This morning on the site we feature the return of Bob Levin, and his look at Chris Ware's Building Stories. Now based on Twitter conversations from a few months ago, I know a lot of you will immediately begin complaining that everyone has already read enough about that book, but (1) you haven't, not really, (2) get used to it, because books like this (ambitious and largely successful) tend to get talked about for a long time, and (3) Bob Levin is allowed to write about anything he wants. Here is a very brief excerpt, especially designed to annoy a certain kind of person:
The second day I slit the cellophane wrapper.
Elsewhere:
—The longtime New Yorker cartoonist Ed Fisher has died at the age of 86. That magazine's cartoon editor Bob Mankoff announced the news on his blog. The New York Times has an obituary here. Mike Lynch and Michael Maslin offer their own thoughts on the artist.
—Apple has reportedly decided not to offer Saga #12 to iPhone and iPad users due to two pages in the issue featuring somewhat distorted images of gay sex. Series writer Brian K. Vaughn responded by declining to change the images in question, and directing readers to other outlets (and the CBLDF). You can see one of the images in question below.
[UPDATE: ComiXology has issued a new statement today, contradicting earlier reports. I find this all somewhat confusing, and don't understand how to reconcile comiXology implicitly confirming the original story with this new information, but there it is. You can read the statement here.]
—The Doug Wright Awards have announced the members of the 2013 jury, including Julie Delporte, Pascal Girard, Jonathan Goldstein, Joe Ollmann, and Natalia Yanchak.
—Paul Gravett profiles Belgian cartoonist/architect François Schuiten.
—And then there are lots of reviews. Richard Samuel West reviews the recent Thomas Nast biography, Craig Fischer reviews Jim Rugg's Supermag, Tom Spurgeon reviews the new Tom Gauld collection, Christopher Stigliano reviews Sidney Smith's The Gumps: The Saga of Mary Gold, and Chris Mautner reviews a whole bunch of stuff.
