Home > Commentary and Features

Preview—Brian Chippendale and Julie Doucet Book Launch 11-15
posted November 12, 2006
 

I think the thing that connects the new works by Brian Chippendale (Ninja) and Julie Doucet (Elle-Humour) beyond their publisher (PictureBox, Inc.) is that each asks for one's attention to picture-making, existing at a place in comics' splendidly chaotic landscape in the where a lot of us comics fans feel uncomfortable, that which borders the realm of straight-up visual art. The publisher's description for Ninja, with its many pages of clearly recognizable comics, includes the phrase "half art book, half graphic novel." I would like to think that we're at the point as readers where rigid categorization doesn't matter as much as artistic impact, or, if you prefer, where our faith in the power of media allows for strange, almost foreign effects to press in on the kind of things we pick up more easily. Or, barring all that dormitory hallway stuff, that it's still fun to look at cool pictures.

Even if you're okay with my meager, contrast-destroying Photoshop skills and the limited number of formats accepted by my steampowered computer and its operating systems written in Victorian English, you'll have to forgive the quality of the following pictures -- heck, just by being virtual representatives of the art you're going to miss out on the textural quality that many of Doucet's choices have, and the role that presentational size plays with Chippendale's art. Still, I hope that you'll enjoy a look inside these new books as much as I did.

Brian Chippendale and Julie Doucet will appear at Montreal's Zoobizarre this Wednesday, November 15, at 7 PM, and Chippendale will be playing as Black Pus. You should go if you can!

*****
*****

Brian Chippendale







*****
*****

Julie Doucet















*****
*****

Ninja, Brian Chippendale, PictureBox, $34.95, 1584232471
Elle-Humour, Julie Doucet, PictureBox, $39.95, 1584232463