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.

Books I Read

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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.

Books I Read

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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.

Books I Read

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Mark Kernes Has Died

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.

Books I Read

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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!

Books I Read

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Books I Read: 1984: The Graphic Novel

Fido Nesti’s graphic novel adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 is an absolute dazzler. Having recently read Manu Larcenet’s very disappointing graphic novel adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road that did a disservice to the source material, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But Nesti’s masterful rendering of Orwell’s chillingly accurate foretelling of the nothink era in which we live is a brilliant homage that highlights the important ideas against a backdrop of terror, beauty, and struggle. If you don’t like to think or if you support fascism, you won’t like this book. If you have a brain and want to face the truth of today’s 1984, read it.

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A Venn Diagram for a Book Proposal-in-Progress

I made this Venn diagram for a book proposal I’m working on to help me visualize the intersection of ideas.

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Books I Read: Ducks

Ducks by Kate Beaton is a graphic memoir about the author’s experiences working in the Canadian oil sands. The art is simple, the dialogue is spare, and the story follows a straightforward track as Beaton moves through various work locations and circumstances. I wanted to like this book and respect all Beaton went through, but the images, tone, and delivery fell flat. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing? The most harrowing parts—in which Beaton is sexually assaulted—were underdeveloped. For me, this was a miss.

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Welcome to My Storefront

Have you checked out my storefront on Gumroad lately? You can hire me as a consultant; buy a signed copy of my memoir, Data Baby, My Life in a Psychological Experiment; or download a copy of a short story I wrote.

Books I Read: 100 Demons

I’ve read Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! before, but I wanted to read it again because I find it so inspiring. My first encounters with Barry’s work were with Ernie Pook’s Comeek, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I love One! Hundred! Demons! for a variety of reasons: the work is beautiful, the stories are moving, the message is about persevering regardless of what anyone else’s thinks or what happens to you. My favorite strips in this series are the ones focusing on her childhood, how maligned she was yet kept insisting that she might one day have something to say. I read this slowly so I could savor how precious these artworks are.

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Books I Read in February: Favorite and Least Favorite

This year, I decided to read only books with pictures. In February, I read seven books. (You can find those books and my short reviews here.) My favorite book was Mimi Pond’s Over Easy, a fascinating look at a San Francisco Bay Area diner scene of days past. My least favorite was Manu Larcenet’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which was a disservice to the source material and narratively disjointed.

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Books I Read: My Most Secret Desire

I’ve read Julie Doucet’s work before and liked it, but My Most Secret Desire didn’t quite work for me. It is very strange, and I like strange, but this book is primarily a series of renderings of freaky dreams. Dreams in which she has a penis or is pregnant with something weird or odd people do frightening things. Is this the female unconscious or just chaos? I felt it leaned heavily into grotesque without any accompanying insight.

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Books I Read: The Saga of the Swamp Thing 1

I don’t usually read superhero comics, but I picked up The Saga of the Swamp Thing 2 and then realized I needed to read The Saga of the Swamp Thing 1 first. I chose this series because I was dazzled by the art and also because I’m aware that Alan Moore is considered a comic book god. I liked parts of Book 1—I mean, it’s weird as fuck—but the story feels fragmented, and I think I had a hard time having an emotional connection with a plant, aka The Swamp Thing, which, by his (its?) own admission, is what he is. Anyway, I can never follow these action driven plots with so many characters. A mixed bag experience for me, I guess.

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Books I Read: A Child's Life and Other Stories

I can’t remember the first time I read A Child’s Life and Other Stories, but it would have been over 20 years ago. The book seared itself into my brain. The art spellbound me, the stories were set in the Bay Area where I had grown up, and the rage and pain of a young person who was neglected at home and acting out sexually and through drugs and alcohol was deeply familiar to me. I could say this book changed my life, but that sounds overdramatic and like a cliche. I will say that when I sat down to reread the book, I wondered if it would have the same effect on me all these years later. And it did. It makes me want to be braver and more reckless and more honest in my own work. And that’s invaluable. Thank you, Phoebe Gloeckner.

Books I Read

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Books I Read: Pretending Is Lying

What a curious ride Pretending Is Lying by Dominique Goblet is. A hazy graphic memoir. A disturbing accounting of childhood trauma and its consequences. A visual depiction of navigating life, relationships, and love that reels through time and place to land defiantly nowhere. I really liked it. Not for the unimaginative.

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Books I Read: Over Easy

Wow wow wow. Over Easy is so great! This book was such a delight, and I read it slower and slower as I neared completion because I didn’t want it to end. I’m a bit younger than author Mimi Pond, but I grew up in the East Bay so the people types and general places and all over vibe was very familiar to me. I appreciate that she focused on this important place and special time and fantastic cast of characters rather than feeling like she had to deliver up some sort of action-oriented plot. I loved this book. I’m sure I’ll read it again in the future.

Books I Read

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Munch

A selection of art books for sale at an estate sale. For more of my L.A. photographs, follow me on Instagram.

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