#martin vaughn-james

In September and October, New York Review Comics presents two trailblazing artists whose work remains challenging, striking, and remarkably relevant. Shary Flenniken’s daring, raunchy Trots and Bonnie is an uncommonly honest—and hilarious—portrait of adolescence, while Martin Vaughn-James’s The Projector andElephant are timelessly surreal.

Shary Flenniken, Trots and Bonnie(September)

In the 1970s and ’80s, National Lampoon was home to many of America’s best cartoons, including Trots and Bonnie: a comic strip that followed the adventures of Bonnie, a teenager stumbling through the mysteries of adulthood, and her wisecracking dog, Trots. This collection, handpicked by Flenniken, is the first book of Trots and Bonnie ever published in America. It’s a long overdue introduction to some of the most stunning and provocative comics of the twentieth century, from an artist Roz Chast calls “an absolute genius.”

Martin Vaughn-James, The Projector and Elephant(October)

The British artist and writer Martin Vaughn-James produced some of the most mesmerizing and inventive works in comics in the 1960s and ’70s. Among them were ElephantandThe Projector, interconnected graphic novels that guide the reader through landscapes built out of the everyday and the nightmarish. Together for the first time in a single volume designed and edited by Seth, ElephantandThe Projector are a reminder that we have yet to catch up to Vaughn-James.