Customer Reviews

Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer: The Beauty Supply District

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The third bound installment of Ben Katchor's "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer" series finds his lonely observer at quite a distance from the simplicity and candor of "Cheap Novelties". Complex, arcane, and beautifully detailed, "The Beauty Supply District" represents, at last, a finely tuned rendition of Katchor's altogether fantastic and fully fictional Gotham. Arguably less accessible than "Cheap Novelties" or "Real Estate Photographer Stories", (I would suggest that the uninitiated read one of the aforementioned books first) it's a satisfying read for this Katchor fan, and it certainly will be for those who appreciate the moves he's made in "Cardboard Valise" and "Hotel and Farm". Katchor has sacrificed some degree of empathy in grounding Knipl increasingly less in "the actual world" but the allegories he creates in its stead are delights to be picked apart, and like a stranger's obscure promotional cap, ruminated over. The narrative that closes "Beauty Supply District" may be a sly metaphor for the real-life loss of New York City's individuality amid the burgeoning stampede of chain stores and attendant homogeneity; whatever the perspective, those 26 pages read like a warts-and-all requiem for an imperfect yet more people-oriented time. Alas, when the narrative's pretentious art fiend character makes a fateful purchase with no thought to aesthetics, the past, with its valued individuals and labored attention to detail, seems to be dealt a near-fatal blow. I can't wait to read it again and, like Knipl himself, discover what I've overlooked. Maybe I'm all wrong. That's what I love about it.

This is my 2nd compilation of Knipl - the first being the "Evening Combinator". Once again, we're taken on a tour of mysterious urban setting that seems equal parts WWII-era New York, and another city mourning for the first - at once the ghost of a city and its beloved survivors. Artist Katchor deftly etches his cityscape using tragic camp - postcard artists who depict unloved streets that nobody will visit, semi-professional gravediggers, a man who seems to own some huge industrial facility on an island in the south pacific, losers who answer wrong numbers at pay phones and the obsession that men have with cafeteria buffets.

I may have been overdosed on Katchor's Knipl Camp, but something about "Beauty Supply" left me wanting. Earlier stuff like "Combinator" had their darker side, but were also balanced - Katchor sketched a city that was terrifying, depressing and yet oddly inviting, populated by characters who seemed victimized at the same time as being inspired. Here, the accent is on the dark and defeated, and the result is unsympathetic - as if his characters had grown more than tired by their own dark jokes. It's Katchor & Knipl, yet not at their witty best.

Ben Katchor's work is unique. He notices all the things that otherwise go (undeservedly after you see his work) unnoticed. His humor is on a par with the best of all media: Keaton, Chaplin, Fields in films, for example. His artwork brings to mind Herriman & Holman. His text is as inventive as Kafka. No question about it, the guy's a genius, yet always enjoyable & entrancing.

Ben Katchor is mining a unique area in contemporary graphic fiction (i.e., comics). His stories are closely observed, enigmatic film noir vignettes of a by-gone imaginary New York. The drawings themselves are seemingly effortless, densely packed with telling details that convey a convincing architectural sense of place. Emotionally dark, mysterious, and unsettling the stories are like half-remembered dreams, with an internal logic and sense and beauty that is only tangentially connected to waking reality.

This comic is a really "understated masterpiece" or whatever you call a beautiful, subtle and entertaining comic collection. If you know who Ben Katchor is, you know how great he is, so stop reading this mediocre review and just buy the amazing book. And dont forget to pick up The Jew of New York and Cheap Novelties and, uh, ANYTHING else that Ben Katchor is a part of. BUY IT!

"Comic" is inadequate to describe the vehicle for the art and genius of Katchor. Left me giddy and disoriented at the beautiful strangeness of the world of Julius Knipl. Brilliant.