That many, if not most, of Katchor's principals are Jews adds another surreal aspect to the mix. The Jew of New York'' mixes actual sites, like the American Hotel on Broadway, with entirely imaginary ones. However understated his graphic style, Katchor has an extravagantly assemblagist imagination. It is the mission of ''The Jew of New York'' to connect these dots. Throughout, Katchor revels in the strangeness of a self-invented New World that is also an antiquarian's old one.
Nothing is exactly what it seems.
Gradually accelerating, the narrative builds to a series of interlocking and disquietingly comic disasters. Even the most lurid is presented as though behind glass. The blocky, grimacing figures in Katchor's carefully staged panels suggest a series of constructed dioramas in some abandoned municipal historical society.