Ben Katchor: Conversations #[nn]

Edited by Ian Gordon, this volume gathers critical conversations around one of comics' most distinctive voices, and the cover art does a wonderful job setting the tone — a figure in a yellow outfit leaps acrobatically in a warmly detailed living room complete with grand piano, red sofas, and landscape paintings, while surrounding comic strips introduce the hapless Morris Passink and an ambulance driver holding forth on the philosophy of wall molding. It's a fitting window into Katchor's world of urban melancholy, oddball observation, and quietly absurdist everyday life. A rich 2019 collection for anyone curious about the mind behind these meticulously rendered, wonderfully strange strips.