Ganzfeld # 2, The

Comics aren't just for kids, and illustrations don't merely transpose text into image. Picture stories can do more than just tell a simple, illiterate narrative, and design, well, design infiltrates the visual aspects of nearly everything that surrounds us. If these statements seems like truisms, they are, but they were hardly obvious conclusions just a few years ago, before the arts once considered merely commercial exploded into the mainstream. Unlike any other publication, the Ganzfeld gathers together a diverse sampling of recent design, illustration, and comics, together with essays that place them in a historical and critical context. Better still, this volume includes the first publication of comics genius Chris Ware's color sketchbooks; endpapers designed by nest editor Joseph Holtzman, covers by the Beastie Boys and GAP designer Mike Mills; an illustrated story by Maira Kalman; wallpaper designs by a cartoonist, a fine artist, an illustrator, and a designer; visual reportage on the Venice Biennale by Paul Davis; and far too much more to mention here.