Macanudo: Welcome to Elsewhere

by Liniers, Matt Groening (Foreword by)

Overview

Fantagraphics is proud to present Argentine cartoonist Liniers' internationally-acclaimed newspaper comic strip in a new English-language collection.

In the spirit of Calvin & Hobbes, Mutts, and Krazy Kat,  Liniers (Ricardo Siri) uses a shifting cast of children, talking animals, imaginary monsters, sensitive robots, occasional elves, and anthropomorphized objects to perform gags, philosophize, muse on nature, and engage in surreal, artistic flights of fancy. With delicate, calligraphic pen work and understated watercolors, the comic skips lightly from style to style and subject to subject, as Liniers allows his imagination and observational humor free reign. Jokes about domestic life, imagined scenarios of historical figures, Cthulu showing up to Tinder dates, characters simply enjoying a pastoral sunset, the puncturing of pop-culture stalwarts: Macanudo is a boundless canvas for its author’s humane and delightfully off-kilter view of the world, in a way few comic strips have ever even attempted.

Beginning in 2002 in Buenos Aires, Macanudo steadily gained popularity around the world, appearing in US newspapers since 2018. Welcome to Elsewhere is the first of a series of volumes collecting Liniers’ groundbreaking strip.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683965565
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Series:	Macanudo
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	624,389
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Born in Buenos Aires in 1973, Liniers (Ricardo Siri) became a daily cartoonist at 28 almost by accident, when other Argentine newspaper cartoonists had decamped to Spain at the nadir of a recession. He saw his role on the last page of La Nacion as offering a respite from dour news, but the strip’s whimsy and humanity quickly led Macanudo to expand to papers across Latin America, and eventually beyond to Europe and North America. Three of Liniers' children's books have been published in the US, with Good Night, Planet, winning the comics industry Eisner Award for Best Publication For Early Readers in 2018. He currently lives in Vermont.

Matt Groening (b. 1954) is an Emmy Award-winner, best known for co-creating animated TV series such as The Simpsons and Futurama. He also created the long-running alt-weekly strip Life In Hell for which he won a Reuben Award (2002) by the National Cartoonist Society.

Editorial Reviews

07/11/2022

Eisner Award–winning Argentinian cartoonist Liniers (Good Night, Planet) enchants with this whimsical, wistful collection of his daily comic strip, published in La Nacion since 2002 and syndicated in English by King Features. In delicate brush lines and bright picture-book watercolors, Liniers conjures up a cast of characters including the Mysterious Man in Black, the superhero Captain Deja Vu, a little boy and his imaginary monster Olga, penguins, witches, elves in long stocking caps, and Henrietta, a book-loving little girl who declares, “I read... therefore I think... therefore I am,” and eventually starts drawing a comic strip of her own. In between these vignettes, one-off strips illustrate more knowingly adult conceits, such as a couple whose anxieties are piquantly made for each other or free-range chickens raised on readings of Proust. The gentle humor traffics in absurdity, puns, literary references, and occasional fourth-wall-breaking gags. Liniers freely quotes from favorite books and wears his artistic influences on his sleeve, with characters variously recalling the work of Maurice Sendak, Gary Panter, Bill Watterson, and Patrick McDonnell. He fills his panels with lifelike animals and natural landscapes, wise children and weird monsters. Lovers of classic comic strips will revel in Liniers’s colorful, sweetly funny world. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Macanudo is a joy! Liniers' whimsical and wry observations about cats, relationships, elves, and gravity make me happy, but most importantly, he draws funny!"

"Liniers’ comics are funny and fanciful and whimsical and philosophical in the best sense. You immediately want to jump into the Liniers universe, with your happy eyeballs going along for the ride."

Matt Groening

"The work of Liniers, with apparent simplicity and incomparable intelligence, provides all the strength that a daily strip can have. Macanudo is an offering to the language, Bill Watterson’s perfect marriage to Quino."

Gabriel Bá

"Macanudo is a joy! Liniers' whimsical and wry observations about cats, relationships, elves, and gravity make me happy, but most importantly, he draws funny!"

Jeff Smith