Did the past century belong to Tintin? That’s the suggestion in Pierre Assouline’s new biography Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin when Assouline, using redundant hedges, writes, “some speak with some justification of a ‘Tintin century,’ signfying the 20th.” Writer and Vanity Fair editor Bruce Handy, writing in The New York Times…

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There’s much to quibble over in Abram’s big, beautiful The Art of Harvey Kurtzman (the “man” in Kurtzman isn’t spelled out but drawn as  simplistic balloon-stick figure). Why include the complete “Superduperman” from Mad no. 4 (1953) instead of  samples from “Dragged Net!,” the parody of television’s cigarette-selling, L.A Cop promoting…

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In the beginning, Robert Crumb’s work was all parody and cartoonish variation. Over the decades, he has breathed form into his illustration, bringing detail and something, at times, approaching realism while maintaining his characteristic style prickly-male legs and ponderous female thighs. The Book of Genesis Illustrated is his longest, most ambitious creation…

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The best thing about The Best American Series’ The Best American Comics is that it reminds us of comics we enjoyed a couple years ago. Anyone who stays half-way current  with alternative comics and graphic novels will have seen a good portion of what’s in each edition of this four-year…

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It’s fitting–or maybe ironic– that Fahrenheit 451,  favorite of high school librarians everywhere, has been turned into a graphic novel. About half-way through Ray Bradbury’s familiar story of a world where books are put to the torch, Fire Captain Beatty tells the story’s wavering central character, Guy Montag, how books…

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The Rabbit thought he’d caught a superhero–book jacket designer and author Chip Kidd– in a contradiction. In a recent interview for the New York Times‘ “The Moment” blog, Kidd discusses how the cover he designed for The Dark Knight Returns can be seen in any comic book store “instantly at 200…

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The Beats of America’s 1950s stood far apart from the duty-bound, God-and-country, organizational-man times. It didn’t take long for the commercial culture to assimilate them in a wave of berets and bongos. The poetry, novels and art of the true counter-culture known as Beat is an honest reflection of American spirit and independence, commercial culture be damned.

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The Rabbit loved superheroes as a kid but seldom identified with them. It took growing up to do that. I was well into my 20s before I realized that every mild-mannered male had a secret identity, if not a colorful leotard with or without the requisite “S.”

I was somewhere in…

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Comics are the perfect vehicle for memoir, both fictional and…well, is there any other kind? Ames and Haspiel’s The Alcoholic takes full advantage of illustration’s ability for aggrandizement and visual parody. Cartoonist Haspiel (American Splendor) draws Ames’ sodden narrative with stylistic humor and consitent exaggeration. “A.” has razor-sharp features (that nose!) and…

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A sideshow of lost personalities, Abandoned Cars follows folks who have discarded the American dream and created their own nightmare.

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