Friday Review - Tough Love

Rachel reviews "I Heart Bmore" by Nolen Strals (in the catalog soon, in POP right now!):

How many times have you wanted one of Nolen's designs on a tee? Well he's finally designed his own shirt, declaring his love for Baltimore. And it's the best kind of the love, with eyes wide open.

ETA: You can get one here!


Lauren read Graffiti Women by Nicholas Ganz:

Graffiti fascinates me. I often look at it and imagine that it was very exciting to create. I also wonder about what it says or means and find it interesting that some people look at it and speak that language, hear what the paint speaks.

It's always seemed like a male dominated field, though. Occasionally I will see a woman profiled in a magazine but mostly it's boys. As soon as this book hit the shelves I picked it up, and the book did not let me down. With over 200 female artists profiled, a combination of their work and biographies of the artists, and while these tags are also amazing art pieces, I wish they were sprayed all over Baltimore.

It's a gorgeous book, full color with fold out posters. My 10 year old daughter is also in love and pulls it from the shelf to show all her friends. Highly recommended.



Eric read Apocalypse Nerd #4 by Pete Bagge:

I really miss Hate... but then again, when you think about it, between the Hate Annuals and this title, P. Bagge puts much more material out there each year then other artists from the late 80s/early 90s comixplosion, even those whose most famous series are still technically in production (Dan Clowes, I'm looking at you!). Apocalypse Nerd might not resonate with me the way Hate does, and like the Hate Annuals, the amount of material per issue unrelated to the titular series is pretty high, but it's still been an extremely fun mini-series to follow.

The characters feel familiar (in a good way), that Hate sense of humor's generously present, and you can really feel Bagge having fun working within the post-apoc genre.