Comix Reading List #3: American Cartoonist: The Comic Art of Noah Van Sciver

 3. AMERICAN CARTOONIST: THE COMIC ART OF NOAH VAN SCIVER (Athenaeum Comic Art, Canon Fodder Books) Mail

I may be the only person who's favorite Noah Van Sciver book is JOSEPH SMITH AND THE MORMONS! That particular book had beautiful visuals in service of an engrossing historical treatment of a subject very little known to me. Noah is himself little known to me, even though he is well-known in alternative comics circles I've never actively sought out his work. So this artist's edition type book was a welcome surprise from co-publisher Colin Blanchette.

We start off with an introduction by Professor of English Andrew J. Kunka and an interview with the artist conducted by Blanchette. Both do a good job getting us up to speed on Van Sciver's comics to date.

The book is divided into eight sections: JOURNAL DRAWINGS (EARLY CAREER) consisting of color images from 2007-12 sketchbooks, 4 QUESTIONS (NEWSPAPER STRIP) ten samples of a comic strip from 2012-14, SHORT NARRATIVES "Dress Up" "The Town Mouse & The Country Mouse" "A Mormon Romance" "Charles F. Browne" "Qu'est-ce que te penses de ca", BLAMMO COVERS, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL COMICS "Il Nostro Albero" "[Hey, Man.]" "What Was He Doing?" " There's Too Much" "This Book's Introduction" " There's a memory..." "Remy" "Beverly New Jersey" "When I turned 30 years old...", SINGLE IMAGES (COLOR PICTURES) six unknown color full page illustrations, SINGLE IMAGES [B/W] twenty-two full page illustrations (some published, like the cover to CANON ANNUAL 2024), and HISTORY OF COMICS (DRAWN IN 2023) color and b/w versions of the pages to this unpublished illustrated article.

Here are a couple of my favorite pages from the book:

I'm partial to Noah's history comics

Perfect depiction of the Artist's Life

Colin Blanchette interviews Noah Van Sciver at Partners & Son bookstore in Philadelphia, PA. You can see a portion of the exhibit this book was released in conjunction with in the background.

An earlier conversation between Colin Blanchette, Sean Watkins, and Noah Van Sciver with some early discussion of AMERICAN CARTOONIST.