Based on the list of cartoonists and artists interviewed in Dangerous Drawings, you know it's bound to be a great book. But as you pour through the discussions, you'll realize that it's far more than that. The questions posed by RE/Search Books cofounder Andrea Juno are always insightful, and relatively few punches are pulled. The 14 comix and graphix artists interviewed--including Art Spiegelman, Dan Clowes, Julie Doucet, Chris Ware, Diane Noomin, Chester Brown, Ted Rall, and Phoebe Gloeckner--offer extremely personal revelations about art and life. Taken together, the thoughts of these artists form an interesting singular commentary on the state of comics and graphic literature: by using a popular art form that, for the most part, remains outside of the establishment's critical eye, these cartoonists are able to deliver potent, highly charged, personal work.
From Library Journal
Editor Juno (Angry Women in Rock, LJ 6/15/96) has compiled interviews with and samples from 14 leading comics artists, including Art Spiegelman (Maus), Diane Noomin (Twisted Sisters), and Anne Kominsky-Crumb (Weirdo), whose aesthetics and politics often diverge but who are linked together in their "subversive" use of a populist narrative form. A glance at the index reveals an intermingling of high and low, art and culture, sex and politics; citations range from Madame Bovary to Madame X, from Picasso to Pinocchio the Big Fag. The artists' investigations into their own work provide analysis in a field lacking in ample research and theory and reveal clues to material that is sometimes startlingly autobiographical. Each interview contains biographical data, numerous illustrations, and portraits. This often entertaining medium is revealed to contain many complex and provocative ideas, and the serious treatment it gets here makes this a worthwhile purchase for libraries collecting in popular culture and graphic art.?Heidi Martin Winston, NYPL
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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