Cheap Novelties

"How can we yearn for something that never was? For little things forever lost that were never ours? Ben Katchor’s melancholy impregnates every frame of these beautiful stories. Silent despair, obscure industrial minutiae, memories of lost diners, the whispered prayer of multi-dwelling laws are but a fraction of the many enigmas pondered in Cheap Novelties. Under Katchor’s pious, amorous gaze wonder blooms in this urban Babylon. Novelty items transmogrify into prodigies that encapsulate our fragility, beauty and fleeting existence. A masterpiece of graphic narrative." — Guillermo del Toro, filmmaker

"The staccato vignettes, where narration and dialogue noisily intermix with one another like the cacophony of a busy street, are about pure pleasure." — Vulture

"Ben Katchor’s distinctive comic strips tell the singular story of a surreal city and the people who live and work there... Attempting to describe these strips isn’t easy: they broadcast on an exclusive frequency and, like the works of novelist Steven Millhauser, turn the odd minutiae of urban life into the stuff of strange and compelling narrative." — Paste Magazine

"Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decayis one of those magical books that changes the way the reader views the world after its been consumed." — AV Club

"A wonderful peek into an old yet new world, Katchor’s work pleasantly combines art and character, opening readers’ eyes and ears to the sights and sounds of this metropolis in a way that is simultaneously relaxing and thought provoking. Recommended for those who enjoy urban history, nostalgia, and social commentary." — Library Journal

"Ben Katchor’s sublime collection…chronicles the wanderings of Julius Knipl, a rumpled photographer-for-hire taking pictures of buildings in a gently surreal streetscape that vaguely resembles Manhattan’s financial district of old. Knipl laments a fading world of dairy cafeterias, tchotchke salesmen and trophy manufacturers." — Wall Street Journal