{"id":5174,"date":"2010-07-03T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2010-07-03T06:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=5174"},"modified":"2010-07-03T13:37:10","modified_gmt":"2010-07-03T13:37:10","slug":"wally-gropius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2010\/07\/03\/wally-gropius\/","title":{"rendered":"Wally Gropius"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Tim Hensley<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-60699-355-2
\nComics are the most subversive means of communication yet devised. If you’re a creator at the top of your game with no editorial restrictions you can depict and say one thing, in a manner that even the primmest censor would approve of and adore, whilst surreptitiously advocating the most unsavoury, improper and civilisation-threatening dogma. In comics there are no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tells\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to give the game away and the manner in which an author writes and draws can actually enhance the propaganda or outright lies\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Have you met young Tim Hensley?<\/p>\n

A musician, cartoonist and second-generation comics fan, Hensley’s graphic work has popped up all over the alternative scene in such magazines as Kramer’s Ergot <\/strong>and Fantagraphics’ sublime anthology Mome<\/a><\/strong>, from where the intensely sly, brash, revolutionary and mind-bendingly beguiling Wally Gropius<\/strong> has emerged to challenge our every precept of Capitalist culture. This book collects those Mome moments and also includes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at no extra charge – new and revised material.<\/p>\n

This colossal 64 page hardback – 10″x 12.5″; marvellously reminiscent of the earliest English-language Tintin <\/strong>albums – is illustrated in a starkly jolly, primary-coloured pastiche of Baby-Boomer kids comics – and not just the obvious and overt \u00c2\u00a0Richie Rich<\/strong> and Archie Andrews<\/strong> trappings, but with a tip of the pen to lost classics of a once ubiquitous, now nearly-forgotten 1960s graphic style that ranged from Mort (Spider<\/strong>, Beetle Bailey<\/strong>) Walker and John Stanley, to the animated creations of Jay Ward and those unnamed geniuses who drew such Dell\/Gold Key classics as The Little Monsters<\/strong> and Thirteen Going on Eighteen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Wally Gropius<\/strong> is barbed and edgy teen satire: the wealthiest teenager on Earth, scion of a petrochemical dynasty, he can have anything he wants. He sings in his band The Dropouts and doesn’t have a care in the world – until his father orders him to marry \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the saddest girl on Earth.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d With every girl in range tearfully throwing herself at him, Wally suddenly notices the stand-offish and highly hard-to-get Jillian Banks\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Wally Gropius <\/strong>is a devastating, vicious and subversive satirical assault on the modern bastions of Commercialism, Celebrity, and Casual Power. Wally tries everything money can buy to win Jillian, but there’s something he’s blithely unaware of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Wally Gropius <\/strong>is madcap, screwball and incredibly surreal comedy, with many hidden and time-delayed laugh-traps cunningly concealed for later effect by a keen observer with a disturbingly-honed intellect and a laudable absence of taste. Take note: Money isn’t Everything<\/em> and Subtext \u00c3\u00bcber Alles<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Wally Gropius <\/strong>is Even Cleverer Than It Thinks It Is. Invest in it now and enjoy a thoroughly mature modern masterclass in mercantile mockery and morbidly Infantile Analysis.<\/p>\n