PX96: Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer

Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer by Ben Katchor (276x215mm)

This book (published by Little, Brown) was exquisitely designed by Katchor himself. He sounded pretty disappointed with the design of his first book (from Penguin), so it’s understandable that he wanted to do it all himself this time around.

The first book had a slightly gimmicky design with an object that took up portions of each page, which meant that the strips themselves were reproduced in a pretty small format. In this book you can actually see all the details in Katchor’s artwork, and really enjoy the sensitive brushed grey tones.

The tribulations of a lobby designer… Each page is its own little story — complete with new characters, some drama, something funny: It’s exhausting to read this book. After reading ten of these, my mind just kinda shuts off, because not only are the pieces so rich in content; they’re sufficiently dreamlike that they have a soporific effect.

In a good way! They strips are never boring; they’re relentlessly inventive, but it took me an entire night to read this 100 page book.

I mean… that logic…

Don’t give Jeff Bezos any ideas!

Finally, we get a sixteen page story about… a newspaper that only prints dreams, and we’ve kinda come full circle: The dreaminess underlying all these strips becomes the actual subject.

Reading this book puts you (I mean me) in a very peculiar state of mind. Everything seems to grow silent; everything slows down a bit. It’s kinda magical.

Gil Roth writes in The Comics Journal #201, page 21:

THE DELIBERATE TOURIST

[…]

With accompanying panels from
his strips continuously projected
behind him, he immediately draws
the audience into his fictive city,
which is always New York, no
matter how different the names
The first half of the lecture
discusses the importance of remain-
ing a tourist in one’s own city. The
speaker raises to epiphany the mo-
ment of approaching an intersection
from an unfamiliar direction, a con-
cept that informed the entire evening.
Progress and man’s reaction to it are
the basis for most ofthejokes and the
false histories.
I don’t mean to treat the pro-
gram as a serious lecture. Still less do
I want the speaker to be mistaken
(necessarily) for Ben Katchor; the
man who vigorously inveighed
against the travel industry and the
Galyak travel agency in particular
that evening bore little resemblance
to the soft-spoken, perpetually
rumpled individual who afterward
signed copies of his books and drew
head-shots of Julius Knipl looking at
something in the middle distance.
First and foremost, the lecture is an
entertainment, filled with Katchor’s
strange characters, places and prod-
ucts. Harold Alms, impromptu
speaker, is mentioned, as is the
American Tapeworm Sanctuary
over on Purkinje Island.

[…]

One further note: as enjoyable as
the lecture was, the audience was a
story in itself. In opposition to a
traditional comics-related event,
Katchor’s lecture was attended by
elderly couples, orthodox Jews,
middle-aged men in suits, and only
the occasional twenty-something
comics reader (like your humble cor-
respondent). Prior to the lecture, a
number of attendees discussed the
significance of the Julius Knipl com-
ics in their lives. Several recounted
their “first time,” reciting the text of
the strips verbatim. The reverence in
their voices offered up some (al-
though probably deluded) hope for a
mature comics readership.

The Comics Journal #186, page 24:

NPR axes Julius Knipl

The monthly radio drama based on Ben
Katchor’s Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photog-
rapher strip has been canceled by National
Public Radio after one season. Katchor and
Weekend Edition producer Cindy Carpien
said that from the beginning, the show failed
to generate much response from listeners,
which Carpien termed highly unusual both
for NPR and for such a unique show.
“We felt that this was something different
and wonderful,” she said, “and that eventu-
ally people would understand it and come to
like it.”
But that never happened on the scale
those involved with the program had hoped
for. For the occasional Knipl nay-sayer, the
last straw came with the next-to-last install-
ment of the show, which featured an imagi-
nary telephone book containing the gas-
trointestinal condition of everyone in the
city.
“I guess if you missed the first 15 sec-
onds, it sounded like One long bathroom
joke,” Katchor said.
The result was a handful of e-mail mes-
sages, wondering how NPR could stoop so
low as to put such “toilet humor” program-
ming on the air. But Carpien emphasized that
it wasn’t the negative comments about Julius
Knipl that bothered her but the lack of com-
ments in general — ‘ ‘in the end, most people
didn’t get it,” she said.
Ironically, after Carpien and Julius Knipl
producer David Isay made the decision to
cancel the show, the announcement prompted
“a flood of response” from people in support
of the show, although Carpien said the reac-
tion was still only a small percentage of the
audience.
Fans of the show, however, can take heart
. that a collection of the episodes will eventu-
ally be released on compact disc. And
Katchor plans to experiment with Julius
Knipl in yet another format, as he hopes to
put together an animated version of the strip
using many of same performers who worked
on the radio show.

This apparently never happened? I wasn’t able to find the CD, anyway.

Greg Stump writes in The Comics Journal #190, page 130:

When first happened
upn Ben KatcWs vwrk
a few years ago in a
weekly paper, my
reaction was one of complete indifference. Nm•,’ that
I’m cornpletely comerted, I feel obracFd to enthusztkally
recommend Katchor’s second collection of Julius Knipl,
Real Estate Photographer Strips — partially out Of
embarrassment for not having appreciated the str$s
brilliance Sooner. but also because reading such a
concentrated dose Of Ketchor might instantaneously do
the trick for someone else.

[…]

As for Katchor’s art, there’s something seamless
about the way it blends in with the content of the
strip. The weary, tilted lettenng and washed-out greys
both serve to reinforce the melancholy that envelops
Julius Knipl. Still. it’s hard to identify or
describe what makes this latest book — which, by the
way, contains a 17.paqe Story unlike anything seen
before from Katchor —so powerful for me. Do
yourself a favor and buy it.

Man, that’s bad OCR.

The Comics Journal #210, page 60:

TOP 100 COMICS
no -56
Julius Knipl, Real Estate
Photographer
1988-Present
BEN KATCHOR

[…]

Julius Knipl, Real Estate
Photographer is, without a doubt
in my mind, the most literate,
intelligent and consistently im-
portant weekly comic strip to
have emerged since Feiffer. That
so few papers and readers have
recognized that fact at this point
is only an indicator Of how
oblivious people become when
they fail to search for the signifi-
cance of what’s right in front of
their noses.

See?

This volume is much wider and taller than the first collection and beautifully presents Katchor’s strips at a generous size, in landscape format, allowing greater involvement with the content.

The book was reviewed positively by the New York Times at the time:

With such tales, Mr. Katchor captures not only the poignancy of lives that have fallen short of expectation, but also the poetry of those seemingly inconsequential lives, sunk in the everydayness of ritual, routine and habit. He has written a funny, touching and compassionate ode to the city and the anonymous people who live there.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

PX89: Akbar and Jeff’s Guide to Life

Akbar and Jeff’s Guide to Life by Matt Groening (229x229mm)

All the previous Life in Hell collections had been themed (Work/Love/School/Childhood), and I guess this one is, too — but it focuses on these characters (“brothers or lovers or both?”, as the saying went in the early days of Life in Hell) instead of, er, a topic.

I feel the humour in the Akbar & Jeff strips is subtly different from the Binky/Bongo strips — the latter are often very personal, with Groening talking about his own life (and especially his childhood) a lot (although somewhat coded). With Akbar & Jeff, Groening is free to be sillier (and funnier, in my opinion).

Hey! Is Bongo a unicorn!?

(I love that glade.)

The main reoccurring gag with Akbar & Jeff is their many, many business ventures. They’re so good at combining ventures: “Yes we sell cooking lard!!!”. It’s no wonder the Washington Post made this comparison:

Heh heh.

Along with the lower personal identification, I guess, comes the freedom to kill off Akbar & Jeff sometimes, which can seem pretty callous in context…

Interestingly, Lynda Barry wrote a version that’s less nihilistic and more touching. But still…

Groening didn’t kill them off a lot, though — are these strips the only ones?

Yeah!

Groening doesn’t do topical political stuff a lot, but weirdly enough, they print a strip from 1984 that comments on the then-recently revealed CIA manual.

I may not have re-read this book since the 80s — I totally forgot that Akbar & Jeff got three nephews (or one nephew and his two friends).

Groening does a comment on AIDS.

Anyway, this is a wonderful book, and (if I remember correctly) the last of the “classic” Life in Hell books… but I guess I’ll find out when I read the next one in a couple of weeks.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

PX12: Daltokyo

Daltokyo by Gary Panter (410x158mm)

Hey! We’re back! I had another two week break from this blog series… which… er… happens in two weeks, according to how many are still in the scheduling queue…

Confusing. But do I remember how to do these blogs now? Did I ever?

If there’s one thing Fantagraphics isn’t known for, it’s making impressive, special physical books: They’re more about content than artefacts. Which makes this book quite special: Not only is it almost a meter wide when opened, but it also starts with four “vellum” (i.e., plastic) overlay pages.

See? Semi-transparent…

… leading to this pencilled map of Mars. It’s cool.

Max Watson does the introduction, and talks about Panter growing up in East Texas.

And then the strip. My god. It’s so well-reproduced and gorgeous. I was so taken by this that when I was teaching myself how to screen-print, that first panel was the first one I made a screen of:

OK, my printing skillz suck, but still pretty awesome, eh? EH!?

The book is physically overwhelming — it’s so wide, heavy and short that you have to use all of your body just to read it.

Oh, yeah, one of the characters here is Okupant X… and Jimbo played Okupant X in a play in that book… very post modern I’m sure.

I just love this artwork. It’s so messy and clean at the same time.

Anyway, this is a heavily narrative strip — it’s got at least half a dozen characters that interact with each other in various ways, and there’s a mystery about some explosions, and there’s an accident and a doctor and… There’s a lot going on, and while perhaps it’s made up as Panter was going along, it really does feel like it’s going somewhere. It’s exciting; it feels vital.

Oh, yeah, that’s the second design I tried doing:

See? I learned.

The plot was getting progressively more confusing, so then Panter did a recap:

Very helpful! I’m sure!

But then… the plot… mostly just stopped?

It’s as if after doing the recap, Panter just lost all interest in continuing, but he did for a few strips…

… and then it’s twelve years later. The first half of this book was done over a year (or so) in 83-84, and then Panter dropped the strip. He picked it back up again in 1996, after Zongo reprinted Daltokyo as part of the Jimbo series.

Perhaps that reminded Panter that Daltokyo existed, so he started it up again? But with a very different art style — the “ratty line” is gone, and it looks more like… er… Kaz now? And Panter doesn’t really attempt to continue any of the various plots, but does carry over a few of the characters.

But it’s mostly just random things, almost all done in four panels. It gets a rhythm going, but it’s pretty nonsensical.

This “new” half of the book was done over a decade (96-07), and the art styles vary a bit. Here Jimbo meets Okupant X.

But this is a more typical strip.

And in the middle of this…

It does get a kinda nonsense rhythm to it? But it feels very gnomic indeed — more private than personal.

So what can I say? The physical book is great. The first half of the strips are gorgeous and effervescent. The second half of the strips… not so much.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

PX92: Nozone #4: Utopia/Dystopia

Nozone #4: Utopia/Dystopia (202x202mm)

I’ve vaguely seen Nozone around, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually read an issue before? But it seems pertinent to my interests, so I got this issue, and we can have a look at it together…

This is a pretty nice little object… it feels well-thought-out and designed. And the die cut in the cover is nice — each page is only printed with one colour, but you get this illusion…

So here’s the editorial by “Staff”, which is possibly Steve Wacksman and Mike Gorman (the credits are pretty vague).

Peter Kuper does a thing…

There’s this long text piece by Fiamifera.

And Mark Marek shows up for this two-pager, too. His style has changed quite a lot from his mid-80s work.

It’s an odd book. Many of the pieces are pretty insubstantial — a straight-up joke like the above, and then there’s portentous pieces about utopias: It doesn’t really cohere as a reading experience.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.