Ordinary Victories: What is Precious By Manu Larcenet NBM/ComicsLit, August 2008, $15.95 [[[Ordinary Victories]]], in France, is a series of four graphic novels about a photographer named Marco Louis. TheyâÂÂve been very successful, selling hundreds of thousands of copies of each book. But those books are each only about sixty pages long, so theyâÂÂve been…
Illustrator and ComicMix pal Bo Hampton recently passed along the following thoughts on this week’s death of Rob Maisch, the celebrated author of Confessions of a Cereal Eater: Rob Maisch, the extraordinary raconteur who wrote 1995’s Harvey and Eisner nominated "Confessions of a Cereal Eater," published by NBM and illustrated by Rob’s friends, Bo Hampton…
Little Nothings: The Curse of the Umbrella Lewis Trondheim NBM/ComicsLit, 2007, $14.95 Trondheim is one of the major comics creators of France, responsible for the Dungeon series, Mr. O, and A.L.I.E.E.N., among others. At least, that’s what NBM tells me – I have to admit that I’ve never read his stuff before. Little Nothings is…
The Museum Vaults is the second of four graphic novels created through an unlikely publishing partnership: noted American art-comics publisher NBM and France’s cultural powerhouse museum the Louvre. All four of the stories will be about the Louvre in some way; the first book, Nicholas De Crecy’s Glacial Period, was published early in 2007. Museum…
Today I’ve got three books that either are for kids or look like they should be, so, if any of you are allergic to greasy kids stuff, just move on to the next post. [[[Dinosaurs Across America]]] is the new book by Phil Yeh, who has spent the last two decades promoting literacy…
This past month has been a very busy one for me. I’ve been out of town three times, twice on business, and I’ve attended two trade shows and three comics conventions. It’s a lot of time to be thrust into crowds of people, whether waiting at an airport, a synagogue, a taxi line or a…
My husband really liked the column I did on Mothers’ Day (Brilliant Disguise #4). My stepmother also liked it. As a result, I feel a huge amount of pressure this week, as Fathers’ Day approaches. Perhaps this is as it should be. Fathers, at least in literature, exert pressure. So do mothers, but fathers are…
This may come as something of a shock, but tomorrow night is the last episode of The Sopranos. Now, I’m not the world’s most dedicated fan. I came late to the party, not tuning in regularly until the second season. I tend to be suspicious of critical darlings, afraid they might be uplifting and good…
When I was a teenager, the environment of my hometown became poisonous. To save me, my parents sent me to an alien environment that seemed to be a universe away, filled with people so different from me they might have been a different species altogether. No one knew anything about my home, nor about my…
Once a week, I volunteer in the pediatric department of a local hospital. I teach knitting to kids and caregivers. I’d like to say I do this because I’m a spiritual person, more evolved than you – better, in fact – but that’s not true. I do it because it’s the best part of my…
There is hardly anything more annoying than listening to a bunch of us Baby Boomers talking about the good old days: the music, the sex, the drugs, the sit-ins and be-ins and love-ins, even the comics. We act like we invented rebellion, and we don’t think anyone else will ever care about the world as…
The horrific events this week at Virginia Tech have elicited the usual pompous political rhetoric about the evils of Hollywood entertainment – violent video games, rap music, movies and television are to blame. “Our kids are being trained to be murderers,” thunder the politicians. “They learn to shoot at their enemies instead of reasoning with…
