I love Art Spiegelman (perhaps you saw that I ranked him as the most important contemporary graphic novelist in an earlier post? It's not like that's a revolutionary statement to make, or anything, though he may not like the term "graphic novelist.") and have been reading selections of his newest autobiographical book Breakdowns since my UVa days (the shorts appeared in VQR, or Virginia Quarterly Review).
Here's some information on the book from the Pantheon newsletter "Notes from Hillary." Thanks, Hillary, for adding me to your distribution list! :)
You'll have to wait until October 7 to get your copy of Breakdowns but, as those of you who saw the excerpt in the September 15 issue of The New Yorker know, it's well worth it. Breakdowns is the chronicle of Art Spiegelman's story, told in three ways—in 20 pages of new comix that give us the story of his evolution from a MAD–comics obsessed boy to a neurotic adult examining the effect of his parents' memories in Auschwitz on his own son, in a section on the work that he did in the 1970s as an underground comix artist, and in an illustrated essay that looks back at the sixties as Art pushes sixty and explains the obsessions that brought his works into being. Funny, complex, inventive and poignant, Breakdowns is everything you've come to expect from Art Spiegelman. You won't want to miss it. And, you don't want to miss the opportunity to hear Art speak, either. Starting on October 7, he'll be crisscrossing the country and making appearances in Austin, New York, California, Philadelphia, and everywhere in between. If you're in the New York area, you can also catch Art at this year's New Yorker Festival. He'll be giving a talk called "Breakdowns: Comix 101" on Saturday, October 4 at 4:30 pm. Purchase your tickets here.
No comments:
Post a Comment