Three Very Small Comics
Gauld, one half of Cabanon Press – the other being Simone Lia – wrote the ‘Move to the City’ serial for Time Out (2001-2002) and currently illustrates the letters page for The Guardian‘s Review, but it was in the now-defunct Zembla magazine that this reviewer was swept away with his drawn essay on Edward Gorey, ending with a perplexed Gauld asking, “What on earth does it all mean?”
Susan Tomaselli renews our love affair with Tom Gauld.
Remember, Remember
As he begins I wonder if I’ve cheated on him already. With words and grunts and noises fed into the pregnant black bug fed down wires to strangers who probably have wives and lovers and lives of their own. I should tell him the truth, really. If I truly believed that it was meaningless, that it was not cheating then surely I would have told him a long time ago.
By Krishan Coupland.
Japanamerica
What America is undergoing is “a third wave of Japanophilia,” a new-found infatuation with all things Japanese. Borne out in the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix, and spurred on by Sofia Coppola’s (overrated) Lost in Translation, Hiyao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle enjoyed tremendous box office successes, with Hollywood always quick to embrace the phenomenon.
Susan Tomaselli reviews Roland Kelts’ Japanamerica for 3:AM.
Notes from a Neo-Geisha – Map 8
Leaning back into her white ruffled pillowcases, Ashley fell into her recently acquired masturbatory routine. Reaching her pink-manicured hands into her panties, she fingered herself remembering the fencer from the park, whose eyes had glinted at her through his face grill. She replayed being hoisted up, the stiff gloves under her arms, pressing the sides of her breasts.
Read the new column by Hillary Raphael.
Girl
Daddy says he can’t call me his “little girl” anymore because I’m practically a teenager so he calls me his “mistress” instead. Back at the table, they’re still droning on about who’s not really listening which, when you add up all the nights of this, is pretty much everyone involved.
By Kate Hall.