Today we bring you Rob Clough's review of Leslie Stein's second volume of Eye of the Majestic Creature:
Leslie Stein's fastidious, beautiful line continues to be put to good use in the second volume of her loosely connected semi-autobiographical stories, Eye Of The Majestic Creature. Indeed, this book is simply a collection of individual issues, though many of them were never actually published prior to this book. Stein works best in a short-story rhythm, and the covers and other artwork for individual issues work nicely as natural stopping points. For a work of magical realist autobiographical comics, having that kind of break makes sense for the reader. However, there are themes and through-lines in the book that make this collection a surprisingly coherent single package, documenting Stein's restlessness and search for identity.
Elsewhere:
—Reviews & Criticism. Chris Randle reviews the recently reissued keystone text Martin Vaughn-James's The Cage. Rob Clough looks at minicomics from Cara Bean. Brian Berger takes a short, sharp look at Drew Friedman.
—Interviews. Kim Deitch speaks. Alex Dueben talks to recent Ignatz winner and Oily Comics founder Charles Forsman.
—Festivals. Tom Spurgeon has turned in his usual report from SPX in twenty-six volumes. Bully the Stuffed Bull restrains his report to a few paragraphs. MIX is coming up this weekend, and video from some of last year's panels just went online. Here's Charles Hatfield talking Jack Kirby:
—Robert Boyd wonders why there isn't a comics department at MoMA.
—John Porcellino found some stuff in a box.
—Tom Devlin on Peter Bagge: now that's how you promote a comic on a promotional blog! Frank M. Young is no slouch on John Stanley, either.
