Glen Weldon

Graphic-Novel Gumshoe Rounds Up Unusual Suspects

Glen Weldon — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:03:00 +0000

Matt Kindt is a storyteller so fully in control of his gifts that his graphic novels — 3 Story, Revolver and others — read like quietly compelling arguments for the comics medium's narrative potential.

With his latest, the multilayered and slyly existential Red Handed, he assembles a mystery story that only comics could capture, filled with puzzles and set pieces that depend entirely on the interplay of word and image.

Niffenegger Lets Fly With An Adult Fairy Tale In 'Raven Girl'

Glen Weldon — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:03:00 +0000

In The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger married her gently wry sensibility to a classic science-fiction conceit, and the result became a literary sensation — as much a tried-and-true staple of book-club culture as cheap malbec.

Now, with Raven Girl, Niffenegger sets out to create a new fairy tale bearing the form's alchemical mix of light with dark, wish fulfillment with foreboding, bright fantasy with flat-out creepiness.

Which Comics Should I Get? Your Free Comic Book Day Cheat Sheet

Glen Weldon — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:59:00 +0000

This Saturday, May 4^th, is Free Comic Book Day, the comics industry's annual attempt to sail out past the shallow, overfished shoals where Nerds Like Me lazily and inexpertly spawn, to instead cast their line into the colder, deeper waters where Normals Like You swim free, blissfully unconcerned about the myriad nettlesome continuity issues surrounding Supergirl's underpants.

Yes, Free Comic Book Day is about you, O person who hasn't set foot in a comics shop in years, or ever.

Stars In His Eyes, Sending Smoke Signals To Mars

Glen Weldon — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:03:00 +0000

In his slim but beguiling novel Equilateral, Ken Kalfus places us inside the heads of his characters with such deftness that the line between what is true and what they believe to be true fades to obscurity. It's no coincidence that the heads in question belong to scientists who pride themselves on their evidence-based worldview; Kalfus delights in having readers continually gauge and recalibrate the distance between the world and his characters' seemingly objective observations of it.

The Mundane World Illuminated In 'Hand-Drying In America'

Glen Weldon — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:03:00 +0000

Ben Katchor's syndicated comic strips vary in subject — his Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer, for example, explores the surreal underside of our urban environment by documenting the inner lives of the spaces and storefronts we walk past every day, while The Cardboard Valise reads like a Fodor's guide to a country that exists only in Franz Kafka's dream journal.

What unites them, and vivifies them, is Katchor's singular voice, guiding us through his busy panels like a meticulous, dispassionate and slightly bemused Virgil.