Hey it's Paul Tumey and Tom Van Deusen on Yuichi Yokoyama's Garden, which I published what feels like an age ago. Good to see it still being discussed.
Paul: To start, I’d like to tell how this idea of discussing Garden with you came about. Tom, you and I are Facebook friends, and I posted a photo of one of my bookshelves. You made the comment: “Garden!” I was impressed that, out of all the great books on that shelf (Rube Goldberg,TinTin, Kliban, Tatsumi, etc.), you singled out the very one I would have mentioned if the situation were reversed. When I first read Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden, about a year and half ago, I was dumbstruck. I didn’t think that it was possible for me to have a new experience reading comics – and yet, Garden was just that. As fresh as a spring flower. I have read it many times since, as well as some of Yokoyama’s other books and I have become convinced it is an important book – not just in comics, but in art and literature and culture. When we step through the break in the fence on the first page, it’s like sliding down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. After I read Garden, the world seemed different to me.
Elsewhere:
Michelle Robinson Brand, an early underground cartoonist and later a colorist for various comic book companies, has passed away. I haven't seen anything other than Stephen Bissette's Facebook thread, unfortunately. She seems like a fascinating person.
Douglas Wolk covers a bunch of recent comics for the NY Times.
And Robert Crumb looks back on the places he's lived for the Wall Street Journal.
