I'm Dead
Cool to see a photo of mine in Charles Saatchi’s 2015 book Dead: A Celebration of Mortality. I found it on eBay.
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Filtering by Tag: BOOKS
Daddy-O
In my Instagram Stories for Father’s Day, I posted a few links to my late father and his work, including his New York Times obituary, my favorite thing he ever wrote, his Rothko biography, Hilton Kramer’s New York Times Book Review review of my father’s Rothko biography, and my father’s Rothko biography research archive at the Getty Research Institute. It’s been almost 30 years since my father died, and I’ll miss him forever.
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Books I Read: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Tove Jansson Edition
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Tove Jansson Edition combines two of my favorites from childhood: a marvel of literature and the creator of the Moomins universe. So I was delighted to learn this book united the two. Rereading Lewis Carroll’s text was illuminating—how willy-nilly he is with language and imagery and how much magical conjuring happens when a creator allows pretty much anything to sprout from his brain. I adore Jansson’s images for the text. They are more vibrant and beguiling than the originals. My favorite illustration features Alice peering over the lip of the mushroom to consider the caterpillar.
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Books I Read in May: Favorite and Least Favorite
This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In May, I read seven books. (You can find all my short book reviews here.) My favorite book was David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish, which has no pictures but I made an exception because I’m a big Lynch fan: “My favorite part is when he talks about Mulholland Drive’s box and key and says, ‘I don’t have a clue what those are.’” My least favorite book was Charles Burns’ Caprice, which, although interesting and enjoyable, was a collection of images with no narrative: “The themes are classically Burnsian: girls in trouble, blobular creatures, impossible landscapes.”
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Chronically Dr. Dre
Earlier this year, I submitted a proposal to do a 33 1/3 book on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. The 33 1/3 book series is published by Bloomsbury and each slim volume is a close study of an album. I proposed doing one on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. Recently, the editors shared all the artists that were proposed this year, which you can see here. In any case, I’ll learn if my proposal was accepted in June or July. I’ll share that info on this blog.
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Triptych (Highland Park)
Scenes from a recent evening in Highland Park in L.A. For more of my photographs, follow me on Instagram.
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Books I Read: Caprice
Caprice by Charles Burns is a small thing. It’s not really a comic book, per se. And it’s certainly not a graphic novel. It’s a collection of fictional comic book covers, apparently. The themes are classically Burnsian: girls in trouble, blobular creatures, impossible landscapes. It’s an interesting journey through a curious mind.
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Books I Read: Persepolis
I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis because it is incredible. A feminist Maus, it takes a young girl’s story as its subject to examine the broad themes of identity, empowerment, and resilience. The drawings are simple, but the impact is powerful. A must-read for all, including young people.
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Books I Read: Heart of Darkness
I picked up a copy of Peter Kuper’s graphic novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for a few reasons. I’m a fan of Kuper’s work, which I admire for its ability to express strong emotions in a terrifying way, which seemed fitting for this project. I’ve read Conrad’s novella and appreciate many things about it, including its unique framing structure. And Apocalypse Now, which was inspired by Conrad’s book, is one of my favorite movies. I found this retelling riveting, spooky, and considered. I guess that last word is sort of a strange thing to say, but Kuper’s version brought something new to the material for me. Perhaps it was the illustrated strife between natives and invaders, or the intensity of this Kurtz’s having “gone native,” or maybe it was the monstrous depiction of what happens to one when one travels far enough up the river. Either way, I loved it.
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Books I Read: Mudbite
I read Dave Cooper’s Mudbite some years ago, lost my copy, and so I was happy to find it again and reread it. I love Dave’s work! It’s so insane. Mudbite is especially fun because it contains two stories that you read by flipping the book back and around. It’s hard to pick a favorite between “Mud River” and “Bug Bite.” The former, starring Eddy Table, who I love so much I have a figurine of him on my desk, is probably my favorite; little Eddy’s bottom ride on the lady is just so hilarious! But the latter had me literally loling, too, with its crazy twists and turns and creepy critters. Anyway, this book is a two-for-one that will make a Cooper devotee out of anyone.
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Books I Read: Breakdowns
Art Spiegelman’s Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! is perfect for those who want to remind themselves that a masterpiece starts as something less than that. A reprint, with an expansive new introduction, of work published early in his career, this collection contains the seeds of what will become the author’s greatest work: Maus. From a one-page strip version of Maus to the arresting “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” in which he grapples with his mother’s suicide, these are the experimental steps that were required for Spiegelman to create the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. Oversized, colorful, dazzling.
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Books I Read: The Five Lives of Hilma af Klint
Although I was aware of Hilma af Klint’s work, I didn’t know much about her until I read The Five Lives of Hilma af Klint by Philipp Deines. The oversized book features five chapters of visual biography of the artist’s life, from her privileged upbringing to her spiritual journey to her secret queerness. I recommend this book to anyone who is an artist, who wants to feel inspired by a woman who wasn’t “discovered” until long after her death.
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Books I Read: Catching the Big Fish
I decided I was only going to read books with pictures in them this year, but I made an exception for David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. It’s such a special, delightful, inspiring book. Narrative is irrelevant. Making sense is beside the point. What you get out of it is what you bring to it. This assemblage of fragments, stories, and word pictures combine into a coherent consideration of how to think about life, art, and craft. My favorite part is when he talks about Mulholland Drive’s box and key and says, “I don’t have a clue what those are.” The truth is something greater, less tangible. I loved this book.
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Books I Read in April: Favorite and Least Favorite
This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In April, I read six books. (You can find all my short book reviews here.) My favorite book was Chantal Montellier’s Social Fiction, “a feminist 1984, a dark vision of the search for love in the midst of a dystopia, a collection of comics in which being human is a crime and death lurks around every corner.” My least favorite book was Tina Horn’s SFSX (Safe Sex) Volume 1: “The story lacked a central character with depth and nuance with which I could connect.”
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Books I Read: City of Glass
I’ve read the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass many times. Every time, I marvel at its simplicity, its willingness to take the narrative in daring directions, the way it makes storytelling meta.
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Books I Read: Social Fiction
I loved Chantal Montellier’s Social Fiction. It’s a feminist 1984, a dark vision of the search for love in the midst of a dystopia, a collection of comics in which being human is a crime and death lurks around every corner. Despite the bleak subject matter, Montellier’s dynamic art rockets through time and captures the beauty of what perseverance looks like when independent thought and freedom have been criminalized.
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Mark Kernes Has Died
Image via AVN
Mark Kernes, who probably knew more about the legalities of the porn industry than anyone else, has died.
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Books I Read: Fun Home
I loved Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic the first time I read it, and probably more so this time. There’s a lot to which to relate: being raised by parents better at intellectualizing than parenting, growing up in a house with a chilly atmosphere due to faulty marital underpinnings, discovering the lone way with which to connect to a parent is through books. One thing Bechdel does particularly well is refusing neat characterizations: of people, of motives, of the truth. Over and over again, she insists upon putting the contradictions on the page, of interrogating her own narrative. This book is brilliant. I love it.
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Pulp Me
In my latest newsletter, I write about shopping for 1970s pulp nonfiction books about the adult film industry.
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Books I Read: Reinventing Comics
It’s probably been 25 years since I first read Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics. Having recently reread his Understanding Comics, I was curious to see how the sequel read all these years later. While some of the technical references are stuck in 2000, the fundamental ideas are as invigorating and stimulating as ever. What surprised me was how little comics have evolved in the way McCloud suggested they might—at least to this point. In fact, the opposite seems to have happened. Mostly, the dynamic picturescape McCloud foresaw has been the dominion of gaming. Meanwhile, comics have been born again in a new upcropping of brick-and-mortar stores that folks like me enjoy frequenting to buy printed comics over which we pore to be transported into interactive worlds that exist only in our own minds. A thought-provoking read!
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