Today on the site:
Robert Kirby on Kieler Roberts' Miseryland.
Miseryland, Keiler Roberts’ third paperback collection of autobiographical comics from her zine, Powdered Milk, is an invigorating blend of observational comedy, quiet domesticity, and existential angst, captured in realistic line drawings that have a slightly rough, appealingly improvised feel. Though delightfully funny, these stories have a melancholy running underneath, a sense of the fragile order of existence and how quickly emotional equilibrium can be upset by small incidents, unwanted exchanges, doubt, or self-recrimination. With a keen ear for dialogue and nuance, Roberts captures human nature in all its quirky contradiction.
Elsewhere:
The New York Times chats with Daniel Clowes about The Complete Eightball and, most importantly, drops tidbits on his upcoming graphic novel.
Alison Bechdel explains her reasons for attending the controversial PEN Gala, which Tim updated you all on yesterday. As for me, I've rarely seen so many people whose work I admire make such boneheaded arguments (I'm looking at you, Rachel Kushner). As Tim pointed out, this whole controversy is also indicative of how little the various lit establishments (still!) regard the medium of comics that most dismissed the Charlie work without actually having read it. Amazing.
Gil Roth interviews Jonah Kinigstein. I love this work, and published it back in 2004, but I'm interested that so far it's only gotten play in the comics and illustration world, which still thrives on a reverse snobbery about modern and contemporary art. A lot of what Kinigstein says is right on the money, but a lot of it is simply spleen-venting by an artist who sees only a monolithic "art world". I'd love to see an art writer (not me) engage with this material.
Finally, I missed this lovely little PDF from 2D Cloud documenting the publisher's experiences at this past MoCCA, a festival about which I saw astonishingly little. I was also out of town, so maybe I missed a weekend of furious tweeting. Who knows.
