Ben Katchor’s newest work, a 160 – page folio, is a compilation of full-color, one-page picture stories about the built world, that appeared during the last fifteen years in the urban design and architecture magazine, Metropolis.
“Katchor’s proximity to the form and content of literary writing, his talent in treating fantastic elements, narrative structures, and elements of realism, as well as his degree of reflection about the history of the field of cartoon illustration are almost without equal in the world of comics.” (Clemens Krümmel)
“Think of Hand-Drying in America, as an atlas of Katchor’s imaginary city, a series of maps intended to chart its life. That life revolves, in many ways, around what’s been lost — including newspapers, which appear here as shadows, echoes of another era.” In The Last Stand he “describes how `(with) the demise of print publishing … the city’s newsstands turn to the sale of other merchandise.´ This is one of the most moving strips in the collection, not because it’s a lament for print (it isn’t) but because of how it traces our ability to adapt. (…) Here we see the core of Katchor’s genius: the blunt language, grossly physical itself, which allows him equally to evoke the surface and to get beneath it, describing a situation and the longing it provokes. This might also be said of his art, which is schematic, almost architectural, and yet, with its rough pencil lines and broad details, also impressionistic, sketch-like, like a series of snapshots that reveal an astonishing depth.
Ben Katchor: The Last Stand (Detail)