There was a time in the 1980s/90s when tape recording was available on the cheap to consumers. Anyone with a tape deck would have the power to record mixed-tapes. You’d be able to record from the radio or other professionally recorded tapes or vinyl records. A certain type of sonic craft came about from this [...]
I thank the America which lets me talk and write freely about people and events which I shall never forget. —Taro Yashima This is the quote which introduces a defining account of the life of the artist Iwamatsu Jun’s graphic memoir, “The New Sun”. He had to practice his trade as a painter under the alias of [...]
The levity at which Shaun Tan weaves visually in “The Arrival” is something that makes his illustrative style an enjoyment to read, though this previous book had not a decipherable word to consume. I don’t state that as a critque—his construct was actually intentional. As with The Arrival the structure of the suburban landscape based [...]
Even before you open this large-format graphic novel, your first take is absorbing the beauty of this hard-bound book. The cover appears something of a tattered leather-bound volume denoting the ravages of age or just heavy use. Here, we are introduced to the author’s first metaphor of the protagonist’s migrant experience. This character endures a [...]
A tepid reader who first gazes upon this book may shy away from breaching its pages. The captivating collages of magazine cutouts, mammalian illustrations mounted in magic and glittered fascination of a helpful cephalopod can seem discordant for most, but the celebrated world Lynda Barry has created for the imagination and inspiration is actually most [...]
