Peter Blegvad

Because of the stricken beseeching on behalf of this book from one who has never steered me wrong (er, out of the one recommendation I've actually followed up on...so far! there will be more), and because I have this thing I'm supposed to be doing for one more week and nothing makes me wanna do everything else like having a duty, I picked up this collection.

Marvelous! So clever, funny, endearing, smart, cool, gentle...where's my thesaurus? I know I'm missing quite a few of the allusions but I catch enough to feel good about myself and enjoy.

I need to scan in a couple and contrast with some of the junk in the newspaper. This blows Cathy out of the water. Marmaduke? Marmapuke! Die, Family Circus. Zits, you can stay. Baby Blues, for the strip showing sleepy dad getting shocked awake by hungry baby seeking out any nearby nipple, I love you. But you all pale in comparison to Leviathan. Why can't the newspaper have good things like this?… (meer)

I picked this up used because the cover was interesting and when I flipped through it I liked the drawing style, and it looked weird.

Once I started reading it, I saw that yes, it's weird, but I mean that in the nicest possible way. Ostensibly it's strips about a featureless baby with a huge head, clutching his bunny and wearing pajamas, and his cat, but jesus god, that doesn't even begin to describe it. It's not cute in the slightest, though some of the strips are genuinely moving. Leviathan does normal baby things like wake up at night and panic when he realizes he's alone but he doesn't wake up and scream, he engages Cat in philosophical discussion. One of the first ones in the book is a long quest let by Cat, to return his parents from the land of the dead. He must not turn back as he leads their shades over five mountains. And at the end, there he is in his cot with his father saying "He won't look! Do you suppose he's mad at us for going out to dinner?"

It's about philosophy, art, what-is-reality, angst, war, peace, the human condition. It veers wildly from fantasy and word play to comic reality. Schrodinger's Cat shows up too. You can get a look at http://www.leviathan.co.uk/menu.html. My copy is enscribed by the author to Ammon in Arizona. His loss is my gain.

I put this book down for a while, partly because I didn't want it to end, and was glad to be reminded of it by Karen's review on Goodreads.

I would still like to be able to draw a tabby cat as well as he does.… (meer)

More Levi Please? More!

As a bibliophile I truly appreciate a book that looks like it values being read. With marble facing, full color interior plates, red edging and a nice solid binding, this ledger-like book makes me itch to pick it up and pore once again through the contents. The strip within is the Best Of Leviathan from its run of 1992-1999 in The Independent On Sunday. It's like a Being John Malkovitch interpretation of Calvin and Hobbes. I would love to see the rest of it. The art is more of a functional visual message, a carrier for ideas, thoughts, humour, musings. It is clear and varied and exactly what I would say Leviathan should be. And Peter Blegvad. I will say that now I am a PB fan. I will certainly read more of his work and recommend him to others.… (meer)