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Review: Buddy Does Jersey
Buddy Does Jersey Peter Bagge Fantagraphics Books Street: 05.15 There is a certain target audience and age for a graphic novel like this; I am thinking mostly of your average music snob, male, age 18-35. The premise and formula is pretty simple––an obnoxious hipster with a neurotic girlfriend, living in Seattle move back to New
Review: The Beautiful Language of My Century: Reinventing the Language...
The Beautiful Language of My Century: Reinventing the Language of Contestion in Postwar France, 1945-1968 Tom McDonough MIT Press Street: 03.30 In The Beautiful Language of My Century, Tom McDonough has his work cut out for him as the topic of the Situationist International and the May ’68 riots are an over-bloated subject. But what
Review: Aftermath
I think there has got to be a hundred of these books out there, and all of them are probably titled “Aftermath.” You know, giant, glowing books about 9/11 and the wreckage, tragedy and irony that is 9/11. … read more
Review: nEuROTIC
In nEuROTIC, John Cuneo focuses on just that in his work: the sexual, the erotic. His style is a perversely humorous, other-wordly and an exotic sketchbook that aptly illustrates the connection between human sexuality and the surreal. … read more
Review: Krazy & Ignatz 1939–1940: A Brick Stuffed with Moom-Bims
Krazy & Ignatz 1939–1940: A Brick Stuffed with Moom-Bims George Herriman Fantagraphic Books Street: 03.28 E.E. Cummings was a big fan; Michael Stipe of R.E.M. has a tattoo of the crazy couple and famed cartonists Will Eisner and Bill Watterson both cite Krazy Kat as an influence on their work. It is rare that an
Review: African Psycho
African Psycho Alain Mabanckou Soft Skull Press Street: 03.01 The story of Gregoire Nakobomayo, a would-be serial killer, had the potential to be good. Sadly, African Psycho falls flat. Gregoire’s character lacks depth. He wants to carry out the legacy of his idol, the accomplished serial killer, Angoualime, but the story goes no farther to
Review: Escape From Special
Escape From Special Miss Lasko-Gross Fantagraphic Books Street: 03.14 We have all been there and done that concerning our high school days; we hated them and they hated us and to have another coming-of-age book of any kind rehashing that theme of “growing up” and toughing it seems like one too many. But what we
Review: Beasts!
Beasts! Various Fantagraphics Books Street: 01.31 This beautifully bound and illustrated book fills its pages with the prompt that each artist capture a creature from mythological or folkloric storytelling; the cultural entities—”still thriving or extinct”—that fill our closets and deep recesses of our minds. The product is outstanding in its anecdotal accounts of beast history,
Review: A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress Howard Zinn City Lights Street: 12.01.06 Howard Zinn is a genius. A Power Governments Cannot Suppress will be the most enlightening and powerful thing that I will read all year. The majority of the book is made up of columns that Zinn wrote for Progressive over the past few years.
Review: Josef Albers: To Open Eyes: The Bauhaus, Black Mountain...
Josef Albers: To Open Eyes: The Bauhaus, Black Mountain and Yale Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz Phaidon Press Street: 11.02 Wow … to say the least. Phaidon Press has done it again in producing a book that not only is stunningly graphic and visual but has the academic content to back up such a