Author(s): Kim Deitch

Graphic Novels

Kim Deitch is an underground cartoonist--i.e., a contemporary of Spiegelman, et al.--whose craft just keeps getting better and better. Aesthetically inspired by silent film and 1930s animation, Deitch's comics are infused with 1960s psychedelia and spiritualism. Reincarnation Stories is a collection of comics narratives that combine into a graphic novel. It spans the past, present, and future of human history, with appearances by Frank Sinatra, monkey gods, a forgotten cowboy star of the silver screen, and a tribe of Native Americans that successfully resettled on the moon. In a parallel reality, Deitch himself is the mega-successful creator of a series of kids books about a superhero called Young Avatar, who helps marginalized souls lead better lives and whose alter ego is a carpenter. Deitch's spiritual nemesis (an incarnation of Judas Iscariot), Waldo the Cat, makes an appearance.