In the Shadow of No Towers (review 2.5/5)

I can’t remember the last time I read a book less than 50 pages–In the Shadow of No Towers weighs in at 42 huge, colorful spreads. Art Spiegelman’s recent book brings together a collection of broadsheets illustrated in the years following 9/11, and also shares the notable cover from the September 23, 2001 issue of the New Yorker. It feels like Woody Allen meets Charles Schulz, a jittery sort of memoir on the nature of terror and the stress of memory. There’s a recurring motif of the towers’ metal structure glowing red, just before their collapse. So there’s this palpable sense of anticipation that to some degree lasts even today, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. The work is bookended with a couple essays on his relationship with cartooning and politics.
Bonus material: Spiegelman has a nice dialogue with NPR about 9/11 and cartooning.