Ronald Wimberly & Co.'s LAAB Magazine is here! This GIGANTIC broadsheet – spreads measure a whopping 23" x 32"(!) and it is divided into three sections, just like a newspaper (but, in this instance, delivering news you actually want to hear) – unlocks social strictures and unpacks social structures employing Black/ness and (its) representation as key and signifier.  

This issue presents readers with the LAAB manifesto and includes interviews with Alexandra Bell, Trenton Doyle Hancock and Saul Williams.  Then there are some excellent illuminated essays – primarily by Wimberly  –  that are both eye-opening and consciousness-expanding (don't allow yourself to be intimidated by the giant expanses of type; these essays are well worth your time and all efforts expended in their absorption will be amply rewarded).  And, last but far from least, a big pile of amazing GIANT-SIZE comics by Ron Wimberly! 

RECOMMENDED!

And, anyone looking for greater detail avbout the making of this issue should hop over to TCJ.com and check out this interview with Mr. Wimberly.

Ronald Wimberly & Co. are back with another issue of the broadsheet newspaper art magazine, LAAB!  A feast for the mind as well as the eyes, it features a host of fascinating pieces chock full of interesting insights designed to challenge our perceptions and conceptions of yesterday, today and tomorrow. This issue "concerns themes of death and environmental devastation, horror, hauntology, necropolitics, and the anthropocene. We ask what it means to die, and what it means to live -- and what might have to die for a future to be born."  While this issue states that it is "#4", it is in fact the second issue, so, as long as you have the first issue (which was #0), don't worry, you haven't missed anything.  The issues are numerologically numbered, and this issue is #4 due to 4's association with death. 

This time around we have six 8-page sections of full color comics, intellectual explorations, semiotic deconstructions, reporting, interviews, and even a horoscope – well, "horrorscope", actually.  And what pages!  LAAB takes the prize for size.  Printed on bright, crisp newsprint, each of the 48 pages are 16" x 21" – which opens to eye-popping 32" x 21" spreads – making for a unique reading experience. There are all new comics by Emily Carroll, Ben Passmore, Hellen Jo, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Nishat Akhtar, Josiah Files, Freddie  Carrasco, Richie Pope, Tanna Tucker and Gymah Gariba, with the feature attraction being a twelve page work by Ronald Wimberly himself.  We also are treated to an essay on the possibilities of Frankenstein's monster representing blackness by Elizabeth Young; Sarah Jaffe's exploration of how women's reproductive rights are embedded within the Alien films; an interview with John Carpenter and Sandy King; a look at the battle for Standing Rock by Michael Horse; and much more.

LAAB #2, the third issue of Ronald Wimberly and Josh O'Neill's trailblazing broadsheet newspaper of comics & essays (and more!) – who said numbering had to be sequential? – is another must.  Anyone who missed out on the Kickstarter, now has a reprieve – but dpn't sleep on this:  we didn't get all that many, and are not 100% certain that we will be able to get more.

It is, of course, another amazing issue.  It's only minutes out of the mail truck, so we don't yet have a whole lot to say about it.  So, for now, the official hype will have to suffice:

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LAAB MAGAZINE is a big 48 page 17x22" broadsheet newspaper printed on bright white heavy 50# paper stock. It's a high end art newspaper with top production values and gorgeously printed images. It's edited by Ronald Wimberly and Josh O'Neill, with layout by the stellar new design team of Chloe Scheffe and Natalie Shields. 

LAAB #2 concerns itself with food, waste, compost, and sustainability, as well as broader issues from media consumption to cultural appropriation. Are you what you eat? What does our waste reveal about us, as individuals and societies?

Jam-packed with comics, illustrations, essays, and interviews, this issue's lineup of creatives and thinkers includes Michael DeForge, Rosemary Valero-O'Connell, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Paul Pope, Mikkel Sommer, Virginia Zamora, Connor Willumsen, and Olivia Fields and dozens of others, as well as a conversation with none other than Tunde Adebimpe of TV On The Radio.

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:

VIRGINIA ZAMORA  JASJYOT SINGH HANS  TUNDE ADEBIMPE of TV ON THE RADIO PAUL POPE MICHAEL DEFORGE EZRA CLAYTAN DANIELS MIKKEL SOMMER ELLIE LEE TRACY CHAHWAN LEA MURAWIEC ROSEMARY VALERO-O'CONNELL CONNOR WILLUMSEN OLIVIA FIELDS LILIAM HIGA SHAKEEB ABU HAMDAN YASIR HUSAIN KIM JOOHA MICHAEL METTIVIER GIDEON KENDALL MIRANDA TACCHIA AIDAN KOCH RAMI TANNOUS FRANK NIKOL

 

Here is a one of a kind item.  It is a real challenge to describe just how different it is.  Ronald Wimberly has long been a student of Japanese culture and æsthetics – among much else – and has leveraged that experience into this multi-levelled, ultimately unclassifiable work (and that unclassifiability is very much part of its significance).  Wimberly has the chops to code switch between a host of stylistic practices both visual and linguistic, encompassing classical Japanese forms and practices, European high culture, American academia (which is represented here by several essays by recognized scholars writing on Wimberly's work that are incorporated into it), and Brooklyn street life, all of which are then transposed on and grounded in a hidden history of New York City involving a 300 year old feud between a family of Japanese shinobi (aka ninja) and Dutch settlers to New York.  Taken all together, this creates a mix so outside the norm that it needed a package that would represent this fact. 

Gratuitous Ninja – also known in its truncated form of GratNin – is a elegantly (and sturdily) produced (kudos to Beehive Books here) box set of long, folded, vertical concertina scrolls (if there is such a thing; if not, there is now) that read top to bottom, like tategaki (traditional Japanese writing).  These scrolls are meant to be read top to bottom, then flipped over and read back from bottom to top, on the other side. 

And this is just scratching the surface.  We hope to be back to say more, but for right at this moment, we can add that anyone looking for a holiday gift for that know-it-all comics fan in their life who "already has it all" might want to consider this.   Unless they supported the Kickstarter for this work, they won't have it.  And it's guaranteed to make an impact.

To get a better idea of what's in store, check out an image gallery of Gratuitous Ninja that we posted on Instagram, HERE.

And, we are offering it at a specal lets-start-the-new-year-off-hepper-and-smarter price!