Baking With Kafka
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A best-of collection of literary humour cartoons from the critically-acclaimed Guardian cartoonist
In his inimitable style, British cartoonist Tom Gauld has opened comics to a crossover audience and challenged perceptions of what the medium can be.
Noted as a “book-lover’s cartoonist,” Gauld’s weekly strips in The Guardian, Britain’s most well-regarded newspaper, stitch together the worlds of literary criticism and pop culture to create brilliantly executed, concise comics. Simultaneously silly and serious, Gauld adds an undeniable lightness to traditionally highbrow themes. From sarcastic panels about the health hazards of being a best-selling writer to a list of magical items for fantasy writers (such as the Amulet of Attraction, which summons mainstream acceptance, Hollywood money, and fresh coffee), Gauld’s cartoons are timely and droll—his trademark British humour, impeccable timing, and distinctive visual style sets him apart from the rest.
Lauded both for his frequent contributions to New Scientist, The Guardian and The New York Times, and his Eisner-nominated graphic novels, Tom Gauld is one of the most celebrated cartoonists working today. In Baking with Kafka, he proves this with one witty, sly, ridiculous comic after another.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The typical venues for the work of Scottish cartoonist Gauld (Mooncop) the Guardian, the New York Times, and the New Yorker are a good indication of the sensibility behind it. Gauld's cartoons are preoccupied with literature and the shop talk of the writers who write it, going off on tangents about specific authors and literary works, as well as narrative devices, classic literature mashed up with modern sensibilities, and self-loathing. That last topic is part of a larger preoccupation with the lonely work of being a writer that Gauld chronicles with a vicious cruelty that is obviously self-directed. He also offers vignettes of fictional characters and the books themselves as sentient victims that are put upon by their creators. The art is dominated by shadowy stick figures that inhabit often complex spaces, which somehow makes it all the more droll.
