Today we bring you Robert Kirby's review of the new Ulli Lust book, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life, which has proved itself very popular in my household. Here's a bit of Robert's review:
Thus begin her adventures as a 17-year-old Austrian punk rock girl ambling her way across Italy in the summer of 1984 with her newfound friend in tow, a tall, gangly girl named Edi. With no money or passports they forge ahead by sheer force of will, armed only with the invulnerability of the young and rebellious. Though Lust’s youthful exuberance and energy are severely tested by the inevitable pitfalls an attractive young woman will encounter hitchhiking in a country bound by traditional (i.e. highly sexist) cultural mores and traditions – and by the personal betrayals of certain fair-weather friends – this is no glib Live-and-Learn morality tale. One of the reasons the book is so successful is that Lust let the experience gestate over years, allowing for a certain distance and detachment. She captures perfectly and without judgment the complex social, cultural, and personal maelstrom she willingly entered into that summer, offering readers a wonderfully vicarious thrill in the process - especially readers like me, whose travelogues are generally limited to the “what I ate that time I went to Reykjavik” category.
I spent a very long day yesterday in Storybook Land, New Jersey, so may have been too discombobulated when I got home to recognize interesting news, but in any case I wasn't able to find quite as many links as usual. Here's what I've got:
—As you may have heard, a group of scholars have changed their minds about which is the first "true" graphic, now nominating something called the Glasgow Looking-Glass from 1825 Scotland (and thus prior to Töpffer's Obadiah Oldbuck). Here's a selection of images from the publication.
—Hogan's Alley has a ton of photos from the most recent Reuben Awards.
—A promotional video for Art Instruction, Inc. featuring a cameo from Charles Schulz.
