Europe’s Flailing Capital Of Kitsch

“Jets of water spurt into the air in front of the warriors: red, yellow, blue, violet. The eight bronze men stare fiercely through the spray of the fountain, while far above their heads, Alexander the Great sits enthroned, raising one sword up at the sky. Wagner and Tchaikovsky blare out of the speakers and the water shoots more or less in time with the music.”

Reading The Prayer Journal Of The Young Flannery O’Connor

“The addressee here is God, but already O’Connor is rehearsing her role as speaker, anticipating how she will address a mortal audience. Learning to avoid cliché and speak authentically is a predicament of both prayer and literature, and solving the problem in her prayer life allowed O’Connor to solve the same problem in her fiction.”

Fans Rescue Iconic Comics Publisher In Kickstarter Campaign

Luckily for the fiercely independent publisher, fans were willing to buy in, showing up with cash and “happy to back the best book publisher in America, period” sentiments. All told, more than 2,300 people had contributed as of Tuesday, four of them even opting for the $2,000 pledge which snags them every Fantagraphics book put out in 2014.