Chris Ware + ‘This American Life’
May 7, 2008
Two of my favourite things in one huggable package. Link
Archive for the 'comics' Category
Help ‘Johnny The Lurker’
March 4, 2008
“A question for Graham, and other graphic novel aficionados. I’ve
always lurked on the outside looking in when it comes to graphic
novels, but I’ve never had a starting point to work my way in. Would
anyone like to recommend a top 3 or top 5 that I could pick up and
investigate, so I could take the plunge?”
Johnny says he is looking for comics that might ‘mess with his head’, but his list of likes and dislikes indicate he’d probably like anything as long as it’s good.
So here’s my starting three or five.
Frank by Jim Woodring (not a ‘novel’, though)
Ed the Happy Clown by Chester Brown! Not Himes! Dohhh!
Anything by Joe Sacco.
‘Eightball’ collections, Dan Pussey…most things by Daniel Clowes (although recent stuff is testing my patience)
Anything by Jason, but especially this
…and of course, Snake ‘n’ Bacon
Jimmy Corrigan
Hellboy , but only if the art is by Mignola
The Goon is often good fun.
I could go on but I should get back to work. Maybe y’all can help Johhny with some more.
Lynda Barry, the awesomest
February 4, 2008
Oof! The Motherlode! A big-ass collection of comics by Lynda Barry. If you don’t know her, you should sort that out. She can be really funny, and she has an eviable memory that captures the strange syntax and logic of childhood better than anyone I know inside of comics or out (in the first strip, for example, dig the rightness of the line “Maybe that it’s a mental institution guy”).
There’s a sadness behind a lot of her stuff that is almost too painful to bear. The story in 100 Demons about how she cut off her childhood friendship with her neighbour (because she was a year younger than her and hanging around with someone a year younger would have marked her out as weird) is so awfully sad that you might need a drink after reading it.
Even if her scratchy penmanship is not to your liking, it’s worth getting beyond it for the wonders within. Reading Lynda Barry is like getting a direct line back to your childhood, and a much cheaper way of doing so than actually having children.
Peter Bagge on “real” art
January 10, 2008
I once had a pretty awful date with a conceptual artist who nearly tore a muscle sneering at my comic collection. I didn’t say what I would have loved to have said–that one Daniel Clowes or Peter Bagge is worth a dozen of her young British Artist compatriots. No, I held my tongue, and I still didn’t get laid. Lesson: Always be true to yourself, kids.
(When is he going to publish these Salon pieces? I want!)
Graham’s London landmarks
January 1, 2008
No.1 Gosh Comics.
The best comics shop in London. Their upstairs section is impressive enough, stocked as it is with top-class independent and mainstream stuff, but the downstairs bit is a real treasure trove for lovers of indie and foreign-language comics. You can find it across the road from the British Museum.
Persepolis
December 11, 2007
Marjane Satrpi’s brilliant graphic novel Persepolis is now a film! Here’s the trailer.
More Larsony
November 29, 2007
Again, the use of the Larson third person does not prevent this joke from being a confusing mess.
Moore, Spiegelman and Clowes in ‘The Simpsons’
November 21, 2007
I love that Spiegelman’s wearing a Maus mask.
(Thanks, Alex!)
Oh, sorry, for the uninitiated…they do comics.
Daniel Clowes–start with Pussey, then you’ll want to get everything else he’s done.
Alan Moore…too many classics to count, although this is my favourite.
Spiegelman, Maus, of course, but if you can dig up any old issues of Raw, you should.
