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The Illusionist and His Illusions
I’d like to be able to say Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist is a better movie than the recently coronated Toy Story 3. Not that it isn’t a fine thing on its own terms. Based on an unfilmed script by...
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Easy Winners
Ayn Rand’s Anthem Adapted by Charles Santino and Joe Staton Looking at a list of books for review, the name Joe Staton jumped out at me. It’s a name that harkens back to the earliest months of The...
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Some Girls Work in Factories, Some Girls Work in Stores
Glib initial reactions on reading Chester Brown’s Paying for It: 1. Oddly enough, I didn’t. 2. Years and years ago when Brown first became autobiographical I wrote that if you were going to do...
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Art Comics and No Fooling
They send ‘em, I review ‘em. Eventually. The Sky Over the Louvre by Jean-Claude Carriere and Bernar Yslaire NBM I don’t know if you pay any more attention than I do to the seemingly random selection of...
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Theater of the Inaccessible Presents: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele...
As a film director, Luc Besson lost touch with American audiences when he decided Milla Jovovich could play Joan of Arc. When you consider that in the movie before that he cast his then-wife as a...
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Whatever Happened to Will Eisner?
My first thought was to say that PS Magazine: The Best of Preventive Maintenance Monthly (Abrams Comicarts) is an essential book for any serious Will Eisner fan, but it would be more accurate to say...
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A Long Strange Trip, If You’ll Pardon the Expression
The Someday Funnies, Edited by Michel Choquette So Michel Choquette’s The Someday Funnies now joins Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Part 2, Brian Wilson’s Smile, Harvey Kurtzman’s...
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Freeway to UPA
Freeway by Mark Kalesniko (Fantagraphics) UPA: The Jolly Frolics Collection (TCM) The eponymous metaphor of Matt Kalesniko’s Freeway is almost too easy: A transportation network that once granted free...
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Gold Out of Straw
Ed the Happy Clown Chester Brown (Drawn & Quarterly) Drawn & Quarterly has sent me unbidden a copy of their handsome new edition of Chester Brown’s Ed the Happy Clown, and the best way to...
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You Needn’t Get Up on My Account
“Whose turn is it this time?” The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros.) Nothing takes the joy out of a festival of vicarious violence like a spasm of actual violence, does it? It’s not as if anyone can say...
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The House that Jack Built
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story Sean Howe (Harper Collins) “I feel certain that Spider-Man alone is worth a billion dollars.” – Avi Arad “By 2004 Marvel was employing statistical analysts to feed...
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Days of Yesteryear
Remember last month? Those were the days when people were doing Best of 2012 columns. What a time that was, a time of proud reassessment of the achievements of the year past and optimistic anticipation...
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Mouly Mouthpiece
In Love With Art Jeet Heer (Coach House Books) I met Françoise Mouly once, at the San Diego Comic-Con during its C Street days, when RAW was in full swing. She told me that I was the only reviewer who...
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Sometimes a Watermelon is Just a Watermelon
It’s my general policy not to comment on the textual front and back matter of comic strip collections, though it often irritates me. In the first place, next to nobody reads it. In the second place,...
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Gods Do Favors, Darwin Doesn’t
“It’s easy to become a writer, but it’s hard to stay a writer.” –Kate Wilhelm Recently the attention of the comics internet was grabbed by Mike Dawson’s cri de coeur about the limited financial returns...
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“But You Bugger One Kaiser . . .”
Bumf Vol. 1 Joe Sacco Fantagraphics Books I have no idea to what extent if any Joe Sacco is aware of it, but his return to satire in Bumf is the comic strip equivalent of the methods of the Firesign...
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A Problem for the Comics Snob
Hawkeye Vols. 1-4 Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, Annie Wu, Francesco Francavilla Satellite Sam Vols. 1-3 Matt Fraction and Howard Chaykin Sex Criminals Vols. 1-2 Matt Fraction and Chip...
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The Nobel Prize for Cuckoldry
Invisible Ink by Bill Griffith (Fantagraphics Books) There’s so much here. Bill Griffith’s Invisible Ink is a memoir as fascinating in its way as Fun Home. Where Alison Bechdel gave us a look inside of...
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