Artie is a very nice guy and MAUS is brilliant… but honestly, that’s about it for his career. He’s been instrumental as a comics (sorry, comix) advocate, but between The Wild Party, Narrative Corpse, and In the Shadow of No Towers, he’s waaaaaay more style than substance. I was a huge fan for a while, and slowly came to realize that all his self-conscious, “meta” stuff was pretty much just academic, overly-intellectualized fluff. He will forever inhabit a vital place in comic history, but this retrospective only serves to underscore how little quality work he’s actually produced.
He did introduce me to Jack Survives however, so all is forgiven. Because, you know, he gives a shit what I think.
