Word: comix
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...cruelest pop-culture abortions happened in 1952 when, right at the height of America's crime-fiction golden age, all the crime comicbooks had to cease publishing. Under government pressure, the industry created the self-censoring Comics Code Authority, which would literally put a seal of approval on "safe" comix, none of which could involve remotely realistic or unpunished crime, among other things...
...American Century" gives fans of hard-boiled crime fiction what they want: an escape into a secret, cynical world where morality drains out like blood into a gutter. Better still, it also gives comix fans what they want: an engaging story that stretches out to sophisticated commentary in a pop-culture guise. In 1952 such comics all but died after the institution of the Comics Code Authority. But now, assuming Howard Chaykin and company don't blow it, all at once mainstream pulp comics have caught up with their healthfully evolved book and movie relations...
...recently-arrived comix, "Grickle," by Graham Annable and "RPM Comics," by Rachel Masilamani, have several things in common. Both collect short works by each author, both are the artist's debut in the medium, and both are notable...
...Grickle," and "RPM Comics" are both examples of small press comix that don't get much support at comic shops. But Annable and Masilamani deserve attention and support as strong, independent new talents...
...what? As a crude American, I enjoy comix more for how well they entertain me, than for how much mileage I can get out of deconstructing them. I will leave that to the French. As a comic, regardless of its origins, Stéphane Heuet's "Remembrance of Things Past," makes for a fine read, evoking a lost world, not just of physical superficialities, but of the very thoughts of the time. I am sure even the book's harshest critics would agree that a little Proust is better than none...