by and large, the things I had to say were due to storytelling or format chances / opportunities Michel was taking – and that’s really what I’d want from a creator-owned book: eyes on the prize, but a willingness to keep it fresh through various means.

Copra pretty much wrapped up with the preceding arc: a fitting big brawl. But the other side of this series – the special sauce – has been the inbetween moments. Yeah, you could say the sauce is the characters, but a lot of these characters are still templates, essentially. Not that they haven’t had dimension added, but they’re still operating within some tried and true comic book parameters. So I return to it being more about the offhand moments; the downbeats between fights. Copra impressed at the outset with its action and visual dynamism, but it stayed memorable thanks to these downbeats – the “real world” of oddballs that was being built, and the bootstrapped way Michel pieced those moments together, like the stories really were continuing on when we weren’t around.

So this final issue is a perfect one, because it’s three of those moments. Yeah, it wraps up some dangling bits, I suppose, but that feels less important versus giving us a final reminder of the Copra world still keeping on, even once the series has ended. Fiffe’s embracing of the “coconut meat skull” verbiage – I’m still not sure I know what that’s about, though I feel like the origin was related at some point – has been lovely, another way the book has connected with its audience / community, and seeing it fully used as section headings here is a lot of fun.

The issue is fairly linearly told, in terms of visual bombast, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me there were like a handful of historical comic (or Copra) references in here that fly right over my head. Either way, it’s certainly not necessary to appreciate the book, and that bombast is exchanged for some of the most zipped up storytelling, visually and narratively, of the series – in a series of continually amazing issues. These are subtle touches, basically, circling around to a few characters, and captures, at a glance, what I’ve loved about this series. If it didn’t ruin some plotpoints, you could start here – the book is so strong that even the last issue can be your intro to the world.

On to the next series, Michel…?