[GJR]≫ [PDF] HandDrying in America And Other Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Ben Katchor 9780307906908 Books

HandDrying in America And Other Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Ben Katchor 9780307906908 Books

Download As PDF : HandDrying in America And Other Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Ben Katchor 9780307906908 Books

HandDrying in America And Other Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Ben Katchor 9780307906908 Books

I really enjoyed these stories. I wasn't sure the color would work with Katchor's wry writing and dense drawing–his work seems nearly film noir. But I was pleasantly surprised at how the color really amplified the emotion and made the stories even more engaging.

This is a large work and each story (generally just one story per page) is made even more enjoyable in this large format. I really enjoyed being able to relish the frenetic drawings in a size suitable to lengthy perusal. Many stories have a monochromatic feel with sparse color aded for drama. It is a pleasing effect, interspersed with higher chroma stories, and adds a lot of texture to the volume.

The writing is classic Katchor. If you enjoyed any of his previous books you are sure to love this.


Tags : Hand-Drying in America: And Other Stories (Pantheon Graphic Library) [Ben Katchor] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>** Time Magazine</i>'s Best Books of the Year 2013** **NPR's Best Books of the Year 2013** WITH BEAUTIFUL FULL-COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT From one of the most original and imaginative American cartoonists at work today comes a collection of graphic narratives on the subjects of urban planning,Ben Katchor,Hand-Drying in America: And Other Stories (Pantheon Graphic Library),Pantheon,0307906906,Literary,Architecture, Modern - 21st century,City planning,Comic books, strips, etc,Graphic novels,Graphic novels.,Product design,Anthologies,COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS Anthologies,COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS Literary,Comics & Graphic Novels,Comics & Graphic NovelsAnthologies,General Adult,Graphic novels: literary & memoirs,HUMOR Form Comic Strips & Cartoons,Non-Fiction,ReadingsAnthologiesCollected Works,United States,comics; graphic novel; comic; comic book; comic books; graphic; cartoons; comedy; geek; graphic novels for adults; graphic novels; gifts for women; gifts for men; funny books; gifts; gifts for her; gifts for him; graphic novels for kids 12-15; humor; geek gifts; graphic novels for teens; nerd; nerd gifts; gifts for couples; comic anthology; comics anthology; comics anthologies; gifts for comic book lovers; gifts for comic book fans; comic gifts; comic book gifts; art; garfield books; peanuts; mystery; classic; animation,comics;comic;comedy;funny gifts;geek;graphic novels for adults;funny books;white elephant gifts;graphic novels;comic books;graphic novel;humor;geek gifts;graphic novels for kids 12-15;nerd;comic book;graphic novels for teens;comics and graphic novels;nerd gifts;gifts for comic book fans;comic book gifts;gifts for comic book lovers;comic gifts;comic anthology;comics anthology;comics anthologies;funny stocking stuffers;secret santa gifts;art;mystery;graphic;peanuts;garfield books;classic;animation

HandDrying in America And Other Stories Pantheon Graphic Library Ben Katchor 9780307906908 Books Reviews

This book is beautiful and perfect for gifting to the environmentally aware and anybody who's open to looking at what's affecting the environment in a clever way.
Katchor's ability to focus on the mundane and that which is often invisible to the common eye is nothing short of genius. His work is a genuine rarity. He is the van Gogh of cartooned commentary.
I realize that it's been 24 years since the original book from this artist, Cheap Novelties, but his art style has degraded in that time, especially in the second half of this book. Gone are the dreamlike ink washes of Cheap Novelties and The Beauty Supply District that drew you into a noir, rain-soaked and decaying New York. Instead, every page of this book is a riot of bright color that seriously detracts from the linework.

Something also happened halfway through the book. The familiarity of the linework changed to a much thinner style that lost a lot of life. The stories changed from New York-centered "imaginary nostalgia" of absurd architecture, failed salesmen and middle-aged sorts with regret to much less interesting scenarios with characters of the "shallow fashionable young gay male crowd" types one finds in pop culture and scenarios in places such as Florida. The dark luncheonettes and subways are gone, it becomes all airy lofts and sparse spaces.

The artist seems to have lost his way and lost his magic touch for the inkwashed nostalgic New York of his earlier works, and that's unfortunate. If someone is unfamiliar with Katchor, give them a copy of Cheap Novelties instead. This one would not get them hooked.
I am a long time fan of Ben Katchor's. I love the nostalgia and the style reminds me of 1940 films. Sometime I imagine them and black and white (and then I found The Beauty Supply District). Mr Katchor is one of my favorite artists and writers.
No one like Katchor, with his world that is both super-real and fantastic at the same time. And the drawing and perspectives are wonderful too.
Ben Katchor is one of the greatest hidden treasures of American illustration art. His fables, while occasionally inscrutable, always hit home in terms of mood and the human condition. In addition he is one of the world's great colorists--I cannot recommend this book too highly.
It looks like a graphic novel. The Library of Congress catalogues it as a graphic novel, but it doesn't quack like a graphic novel. So just what is "Hand-Drying in America"? It is a royal quarto-sized (12 inches by 11 ½ inches) coffee table book that brings together fifteen years of Katchor's "graphic commentary" on today's city scape for "Metropolis" magazine. All told, 159 pieces (plus the covers, see below) consisting of anywhere from eight to 23 panels, with the norm somewhere in the middle. They appeared monthly from 1998 to 2012. Go to metropolismag.com to see the most recent piece. Typically, Katchor employs an oversized panel in each strip to highlight his subject. For example, the title piece, "Hand-Drying in America", begins with an enlarged panel showing the range of hand-dryers confronting a restaurant restroom patron.

The editors of "Metropolis" made an inspired choice when they engaged Katchor to provide his monthly takes on the foibles and follies of urban design. As we know from his "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer" series, he doesn't miss a thing. He has an unerring eye for the whacky and whimsical notions that find expression in our cities. From "The Symbolic Building" ("As the most dimwitted passerby can see, the building's form echoes that of a humble shoe-fitting bench") to the self-defeating urge to bring each square inch of buildable space to the bottom line, "Under the Bed" --"It was the last virgin floor space in our home", he doesn't miss a thing.

There are three two-page pieces in the collection. The first, "What Bruno Yule Heard" picks up on the farfetched claims made by an apartment building developer to transform the lack of adequate soundproofing into a benefit "The sound of human copulation is a touch of nature in untrammeled form." And trammeled nature, faux foliage, gets its ten seconds of fame in "The False Forest". "For the edification and pleasure of the nation's 40 million hay fever sufferers . . . a vast collection of artificial trees has been assembled in a six-acre tract in southern New Jersey." In a similar vein see "Peabold's Field Guide to Air Conditioners of North America."

Katchor also takes on the costs of corrupt, over-zealous and ultimately self-defeating zoning and planning regulation. In "Rules and Regulations of the Necropolis" he makes fun of restrictions placed on cemetery monuments and in "Two Violations" he deals with the backlash from bribery that defeats enforcement of height restrictions - "two floors too many."

Do not overlook the front and back covers and the accompanying endpapers, copyright and title page. Here we have Katchor telling a story dealing with the environmental and other excesses involved in publishing "luxurious `
'art' books" like the one you are about to read. His narrator, one Josef Fuss, asks "Are these few moments of literary and visual pleasure we enjoy via books worth all the human suffering and environmental depredation?" Katchor raises similar questions in "The Tragic History of the Oversized Magazine", observing "Their destiny is linked to the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, the Porterhouse steak, the zoot suit and other material excesses of history."

End note. In his back cover blurb, David Kunzle, the author of "The Early Comic Strip", describes Katchor as "a Rudolphe Topffer redivivus meandering story line, satire of tourism and odd scientific language and claims, non sequiturs, bizarre translocations." In case you didn't know (I didn't) Topffer (1799-1846) is considered "an important precursor to the modern art form of comics." "Redivivus" means "come back to life". You may read my reviews of earlier Katchor work by clicking on "See all My Reviews" and paging back to those posted on September 9, 2012 ("The Cardboard Valise"); August 31, 2012 ("Cheap Novelties") and August 25, 2012 ("Julius Knipl Real Estate Photographer Stories").
I really enjoyed these stories. I wasn't sure the color would work with Katchor's wry writing and dense drawing–his work seems nearly film noir. But I was pleasantly surprised at how the color really amplified the emotion and made the stories even more engaging.

This is a large work and each story (generally just one story per page) is made even more enjoyable in this large format. I really enjoyed being able to relish the frenetic drawings in a size suitable to lengthy perusal. Many stories have a monochromatic feel with sparse color aded for drama. It is a pleasing effect, interspersed with higher chroma stories, and adds a lot of texture to the volume.

The writing is classic Katchor. If you enjoyed any of his previous books you are sure to love this.