Author:Art Spiegelman
For Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were both highly personal and intensely political. In the Shadow of No Towers, his first new book of comics since the groundbreaking Maus, is a masterful and moving account of the events and aftermath of that tragic day.
Spiegelman and his family bore witness to the attacks in their lower Manhattan neighborhood: his teenage daughter had started school directly below the towers days earlier, and they had lived in the area for years. But the horrors they survived that morning were only the beginning for Spiegelman, as his anguish was quickly displaced by fury at the U.S. government, which shamelessly co-opted the events for its own preconceived agenda.
He responded in the way he knows best. In an oversized, two-page-spread format that echoes the scale of the earliest newspaper comics (which Spiegelman says brought him solace after the attacks), he relates his experience of the national tragedy in drawings and text that convey-with his singular artistry and his characteristic provocation, outrage, and wit-the unfathomable enormity of the event itself, the obvious and insidious effects it had on his life, and the extraordinary, often hidden changes that have been enacted in the name of post-9/11 national security and that have begun to undermine the very foundation of American democracy.
Art Spiegelman...to the comics world is a Michelangelo and a Medici both, an influential artist who is also an impresario and an enabler of others...[Maus's] great innovation-unmatched and possibly unmatchable-was in its combination of style and subject....It would be almost impossible to overstate the influence of Maus among other artists
—— New York Times MagazineSpiegelman has become one of The New Yorker's most sensational artists, in recent years drawing illustrations for covers that are meant not just to be plainly understood but also to reach up and tattoo your eyeballs with images....From his Holocaust saga [Maus] in which Jewish mice are exterminated by Nazi cats, to the The New Yorker covers guaranteed to offend, to a wild party that ends in murder: Art Spiegelman's cartoons don't fool around
—— Los Angeles TimesA startling and provocative work
—— NewsdayFor one moment on an otherwise perfect fall day in Manhattan, time stood absolutely still, and since then history has rushed past too quickly for any artist to keep up. This disjunction between experience and understanding gives In the Shadow of No Towers something so much more than a linear narrative: It is a love letter to a city that this artist, no matter his fears, could not bring himself to leave
—— Paper Magazine[Radtke is] a master of both prose narrative and visual art... In a way, what she has done in this impressive book is to revive the dead and recover the lost while illuminating a world in flux, in which change is the only constant. Powerfully illustrated and incisively written – a subtle dazzler of a debut.
—— KirkusRemarkable...a breathtaking mix of prose and illustration.
—— AtlanticOne of the most haunting graphic memoirs I’ve ever read... As we turn the pages on [Radtke’s] journey, we are ravaged and ravished. There is a proud tradition of graphic memoirists – of those dually equipped to wield word and image – to tell the true and deeply considered story of a life. Alison Bechdel, Roz Chast, Riad Sattouf, David Small, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman and others have done it searingly well. Add now to that list Radtke, who proves herself an equal among equals with this debut book.
—— Chicago TribuneWith elegant writing and arresting drawings, Kristen Radtke’s Imagine Wanting Only This...grapple[s] with the limits of how much understanding our past can help us comprehend our present... She is a master of silhouette and shadow, of negative space, evoking a sense of potent isolation.
—— Boston GlobeA stunning, honest meditation on loss... Radtke’s book is enchanting.
—— Huffington PostThis memoir’s realisation of urgency expresses itself in human beings’ silence, which might frustrate readers of prose memoir. But here it is an opportunity for Radtke’s readers to focus, stare, wonder – to remain within urgency itself... This is a riveting use of memoir.
—— Sarah Heston , Los Angeles Review of BooksIn her exquisitely soul-, mind-, and heart-shattering debut graphic memoir, Kristen Radtke explores life's big questions surrounding grief, mortality, and the impermanence of the things – and the people – we love most.
—— NylonRadtke's life – and the way she beautifully elevates her deeply personal experiences into universal lessons – makes for brilliant, compelling, unforgettable art.
—— BustleKristen Radtke leads us through a bleak and beautifully crafted story of heart and heartbreak – creation, connection, decay, and loss. Imagine Wanting Only This is challenging and inspiring.
—— Ellen Forney, New York Times bestselling author of MARBLESWriter, illustrator, and editor Radtke’s graphic memoir does something difficult within just a few minimally designed, emotional pages: she transforms the over-studied experience of being a talented artist stuck in that yearning gulf between college’s purpose and life’s demands into something unique and thuddingly real.
—— Publishers WeeklyThis is the work of a tremendously gifted cartoonist whose formal brilliance is indisputable, and whose sprawling narratives come to us via endlessly inventive pages. Rusty Brown is another masterpiece from Ware, and is unmissable.
—— Pete Redrup , Quietus, *Books of the Year*An intriguing, insightful not-quite-biography of the Brontë which explores both their real and imaginary worlds.
—— Yvette Huddleston , Yorkshire PostA tale about the collision between dreamlike places of possibility and constrained lives. None of the Brontë would reach 40. Yet their work still entrances us and Greenberg gives their tangled early creations gripping and generous life.
—— James Smart , GuardianA vivid foundation story for the great torrent of romantic fiction that was shortly to burst forth.
—— Strong Words