Ruins
In many respects, Ruins is a fictionalization and recapitulation of Peter Kuper’s 2010 book Diario de Oaxaca, which was a highly elaborate sketchbook diary of his time living in Mexico around 2006. Oaxaca is well known as a tourist center … Continue reading
Madaya Mom
The joke goes that the difference between consumers in authoritarian states like China and those in the U.S. is that readers in America sometimes like to believe that they are getting impartial truth from the likes of The New York … Continue reading
Wendy’s Revenge
The hilarious saga of Wendy, artist/party girl, continues in her second book of adventures/catastrophes Continue reading
The Moolah Tree
It’s a pretty winning comedic formula: a cynical, embittered, occasionally venal guy paired with a naive, clumsy and perhaps not too bright counterpart. It’s a foundation that has served well for a lot of famous comedic duos. Laurel and Hardy, … Continue reading
Someone Please Have Sex With Me
“I am not remotely ashamed of not being a hot sexy number,” writes Virginie Despentes in her 2006 memoir King Kong Theory, “but I am livid that—as a girl who doesn’t attract men—I am constantly made to feel as if … Continue reading
Einstein
Third in a Nobrow series by the same scriptwriter and artist—following similar-format works on Freud and Marx—this one may be the most successful. The drawing is crisp, the explanations are suitable for teens and adults alike. But what makes it … Continue reading
The Greatest Comic Book of All Time
Bart Beaty and Benjamin Woo begin The Greatest Comic Book of All Time by acknowledging that fans love to make best-of lists. I instantly thought of pop music super-fan Rob in the novel and movie High Fidelity. He is constantly … Continue reading
Houses of the Holy
Houses of the Holy is Caitlin Skaalrud’s journey into the deepest, darkest memories and emotions. Clinically discussing the events that led to a certain conclusion would have done little to actually convey the experience, so instead Skaalrud chose to invent … Continue reading
