By: Annie Nocenti

“My nose is blown, doc,” mopes a bandaged bloodhound cop as he sags against a panel border. In “No Nose is Good Nose,” Dr. Howland Owl laughs at the patient, violating his “hippocritical oaf.” Set […]

By: Joshua Glenn

Another postscript to Matthew Battles’ meditation on doodling. I originally wrote this item for Laylah Ali: 5 Responses to 5 Paintings, an exhibition brochure published by the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2002. *** Late […]

By: Joshua Glenn

Unlike Baudrillard, Deleuze, and Foucault, exact contemporaries of his who were merely inspired by pop culture, the French-born comics writer RENÉ GOSCINNY (1926-77) cranked the stuff out. Les Aventures d’Astérix, which he authored (and Albert […]

By: Joe Alterio

Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist RUBE GOLDBERG (1883-1970) pulls string (A) which activates bellows. Bellows (B) compresses, inflating balloon (C). Expanding balloon causes glass of water (D) to tip, soaking sponge (E). Sponge, due to increased weight […]

By: Douglas Wolk

ALEX TOTH (1928-2006) occupies one of the strangest positions in the pantheon of great cartoonists: an artist of enormous power and lasting influence, he produced almost nothing but ephemera, throwaways and hackwork. Toth could strip […]

By: Joe Alterio

The 1960s-80s comic series Corto Maltese, by Italian-born cartoonist HUGO PRATT (1927-95), was — on the surface — a 1930s-style pulp adventure that improved on Terry & The Pirates and the like through its attention […]

By: Joe Alterio

— Text and illustration by Joe Alterio. To view a gallery of Alterio’s HiLobrow illustrations, click here. *** On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or […]

By: David Smay

Though CHESTER BROWN (born 1960) is still creating vital work, nothing’s ever going to match the jolt of subversive glee we got upon seeing Ronald Reagan topple into an immeasurable vat of shit, get stuck […]

By: Matthew Battles

Winston Moseley’s brutal murder of Kitty Genovese in the small hours of March 13, 1964 remains one of the most riveting stories in the annals of crime. In a famous New York Times story about […]

By: Joshua Glenn

“Once I was an alchemist named Alec, of Holland”

By: Joshua Glenn

Craig Yoe’s most recent Arf book (published by Fantagraphics) may be his last. In a March 6 email to those of us who’ve reviewed previous installments of his brilliant series of attractive and engaging books […]

By: Joshua Glenn

A hilobrow literary mystery…