Dave Slusher - Books reviewed Maverix and Lunatix by Marc Maron
Friedman Getting Better With Age
5 stars
I have been following Drew Friedman on and off since he did the portraits of game show hosts in the 80s. I bought this book on the pre-Xmas sale at Fantagraphics, almost on a whim.
I was impressed at the older, more mature art style. These portraits are lusher, more restrained than the pointilistic dots of his younger work. The ink wash feels different from the manic energy in a good way. I found myself pausing to take in each page for a long while before reading the bios.
I have very little of the referenced material but now I have an interest to dig in deeper. It was interesting to see the people mentioned commonly in others bios. One could map out influence by just reference count alone.
I liked everything about it other than the intro by Marc Maron, which seemed pretty slight by comparison …
I have been following Drew Friedman on and off since he did the portraits of game show hosts in the 80s. I bought this book on the pre-Xmas sale at Fantagraphics, almost on a whim.
I was impressed at the older, more mature art style. These portraits are lusher, more restrained than the pointilistic dots of his younger work. The ink wash feels different from the manic energy in a good way. I found myself pausing to take in each page for a long while before reading the bios.
I have very little of the referenced material but now I have an interest to dig in deeper. It was interesting to see the people mentioned commonly in others bios. One could map out influence by just reference count alone.
I liked everything about it other than the intro by Marc Maron, which seemed pretty slight by comparison with the rest of the work. The history of underground at the end by comparison is great!
I recommend the book highly, whether you know all the players or like me were just tangentially aware of them.