From the monthly archives:

January 2010

JD’s gone, one more round, JD’s gone

Salinger died.  Just four books and fragments we know of. As Sontag said, the point’s not to keep writing books.  It’s to write a book that lasts.
I got split as a teen not by the Catcher but Franny & Zooey, all sure on breath and falling out of the world.  Now I think I’ll go back [...]

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Good-Bye by Tatsumi

This review of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Good-Bye first appeared in the January 2009 issue of The Comics Journal (#295). A few things have changed since then– Tatsumi’s book A Drifting Life has won some acclaim home & abroad, but my read of his work’s the same.
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Using ink and metaphor like cudgels, Yoshihiro Tatsumi never lacked clarity.  [...]

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Jason Epstein on the Book Apocalypse

Jason Epstein ran Vintage Books and Anchor, co-founded the NYRB.  Lately he’s involved with the company behind the Espresso Book Machine, a POD device, and appeared on Charlie Rose with a slump when forced to admit that yes, many (most) book industry jobs are just about obsolete.
He looks far less uncomfortable than the superannuated media [...]

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Continental Shelf

I fell for Nouvelle Vague movies for the shelves…

…thinking, “everyone in France must have shelves in their walls. Truly a land of wonders.”  So Virginia Gardiner’s profile of a French apartment in Dwell magazine reminds me of them in no small way:

Gardiner compares the rhythmic boxes and white spaces between to comics panels.  One thinks [...]

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