Go, Read: John Kelly On The Alt-Weekly Exhibit At SOI

I liked this piece by John Kelly on the recent alt-comics weekly comics show, which in addition to its singular merits marks a potentially important collaboration between Society Of Illustrators and Small Press Expo. I just sort of like the subject matter, and while I might disagree with some of conclusions in the article I'm very grateful to be discussing that vast area of comics achievement at all.

Alt-Weeklies represented a particularly gratifying way to discover cartoonists up through the mid-1990s: these really strange voices would suddenly appear in one of your regular, big-city must-reads. While there was a disposability to it, sure, there was also this flash effect across a local community because of the important place of the alt-weekly in the firmament of how cities operated for culturally-invested souls. I was working in an art gallery when Chris Ware's work first started appearing in a local Chicago publication and people of every orientation and background were very, "Did you see this strip...?" in a way I haven't experienced since. There's almost a greater balkanization of readership and taste within the hardcore comics community than there was within the general local/regional arts culture in which these strips appeared. We'll likely never get that back.

that's just two panels from a random Michael Kupperman strip that made me laugh when I read it in a giant and unwieldy newspaper while consuming an omelet
 
posted 5:25 pm PST | Permalink
 

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