Blog
Paying For It
by Dan
Graphica / May 02, 2011
Chester Brown's controversial new book Paying For It — both a contemporary defence of prostitution and a memoir of his personal experiences — is out this week, and the Toronto author was profiled in both the Globe and Mail and the National Post this weekend. Brad Mackay also reviewed the book for the Globe:
As is the case in most of his other autobiographical comics, Brown sets himself up as the target of the jokes. Joe Matt, a good friend and recurring character in Brown’s work, gets the lion’s share of the yucks here. I especially liked Matt’s reaction after he learns Brown has visited a prostitute: “This is disturbing, but it’s also good gossip.”
Of course, the art is as idiosyncratic as ever. Brown forgoes the six-panel grid and turns down the cross-hatching that he used in Louis Riel for a small, rectangular eight-panel layout inspired in part by the comics of Carl Barks. These oblong panels house some of the year’s most effective cartooning, capable of lending dignity to even the most awkward sex scenes.
You can also read reviews in The Walrus magazine, and at the Comics Reporter and Robot 6.
Chester will be at the Toronto Comics Art Festival this coming weekend and at the Vancouver Public Library on May 18th.