About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Madeline Gins, Ed. by Lucy Ives
Rave Brooklyn Rail ...expertly edited and introduced by Lucy Ives ... No matter how abstract the text becomes, Gins never forgets our body reading ... It’s the gaps and fallibility of language that give it power in the hands of a reader willing to be confused; a reader willing to make meaning as both a writer and a reader, fully embodying the book. In these uncertain times of social isolation, when many of us will spend more time with a book, Gins’s writing captures what we crave from that experience—one that is physically and mentally all-encompassing. While The Reversible Destiny Project may not have succeeded in giving Gins or her partner eternal life, The Madeline Gins Reader does. With each reading we embody her words and write Gins anew, giving her life within the pages of the book and ourselves. \'I\'ve read enough. I\'ll read more. I held the manuscript in my hand. I shook it. Not a word came out.\'
Adrian Tomine
Rave Hyperallergic Adrian Tomine is a master of the short, graphic vignette that leaves an impression ... The book reads as a series of remembrances, heightened by a design scheme that mimics a graph-paper sketchbook ... Certain scenes are excruciatingly awkward and funny ... Tomine’s pacing — brilliant throughout and especially here— offers the reader just enough to feel his range of emotions, taking us from loneliness and discomfort to laughter in just a few panels.
Gina Siciliano
Positive Hyperallergic In the hands of artist Gina Siciliano, the story of Artemisia Gentileschi is more than a history of the most prominent female painter of the Renaissance, whose interpretations of the myth of Judith slaying Holofernes empower women. It is a densely layered tale of sociopolitical changes in 17th-century Italy, Spain, and England, of a mother and sexual assault survivor, and of a woman passionately committed to a life in art ... the most powerful spreads convey the internal struggles of a strong woman, eventually a mother of two daughters, determined to protect them from her own fate ... Without falling prey to the trope of artistic achievement through trauma, this intensely detailed visual biography does justice to a still undervalued artist.
Matthew Thurber
Positive Hyperallergic Thurber favors a minimalist cartooning style for most of the book. But certain spreads showcase his artistic skill, particularly those that break the multi-panel form in favor of two-page spreads ... Thurber doesn’t leave us with a clean moral, or tidy ending to his series of comic jabs. Art Comic closes with the lines, \'THE CREATIVE ACT SHALL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER THE DEATH CULTURE OF CAPITAL.\' The book itself doesn’t seem to substantiate this claim, as character after character struggles to be creative against mitigating forces ... reveal[s] deep sincerity beneath the ridicule.
Karen Green
Positive Los Angeles Review of Books The narrative is unsettling, the danger of women’s sexuality, even as children, looms over the entire story ... Many of the notes are typed on scraps of paper, hymn booklets from church...envelopes from letters received, and studio portrait photographs. When the text is typed on top of existing text, as with hymns, Green is careful to avoid complete illegibility, instead creating a multilayered reading experience. This collaging of materials is both familiar and jarring: locks of hair are affixed to sweet notes as tokens next to photos of soldiers whose faces are scratched over with messages indicating their deaths ... Connie refutes the myth of quiet femininity to tell a story of extreme suffering, often at the hands of men ... The designs and cute doodles sit against a narrative of painful trauma, a physical ripping apart and sewing back together ... Green shows us how, after years of abuse and neglect, a woman can hold on and sustain herself. Though fictional, Green’s elegant collaging of image and text makes for a compelling story that stands in for so many women’s lives cut short by the whims of men and the objectification of their bodies.
Olivier Kugler
Rave Los Angeles Review of Books \"... extraordinary ... Kugler frequently places people at the center of busy pages, their faces caught mid-conversation, arms descriptively raised in dialogue. These depictions open up to us, welcoming us into the densely packed and complex lives that the refugees relate in their stories ... This ability to put the reader in the midst of events is an essential quality of effective graphic journalism, which often makes visible otherwise invisible personal narratives ... Kugler’s style brings us back to the personal lived experiences of the families, young people, and elders whose lives have forever been displaced by revolution and relocation.\
Teju Cole
Rave The Los Angeles Review of Books Teju Cole’s latest project is one of contradictions: between form and content; word and image; seen and unseen; known and unknown … The book is diachronic, requiring temporal progression — the turning of pages — each spread containing a single image and single text. Though Cole includes locations, he’s removed all dates, preventing the effect of a travel log and allowing the ebb and flow of motifs to create connections … Cole’s juxtapositions of form and content — words and pictures — make us freshly see the genres, places, and everyday occurrences we thought we knew.