Best Selling Books by Ben Katchor

The first book in more than ten years from “the creator of the last great American comic strip” (Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author): the story of the fantastical nation of Outer Canthus and the three people who, in some way or another, inu00adhabit its shores. Emile Delilah is a young xenophile (lover of foreign nations) so addicted to traveling to the exotic regions of Outer Canthus that the government pays him a monthly stipend just so he can continue his visits. Livu00ading in the same tenement as Emile are Boreal Rince, the exiled king of Outer Canthus, and Elijah Salamis, a supranationalist determined to erase the cultural and geographic boundaries that separate the citizens of the Earth. Although they rarely meet, their lives inu00adtertwine through the elaborate fictions they construct and inhabit: a vast panorama of humane hamburger stands, exquisitely ethereal ethnic restaurants, ancient restroom ruins, and wild tracts of land that fit neatly next to high-rise hotels. The Cardboard Valise is a graphic novel as travelogue; a canvas of semi-surrealism; and a poetic, whimsical, beguiling work of Ben Katchor’s dazzling imagination.

From one of the most original and imaginative American cartoonists at work today comes a collection of graphic narratives on the subjects of urban planning, product design, and architecture—a surrealist handbook for the rebuilding of society in the twenty-first century. Ben Katchor, a master at twisting mundane commodities into surreal objects of social significance, now takes on the many ways our property influences and reflects cultural values. Here are window-ledge pillows designed expressly for people-watching and a forest of artificial trees for sufferers of hay fever. The Brotherhood of Immaculate Consumption deals with the matter of products that outlive their owners; a school of dance is based upon the choreographic motion of paying with cash; high-visibility construction vests are marketed to lonely people as a method of getting noticed. With cutting wit Katchor reveals a world similar to our own—lives are defined by possessions, consumerism is a kind of spirituality—but also slightly, fabulously askew. Frequently and brilliantly bizarre, and always mesmerizing, Hand-Drying in America ensures that you will never look at a building, a bar of soap, or an ATM the same way. WITH BEAUTIFUL FULL-COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT

In 1825, a New York politician and amateur playwright possessed of a utopian vision, summoned all the lost tribes of Israel to an island near Buffalo in the hope of establishing a Jewish state. His failed plan is the starting point for this brilliantly imagined epic. A disgraced kosher slaughterer, an importer of religious articles and women''s hosiery, a pilgrim peddling soil from the Holy Land, a latter-day Kabbalist, a man with plans to carbonate Lake Erie—these are just some of the characters who move through Katchor''s universe, their lives interwoven in a common struggle to settle into the New World even as it erupts into a financial frenzy that could as easily leave them bankrupt as carry them into the future.

From one of the most poetic and gifted comic-strip artists working today--and author of "The Jew of New York"--Comes the first collection about his beloved protagonist, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer.

As modern urban development encroaches, Julius Knipl is hired to take photographs of old buildings and sights -- before the inevitable takes them.

Ballonstrip.

" Par une belle journée, M. Knipl rend visite à un ami au 12e étage d''un HLM construit par le syndicat des ajusteurs de ceintures de slips unifiés. C''était un syndicat puissant, mais dès que l''élastique lâche, le slip est foutu. "

Julius Knipl, photographe spécialisé dans l''immobilier, sillonne les rues d''un New York fantasmé, en s''imprégnant des petits détails anodins ou insolites de la vie de la cité et de ses habitants.

Emile Delilah, célibataire américain, est xénophile : il se passionne pour les coutumes étrangères. Un jour, il décide d''aller visiter les ruines monumentales de toilettes publiques dans l''archipel de Tensit. C''est alors que l''île s''évapore brutalement, à la suite d''une accumulation de solvants de pressing à sec dans ses sols. Emile est miraculeusement épargné et décide de poursuivre son voyage.