The Artist Himself: A Rand Holmes Retrospective
“Might be the best reprint book of the year. A must for fans of great comics art, the undergrounds, or the medium's history,The Artist Himselfis in the end most essential as a truly great read.” (Matt Seneca - Newsarama)“The collection combines a fascinating biography of Holmes... with chapters of his finest work... The Canadian rarely gets his due among comics aficionados, but The Artist Himself should go a long way toward putting this underground legend on the list of greats.” (Alonso Duralde - Modern Tonic)“The Artist Himself... present[s] a compellingly fresh... approach to the history of the medium... It radically broadens what we think of as a cartoonist’s life, and in that Rosenkranz has given us a great gift.” (Dan Nadel - Comics Comics)“With rare access to Holmes' journals and sketchbooks, Rosenkranz succeeds in giving readers access to the cartoonist that Holmes denied his closest friends.” (Steve Duin, - The Oregonian)“Rand Holmes was a true artist in every sense of the world and mostly produced work intended to change society, not fill his pockets. This book is a wonderful tribute and one any grown-up art lover will marvel at and cherish.” (Win Wiacek - Now Read This!)“The cartoonist and illustrator Rand Holmes… created hippie hero Harold Hedd, one of the more memorable fictional characters of the 1960s. Among the cognoscenti, Mr. Holmes is a peer of R. (Mr. Natural) Crumb and Gilbert (Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) Shelton.” (Tom Hawthorn - The Globe and Mail)“Imagine a Jack DavisMADmagazine piece with heavier overtones; that was Holmes at his best, and that best is well-represented inThe Artist Himself.” (The Onion A.V. Club)“Through excerpts from the artist’s own journals and interviews with those who knew him, Patrick Rosenkranz presents his subject as a man of contradictions, both prodigiously gifted and painfully insecure. [...] Holmes’s art was always marked by sharp visual wit and a sometimes astonishing attention to detail. He was indeed a genius, and thanks to Fantagraphics, he won’t be a forgotten one.” (John Lucas - The Georgia Straight)“[T]he colorful (in many senses of the word) collectionThe Artist Himself... is a smorgasbord of senses working overtime, the coffee table book of the year for raunch-loving pop art fans and literary hedonists alike.” (Chris Estey - The KEXP-FM Blog (Seattle))