{"id":44301,"date":"2025-06-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=44301"},"modified":"2025-06-05T10:26:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T17:26:21","slug":"i-dissent-cheap-novelties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/i-dissent-cheap-novelties\/","title":{"rendered":"I Dissent \/ Cheap Novelties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I DISSENT HAMMERS HOME WHY IT\u2019S EASY TO ADMIRE RUTH BADER GINSBURG<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark<\/em>
by Debbie Levy (author) and Elizabeth Baddeley (illustrator)
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
2016, 40 pages, 8.5 x 11 x 0.6 inches (hardcover)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going to be upfront here: this book made me cry. As a woman, mother to a daughter, and formerly outspoken little girl in a time and place where \u201cfeminism\u201d was was an anachronistic term for bra-burning rather than the badge of pride and call to action it is today, this book made me grateful and proud. I was already an RBG fan \u2013 it\u2019s pretty hard not to be \u2013 but I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark<\/em> hammered home all of the reasons why it\u2019s easy to admire the influential Supreme Court Justice through a beautiful, illustrated biography that stresses the importance of standing up for what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debbie Levy frames RBG\u2019s story with objections, beginning with her mother, Celia Amster Bader, who sets the tone for the book and for her daughter\u2019s trajectory by encouraging little Ruth to strive for more in life than finding a husband. \u201cRuth\u2019s mother disagreed,\u201d is the first of many hand-lettered, marquee-like pronouncements that tie together Levy\u2019s text and Elizabeth Baddeley\u2019s visual storytelling. This bold dissention (\u201cThen she protested.\u201d \u201cShe resisted. And persisted.\u201d \u201cRuth really, really disagreed with this!\u201d) in the face of prejudice and sexism allows readers to feel the weight of injustice and the power of speaking up as they straighten their shoulders, square their feet, and shout with Ruth, \u201cI dissent!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I learned a lot through this book. Who knew that RBG and Antonin Scalia were friends? Or that Justice Ginsburg\u2019s mother was such a driving force in her life? There is also a section for further reading after the story ends, including photos of RBG, information on cases referenced in the story, and a selected bibliography, which serves as a great resource for curious readers who want to learn more. \u2013 Mk Smith Despres<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CHEAP NOVELTIES \u2013 RAW\u2019S JULIUS KNIPL, REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHER, FINALLY FINDS A SUITABLE HOME<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay<\/em>
by Ben Katchor
Drawn and Quarterly
2016, 112 pages, 8.8 x 10.9 x 0.7 inches (hardcover)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a lot of bourgeois bohemians in the 1990s, I was a huge fan of the RAW comics anthologies which, among other incredible discoveries, introduced me to the work of Ben Katchor. One might not think that a comic strip about urban architecture, culture, city development and decay, real estate photography, memory, and loss would make very compelling comics, but then you probably haven\u2019t met Katchor\u2019s beloved comic strip character, Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay<\/em>, a collection of Katchor\u2019s Knipl strips, was originally published in 1991 by RAW\/Penguin as a cheap paperback. Twenty-five years later and Drawn & Quarterly finally gives Katchor and Knipl their due in a lovely hardbound, landscape edition of the original RAW strips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve ever stared in wonder at the decades-old, sun-bleached product boxes inside of the display window of the only original hardware store left in town, or smelled an old typewriter repair shop, or purused gag gifts and tricks in a magic shop that\u2019s been in the same city location for generations, then you\u2019ll understand some of the lost urban culture that Cheap Novelties<\/em> so deftly and melancholically evokes. As Julius Knipl is called out on building photography assignements, we see these vanishing haunts through his lens, momenents before they leave the city landscape forever, and we hear Knipl\u2019s thoughts on the loss, reflections on his own rather homely life, and urban trivia \u2013 all rendered in a very confident and characterful hand in ink-and-gray marker washes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheap Novelties<\/em>\u00a0was one of the series that launched the whole \u201cgraphic novel\u201d revolution in comics. After touring the city disappearing beyond Julius Knipl\u2019s lens, you will understand why.\u00a0\u2013 Gareth Branwyn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Books That Belong On Paper<\/strong>\u00a0first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.<\/em>\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get the issues a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Issue No. 69<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[2398],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44319,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44301\/revisions\/44319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}