Everything is the same, nothing is new. The city as an unchanging entity. Or as W. Axl Rose once sang, way back before he had the therapy you’re soon to hear on Chinese Democracy, “The streets don’t change / but maybe the names.”
Speaking of forever changes: perhaps it is the undue influence of Dave Sim’s Glamorpuss– which, despite a queasy veer towards sexism/misogynism/whatever in issue number two, is the best pamphlet comic of the last few years– but I have become increasingly fascinated by the photorealist newspaper strips of the 1940s/50s/60s. The volumes of Leonard Starr’s Mary Perkins on Stage available from Classic Comics are a step in the right direction, but in this era in which every minor cartoonish strip gets gorgeous hardcovers, can’t us decent folk get a little Rip Kirby?
Other things which require collection pronto: new, readable translations of Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese, Pat Tourett and Jenny Butterworth’s Tiffany Jones and Jorge Longeron’s Friday Foster. C’mon Comics Industry, get cracking!
Also, breaking news: the sweetest post ever. By… Warren Ellis?
