Ben Katchor

Benjamin Fraser is professor of Spanish in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona. He is author of several books, including The Art of Pere Joan: Space, Landscape, and Comics Form; Visible Cities, Global Comics: Urban Images and Spatial Form (published by University Press of Mississippi); and Toward an Urban Cultural Studies: Henri Lefebvre and the Humanities.

Through astute close readings and by framing Ben Katchor's work along a multisensory spectrum, urban studies scholar Benjamin Fraser presents a stunning and original perspective on Katchor's graphic narratives." - Jan Baetens, professor emeritus of cultural studies and comics at the University of Leuven "As well as being a substantial engagement with a diverse set of works from an important, understudied comics artist, Ben Katchor presents a compelling approach to the analysis of those works. By combining a focus on Katchor's use of the senses with analysis of the representation of the senses in his comics, Fraser has not only found a way of eliciting specific insights from Katchor's strips, he has also sketched out an expanded approach to the sensory analysis of comics that can be applied to a wide range of works." - Ian Hague, founder and director of Comics Forum and Reader in Graphic Narrative at the University of the Arts London "Ben Katchor's comics are filled with the same sensuousness, tactility, and humor of the urban worlds they depict. In this enthusiastic author study, Ben Fraser proves an expert guide through Katchor's cityscapes, offering a vital introduction for readers new to the artist and a valuable reappraisal for those already familiar with his work. Organizing the book's discussion around the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste, Fraser affirms Katchor's importance for so many vital themes in and beyond comics studies today: urban culture, multisensory reading, art and its commodification, and the centrality of community in the making of place."- Dominic Davies, author of Urban Comics: Infrastructure and the Global City in Contemporary Graphic Narratives