This is a story about a girl, born at the beginning of the 20th century. She grows up in a small river town in upstate New York. One day the mysterious Charles Varnay, an eccentric who dresses in the style of an 18th century dandy, comes to town, his sole companion a remarkably intelligent dog named Rousseau. Varnay wants to star Katherine in a movie serial he plans to make, called The Goddess of Enlightenment. Katherine is rather put off when she discovers that he expects her to appear nude in this film. But even more strange is the film’s subject matter: It has to do with seven metal urns that Varnay claims are actual recordings of the voice of Jesus Christ which, he says, contain an urgent message that the modern world needs to hear!
Kim Deitch made his name as an “underground” cartoonist — a contemporary of Spiegelman, Crumb, et. al. — but over the last three decades has simply been one of the most vital graphic novelists the medium has to offer, including acknowledged classics such as The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Alias the Cat, and The Search for Smilin’ Ed. His new graphic novel, Reincarnation Stories, feels like the apotheosis of his career, an ambitiously sprawling tour de force exploring the concept of reincarnation. When Deitch was four years old, he began having memories of a time when he wore glasses. The problem was, he had never actually worn glasses. Then, one day, young Deitch is sitting outside his apartment building when an elderly man approaches him, excited. “Is it possible? Sid! SID PINCUS! Good God, man! You’ve changed. You’re smaller! And where are your glasses?” From here, Deitch weaves a dizzying path of reincarnation stories that spans the past, present, and future of human history, with appearances by Frank Sinatra, monkey gods, a forgotten cowboy star of the silver screen, a tribe of Native Americans that successfully resettled on the moon, and a parallel reality where Deitch himself is the megasuccessful creator of a series of kids books about a superhero called Young Avatar, who helps marginalized souls lead better lives and in his secret identity works as a carpenter. Did we mention Deitch’s spiritual nemesis (an incarnation of Judas Iscariot), Waldo the Cat? Deitch’s storytelling mastery has never been more fully on display that this rich tapestry of a graphic novel, certain to be a staple on 2019 “Best of ” year-end lists.
Considers how comics display our everyday stuff—junk drawers, bookshelves, attics—as a way into understanding how we represent ourselves now For most of their history, comics were widely understood as disposable—you read them and discarded them, and the pulp paper they were printed on decomposed over time. Today, comic books have been rebranded as graphic novels—clothbound high-gloss volumes that can be purchased in bookstores, checked out of libraries, and displayed proudly on bookshelves. They are reviewed by serious critics and studied in university classrooms. A medium once considered trash has been transformed into a respectable, if not elite, genre. While the American comics of the past were about hyperbolic battles between good and evil, most of today’s graphic novels focus on everyday personal experiences. Contemporary culture is awash with stuff. They give vivid expression to a culture preoccupied with the processes of circulation and appraisal, accumulation and possession. By design, comics encourage the reader to scan the landscape, to pay attention to the physical objects that fill our lives and constitute our familiar surroundings. Because comics take place in a completely fabricated world, everything is there intentionally. Comics are stuff; comics tell stories about stuff; and they display stuff. When we use the phrase “and stuff” in everyday speech, we often mean something vague, something like “etcetera.” In this book, stuff refers not only to physical objects, but also to the emotions, sentimental attachments, and nostalgic longings that we express—or hold at bay—through our relationships with stuff. In Comics and Stuff, his first solo authored book in over a decade, pioneering media scholar Henry Jenkins moves through anthropology, material culture, literary criticism, and art history to resituate comics in the cultural landscape. Through over one hundred full-color illustrations, using close readings of contemporary graphic novels, Jenkins explores how comics depict stuff and exposes the central role that stuff plays in how we curate our identities, sustain memory, and make meaning. Comics and Stuff presents an innovative new way of thinking about comics and graphic novels that will change how we think about our stuff and ourselves.
Alias the Cat was previously published as three separate comic books under the names The Stuff of Dreams, the Stuff of Dreams #2, and the Stuff of Dreams #3."--T.p. verso.
In 1976, a fledgling magazine held forth the the idea that comics could be art. In 2016, comics intended for an adult readership are reviewed favorably in the New York Times, enjoy panels devoted to them at Book Expo America, and sell in bookstores comparable to prose efforts of similar weight and intent. We Told You So: Comics as Art is an oral history about Fantagraphics Books’ key role in helping build and shape an art movement around a discredited, ignored and fading expression of Americana. It includes appearances by Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Harlan Ellison, Stan Lee, Daniel Clowes, Frank Miller, and more.
Comic Book Collections and Programming will help librarians build a collection that’s right for their library, including specialty collections for kids, teens, and adults. It covers the practical realities of this non-traditional format, like binding, weeding, and budgeting. It also address advanced topics like comics and pedagogy, bringing comics artists and authors into the library, and using comics as a community outreach tool – even hosting comic conventions in libraries. The guide covers: Comics for kids, teens, and adults. Comics genres from superheroes to fantasy to Manga; from memoirs and biographies to science texts to Pulitzer Prize winning literature. Comics publishers and distributors. Comics history and influential contemporary creators. Online resources and communities. After reading the guide, librarians will be able to: Organize creator visits and events. Plan and produce community anthologies. Host drawing parties and comic discussion groups. Preserve comics in a library environment Develop, run, and grow a library-based comic convention. This is an essential reference for collections librarians, children’s librarians, and teen librarians, whether they are comics-lovers or have never read an issue. The guide is aimed at public, academic, and school libraries.
Launched on his latest investigation by a remark from his brother about a shared childhood favorite (“Y’know, I heard that when Smilin’ Ed died... his body was never found!”), Deitch begins to uncover some truly amazing things about the kiddie-show host and his malevolent sidekick, Froggy the Gremlin. Meanwhile, Deitch’s muse and nemesis Waldo the Cat abandons Deitch to hang out with some demon buddies, and soon both Waldo and Deitch are closing in on the mysteries of Smilin’ Ed and Froggy. Ranging across the entire twentieth century, replete with flashbacks, stories within stories, and guest appearances from other Deitch regulars, The Search for Smilin’ Ed! is a narrative whirligig that shows Deitch at his wildest and woolliest. For those whose heads have started to spin at the complexity of “Deitch world,” Deitch scholar Bill Kartalopoulos offers a lengthy essay on the ins and outs of this ever-evolving, ever-expanding world where fantasy, reality, and satire combine, clash, and are sometimes downright indistinguishable. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.9px Arial; color: #424242}
All Waldo Comics is a completely different sort of cat book. Waldo is a secret agent, a murderer, an alcoholic hallucination, a drug-fiend and a big blue cat with the number 1 one his belly. These are the adventures of Waldo the Cat from 1969 to the present. Kim Deitch is the best-kept secret in the avant-comix world. He's been going at it for 25 years, with only a cult following to support him, yet his work is astounding.' - Art Spiegelman'
Over a hundred years ago, a scout ship from a mysterious alien vessel crash-landed on Earth, where it was discovered by a seven-year-old boy named Al Ledicker. And so begins the confounding series of events that Kim Deitch, veteran underground cartoonist and creator of Pantheon's acclaimed graphic novel The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, has been chronicling for the last 20 years in a series of interrelated stories that have appeared in a variety of magazines—and now finally collected into one book. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.9px Arial; color: #424242}
The main aim of this book is to discuss various modes of studying and defining the medieval self, based on a wide span of sources from medieval Western Scandinavia, c. 800-1500, such as archeological evidence, architecture and art, documents, literature, and runic inscriptions. The book engages with major theoretical discussions within the humanities and social sciences, such as cultural theory, practice theory, and cognitive theory. The authors investigate how the various approaches to the self influence our own scholarly mindsets and horizons, and how they condition what aspects of the medieval self are 'visible' to us. Utilizing this insight, we aim to propose a more syncretic approach towards the medieval self, not in order to substitute excellent models already in existence, but in order to foreground the flexibility and the complementarity of the current theories, when these are seen in relationship to each other. The self and how it relates to its surrounding world and history is a main concern of humanities and social sciences. Focusing on the theoretical and methodological flexibility when approaching the medieval self has the potential to raise our awareness of our own position and agency in various social spaces today.
