Today on the site, the great Bob Levin discusses Austin English's Gulag Casual.
I recently read a book in which a world-roaming architect selected drawings from 50 years of sketchbooks and set beside each a paragraph or three of associated memories on the facing page in order to render an account of his life’s journey. It was, I realized, a departure from the usual words-and-pictures work, where both elements are created within the same narrow window of time since, in the architect’s book, pictures may have been created a half-century before the words, with no idea that words would ever be matched to them. For one who has not thought about this much, like me, Gulag is an entirely different, but equally satisfying twist on the words-and-pictures trip.
It presents an urban world of houses, apartments, restaurants, and bars. (“…(W)hat goes on in that house?’ someone asks on page one, a question that lingers as other pages turn.) People have families, partners, roommates, upon whom strangers often intrude and from whom someone often strays. Bobby and Theo leave Margaret and Nicky. An anonymous narrator leaves Perry and Moki. A stranger leaves Olaf and his girlfiend. People often displease each other or themselves. Bobby calls Theo “a submoronic piece of filth.” An unidentified phone caller terms Bobby a “slimy fraud.” An anonymous narrator characterizes himself as “a lump of… common and vile stuff.” A stranger notes his mouth exudes “drool” and his nose “puss.”
Elsewhere:
On the Massive blog, Anne Ishii discusses Massive's mission and writes movingly and beautifully about last weekend's tragedy in Orlando.
Sacha Mardou has a thorough report on CAKE for Comics Workbook.
Congrats to pal Dash Shaw on his upcoming film residency. The film itself sounds amazing.
Anya Davidson drew a lot of alien portraits and I like them very much.
I remember when I was a kid every so often some paper would run a story about the science of superheroes. Now the University of Leicester has devoted a blog post to various studies of it.
