Lo Scaffale” (The Shelf) goes to England to discover what Richard Short has to recommend among his latest readings.
Baby Boom, by Yuichi Yokoyama (Matiere)
This book is so good it broke the famous frosty reserve of London tube passengers. The day I read Baby Boom on the train a few different people asked questions about it – “What is this? What are they doing? .. Let me see” and read it over my shoulder. It’s all colour and movement and I never get tired of looking at it.
The Best of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, edited by Brian Walker (Henry Holt & Co)
This includes a brief history of Bushmiller and Nancy, the essay How To Read Nancy by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden and probably all of the Nancy strips I’ll ever need. Almost all of the jokes are terrible, even in this ‘best of’, but it’s as clean as a glass of water and each strip is beautifully designed.
Red Coloured Elegy, by Seiichi Hayashi (Drawn & Quarterly)
I kept a small Japanese edition of Red Coloured Elegy on my table when I drew the last Klaus book – in case of drawer’s block. His use of space and his line are second to none. Red Coloured Elegy is also available in English, as are Golden Pollen and Other Stories (Picturebox) and Flowering Harbour (Breakdown Press). Breakdown have a bigger book of Hayashi’s stories out soon.
Garo Magazine – various artists
Copies of Garo sell for a few hundred yen in Japan, which is amazing considering how good it is. I probably like less than half of each issue but the artists I do like are some of my favourites – Hayashi, both Tsuges, Yoshikazu Ebisu, Oji Suzuki, Shinichi Abe, (whose stuff in the issues I have is much looser, and better, than the French selections of his work). I also love the design of the books; the covers (especially the King Terry ones), the title pages, the adverts and the odd way pages are occasionally coloured. On one holiday I filled my suitcase with so many books I had to throw out my underwear and some shoes.
Joe Galaxy, by Massimo Mattioli
I bought this in Modo Infoshop at last year’s Bilbolbul and really like it. This book is crazier, cruder and more interesting in its design and variety of comics than other Mattioli books I’ve seen. I can’t read Italian (and I can’t read Japanese) but it doesn’t matter.