Rating: 
Summary: Julius Knipl, where are you now?
Review: Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer Stories is a collection of Ben Katchor's comics about about middle-class guys in New York City. At first glance each comic (usually 4 or 8 panels) seems to have no point, and the tone tends to remind me of the Jim books (I Made Some Brownies, And They Were Pretty Good, etc.), but Katchor seems to have staked out some pretty bizarre literary territory with these little stories.One of my favorites concerns a man who is nearly poked in the eye with an umbrella on a rainy day. He's telling a companion his story, when a bystander overhears and tells him that many city residents are actually suffering from eye injuries on a day like this. This eye-injury enthusiast takes our man to the hospital, to see him "offer condolences to the families of the injured." Another story concerns a group of volunteers who man phone lines all night, just to take calls from concerned citizens who have heard fire engine or ambulance sirens. Lots of the stories are about businessmen with bizarre, pathetic, or just loopy invention ideas: a suitcase that turns into a wastebasket, a storefront which sells rock candy, but only wholesale... The text is punctuated by hilarious proper names, such as: Blood & Sawdust Brand Cirkus Straws The Ascending Colon, with Horace Bismuth and Vivian Scybala Citric Acid Council Viosh Shirue's Natural Rainwater Cistern Katchor doesn't look down at his characters or approach them with anything similar to condescension. If I am motivated to feel anything at all after reading this, it's a bit more humility and compassion for my fellow man. At times these little stories are laugh-aloud funny, but mostly they just bring a smile and a little chuckle. I am glad I ran across this book. ken32 And yes, these pieces were not created to be consumed en masse. If you find a few amusing or worthwhile, but they get tiresome after a bit, just put the book down, and read a few of them each day, as you would if your daily newspaper carried them.
Rating: 
Summary: Initially intriguing but ultimately cloying
Review: Sometimes the lack of critical distance in online reviews compels me to chip in with a two-star spoiler, if only to temper the five stars rashes that seem to be endemic. When first viewed, Katchor's work has an engagingly ethereal quality: crude yet strikingly filmic illustrations are underpinned by liltingly meandering Magic Realist musings. After a few pages, however, the subtle charm becomes smug, narrative rhythms begin to seem like simple repetitiveness and the whole enterprise appears flimsy and self-satisfied. I realise that these are separate newspaper strips not originally intended for consumption en masse but I still found the collection as a whole to be disappointing and ultimately rather irritating.
Rating: 
Summary: wonderful
Review: these haunting stories are a notch above the first julius knipl book. one can only wonder where katchor is taking us with this series. his comic stories bounce around between the panels and the reader is forced to create other stories that are only hinted at on the page. it's totally beautiful. great book for anyone into old new york, american yiddishkeit, or gorgeous comics.
Rating:
Summary: Initially intriguing but ultimately cloying
Review: This is just about my favorite book. I read the review in the New York Times, which was a rave. I went out and bought it, struggled with the panels at first, but once I got the hang of how to read the narrative along with the inter-woven dialogue, I was simply entranced. Katchor's world is the world I imagine my father grew up in -- the big noisy depression-era city. Katchor has an almost surreal ability to see how unrelated events and moments are connected. Each page is a wonderfully crafted short story, and each panel drawing is packed with humor and nuance, almost as if it were itself drawn by one of Katchor's fallen characters.
Rating:
Summary: Ben Katchor is a genius
Review: This is just about my favorite book. I read the review in the New York Times, which was a rave. I went out and bought it, struggled with the panels at first, but once I got the hang of how to read the narrative along with the inter-woven dialogue, I was simply entranced. Katchor's world is the world I imagine my father grew up in -- the big noisy depression-era city. Katchor has an almost surreal ability to see how unrelated events and moments are connected. Each page is a wonderfully crafted short story, and each panel drawing is packed with humor and nuance, almost as if it were itself drawn by one of Katchor's fallen characters.
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