List price: $12.95
- Pages128
- ISBN9781933633763
- Publication dateOctober, 2009
- Categories
- Booksellers
- Media
- Academics & Librarians
Baddies
David Stromberg
”Baddies is a little Thurber, a little Eastern European gravitas and dread, and crates of good humor and delight.”—Aimee Bender, author of Willful Creatures
Cult cartoonist David Stromberg has been dubbed “Thurber on speed” at the legendary Gotham Book Mart. It’s easy to see why in the weird world of Baddies, an absurdist graphic collection of gags, ideas, and late night thoughts that harkens back to the days of witty New Yorker cartoonists . . . even as it seems so edgy as to be completely new.
Baddies looks aslant at everyday life, unearthing its most hilarious and ridiculous aspects amidst even our darkest fears and phobias. Inhabited by an antic and eclectic assortment of odd-ball characters, who star in chapters such as “Action and Its Doubt,” “The Day and Its Battle,” “Mystery and Its Carnality,” these captioned cartoons capture a world forever veering off from the normal, the rational, and the “well adjusted.”
And they introduce us to a startlingly original artist, where the art and the writerly wit combine in a way that’s both disarmingly funny and strangely familiar, not to mention refreshingly, bitingly smart.
DAVID STROMBERG is a writer, artist and journalist. His publications include three collections of single-panel cartoons—Saddies, Confusies, and Desperaddies—and he has written on art and culture for The Believer, Nextbook, St. Petersburg Times, Jerusalem Post, and Ha’aretz. His fiction has appeared in the UK’s Ambit. Born in Ashdod, Israel, to ex-Soviet parents, Stromberg grew up in urban Los Angeles and currently resides in Jerusalem.
”In Baddies, David Stromberg has created a cozy little planet of alter egos and parallel lives, urban marginals with vaguely Eastern European names. The drawings are a cross between George Grosz and Gahan Wilson, with a touch of ’Beavis & Butt-Head.’ The humor is Roz Chast; dry commentary on inside-out characters. Fantastic.”—Los Angeles Times
“When it comes to darkly funny misanthropy, few do it as distinctively as David Stromberg.” —The Boston Phoenix
“A strange, eccentric and wonderful volume. It shares kinship with the likes of B. Kliban, Glen Baxter, David Lynch. But its wonder is all its own.”—Geoff Nicholson, author of Bleeding London
“An absurdist Vanity Fair of current Americana. In these zany drawings—and even zanier comment and observation—there is a great deal of wisdom.”—Josip Novakovich, author of Infidelities
