Almost No Memory, Lydia Davis
Minor Leagues #1, Simon Moreton
Hand-Made Facsimile, Tym Godek
Some Gags Involving Mirrors, Tym Godek
TEOFTW, Charles Forsman
Flesh and Bone, Julia Gfrörer
Watching Days Become Years #4, Jeff LeVine
Department of Art, Dunja Jankovic
Habitat, Dunja Jankovic
Zona 01, ed. Frank Santoro
The Santoro School Handbook for Making Better Comics, Frank Santoro and Kurt Ankeny
The Experts, Sophie Franz
Late Bloomer, Maré Odomo
Too many comics this month, I think. Though most of these are short so maybe I’m wrong. In any case, I’ll aim for more prose over the summer and also try to spend more time with the comics I do read. Though there are some great ones in this list I’d like to write about both The Experts and Minor Leagues if I can figure out how to say things in the way I want to say them.
Plus Late Bloomer…it really hit me hard. I don’t want to reread it too soon. I took it with me when I left the house the other day and read it on the train. Then I held it carefully in my hand – or really just in two fingers – and I walked. It was a hot afternoon and I was worried the pages would get warped. I thought about the book a lot and then I didn’t think about it but I was still holding it in my hand.
On some level I was expecting Internet Comics: The Book but it isn’t that, really. Though now I want to go back and reread those comics as well. Actually all of the Sacred Prism books are great – I think a carefully curated, small set of artists working in a constrained format is a great way to structure a collection. It’s a big part of what I like about Ley Lines too.
In terms of my own work, it looks like two of my biggest projects this year will be ‘sequels’ (loosely defined) to things from last year. I’m okay with that but I wasn’t really expecting it. So an interesting thing to be confronted with now. Trying to be careful about new ideas vs. old ideas. Trying to be careful about time. Thinking about Kevin Huizenga on light and shadow, which stuck in my mind first because I didn’t understand what it meant, and then because it probably means something very different to me than what he was trying to communicate. Language.