The new SKETCHBOOKS: THE HIDDEN ART OF DESIGNERS, ILLUSTRATORS & CREATIVES (Laurence King Publishers), edited by Richard Brereton, does what its title suggests, collecting dashed-off scraps and procrastinatory whimsy from an array of (mostly European) artists. Their eye-popping, sometimes beautiful doodles — studies, cross-outs, multimedia collages, dirty scribbles — may not have been meant for publication, but they offer an intimate glimpse into artists’ frustrations and inspirations.
WHIFF: Harvard biomedical-engineering professor David Edwards continues his own twist on manga with a story about the aerosolizing of food. |
In the laboriously drawn THE SQUIRREL MACHINE (Fantagraphics), unfairly talented Massachusetts native Hans Rickheit inks his pages in a detailed and disciplined style; he uses pens he buys at the grocery store, but his dark, evocative panels end up looking like precisely carved woodcuts. Rickheit’s surreal and shape-shifting narrative — which concerns two peculiar brothers with unusual musical tastes — is entrancingly visual and, at times, viscerally unsettling.
One of the fictional Torpor brothers’ hobbies is taxidermy — an unfortunate version of which plays a role in STUFFED! (First Second). Illustrator Nick Bertozzi and Colbert Report writer Glenn Eichler offer a good-hearted, brightly colored look at racial and family dynamics. Their tale is set in motion when a curio-museum owner leaves a dust-covered African “statue” as part of his inheritance to his two very different sons.
A few months back, I told you about the Boston Comics Roundtable, an informal collective/support group of Hub cartoonists. BCR founder Dave Kender recently put out his own fine debut, THE RAGBOX, VOLUME 1 (available at theragbox.com). The ongoing project — in the spirit of the Roundtable — is collaborative, with Kender penning the storyline and artists Mark Hamilton, Braden T. Lamb, and Matthew Reinke taking turns illustrating the chapters, which trace the reverberating ramifications of a family tragedy.
This year also saw the publication of the 39th issue of the venerable semi-annual WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED (worldwar3illustrated.org). The current volume is well worth seeking out for its stark and sometimes disturbing art by Peter Kuper and Kevin Pyle (who edit), Matt Mahurin, Ryan Inzana, Eric Drooker, and other politically aware artists whose black ink is well suited to these dark times.
Quite a different compendium is DRUNK (vegasdrunk.com), which was compiled by Las Vegan Michael Ogilvie. As the title suggests, it’s a collection of cartoons about bacchanalian bibulation. The ink-stained sots who’ve contributed to the party include new talents (Jim Pink, Noelle Garcia) and alternative-comics legends (Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti). None of the cartoons was sketched on a napkin, but that would have been a great idea.
Don’t miss another collection from Sin City, either: the first volume of CROWBARS DON’T KILL PEOPLE . . . CROWBARS DO by a drunken collective (I think) called “Matian” (brokennoses.com). Drawn in a messy style vaguely reminiscent of Mad magazine’s Don Martin — if Martin’s hand were, say, shaking uncontrollably from the DTs — the book’s debauched set pieces and wickedly funny one-panel non sequiturs earn its self-bestowed sobriquet “the coffee-table book for assholes.”
