Eleanor Davis, Why Art? (Fantagraphics, 2018). $14.95, pb. Why Art?, like Davis’s glorious 2014 collection How to Be Happy, flirts with another genre in its title—this time not self-help books but popular guides to art appreciation (perhaps simply another kind of self-improvement). Its opening pages speak in a voice of assured matter-of-factness even when saying stupid or terribly […]
Leslie Stein, Present (Drawn and Quarterly, 2017). $21.95, hc. Leslie Stein is a tremendous talent in the comics world, so when I saw her new book Present on the ‘new releases’ shelf at my local library I snapped it up with glee. Call the stories in this book autobiographical, call them diary-based, call them slice-of-life… they are […]
Igor Hofbauer, Mister Morgen (Conundrum Press, 2017). $25, pb. If you are an aficionado of the avant-garde, especially poster-art constructivism, and have a tolerance for perversity and despair, this book is for you. First published in French (2016) by the independent publishing house l’Association, Conundrum International has brought a stunning example of the Croatian alternative comics […]
Future Quest Presents (DC Comics), ongoing series. $3.99. Nostalgia is a powerful lure, drawing many of us to return to our childhood heroes in the hopes that we can rekindle the thrill of those first indelible encounters. Perhaps that’s what has drawn writers like Jeff Parker and Phil Hester to recapture the sense of wonder they […]
Mister Miracle #6 (DC Comics, 2018). $3.99. This is by far one of the greatest single-issues of a monthly comic book I’ve read in years. It’s one thing to pick up an issue of an ongoing series from Drawn & Quarterly or Fantagraphics if it only comes out once or twice a year and be […]