Something I really like about New York is that “things happen” here, if you get what I mean. And a lot of things happen. This week I have decided to spare you my NYFA trivialities and deal with more important topics: my meetings with CELEBRITIES. Yes, friends, this week I have shared my identity as a butcher of 16mm film with the endearing role of crazy groupie.

Before going into more detail, you have to know that if there is something in this life about which I boast with overwhelming stupidity as a consumer of culture, it is of having what I consider “the best taste in the world”. You heard it right. If the work of an author fascinates me, it’s simply because he is terribly good. No other explanation is possible. The author can even come in person to tell me that he thinks his work is garbage, that he wrote it in five minutes or that I like it for the wrong reasons. I don’t care. It’s clear that he/she IS WRONG.

Actually, perhaps the only thing comparable in intensity to my fanaticism about certain works and authors is my trying tendency to apathy and a vegetative life. Of course, these two attitudes often enter into conflict and turn me into a sort of “passive fanatic”. I am perfectly capable of shouting from a sofa that someone’s work is the best produced by mankind while being unable to take two steps to see the work live if it is playing more than five subway stops away.

Well, I mention this because New York is the ideal solution for this kind of duality. There is so much cultural life that you inevitably come across it passively, without having to make annoying plans to search it out. Suddenly, you go in to buy something at a Barnes&Noble and you see Günter Grass sitting behind a table, patiently signing copies before an audience that is no more than one-third of the one Antonio Gala pulls at El Corte Inglés. Things like that happen all the time.

But let’s get to the point. The reason why my heart started pounding wildly this week was not because I came across Günter Grass, but because I was able to chat a while, without having planned it, with one of the authors of comics I most respect and admire: the great, the unbeatable JOE MATT.  And to top it off, I also met Jeffrey Brown, another cartoonist whose work I love.

In case you know nothing about comics, let me inform you that Joe Matt and Jeffrey Brown belong to a generation of authors whose work is primarily autobiographical and who offer descriptions of their own everyday experiences. Although the styles and viewpoints of the two are diametrically opposed, in my opinion they share what I would define as “honesty taken to the limit” when describing themselves.

I found Jeffrey Brown signing copies of his new work in Giant Robot, a nice store that sells comics, toys and T-shirts. Since I loved his work Unlikely, I took advantage of the occasion to go in, buy a few comics and meet the author. If you’ve never read anything by him, his work is characterised by naive cartoons that capture small intimate moments between couples with a moving innocence and tenderness that inspire small, cloying sighs on my part. Brown always shows stripped-down scenes with a very clear narrative that appeal directly to your emotions, without any subterfuges or ironical distance. It’s strange, because he is one of the few authors who make me think that the absence of humour or irony benefits his work. Nevertheless, I must admit that in person this lack of a comical perspective turned Jeffrey into a fairly dull character and hardly anyone approached him.

Anyway, I fervently recommend his Unlikely although I warn you that if naiveté and a certain dose of ingenuousness turn you off, this author is not for you, so don’t complain after the fact.

As for Joe Matt, what can I say? He really gets to me. The Poor Bastard is one of my top ten favourite comics of all times. In it, Matt describes himself as a neurotic, egotistic guy obsessed with women and pornography but incapable of maintaining a relationship without deploying a lot of small-minded nonsense and some fussy masculine “ticks”. His character is wretched and pathetic but he is also so frank and self-deprecating that he eventually inspires great tenderness and at the same time a disturbing sense of identification. Everything is told with a lot of talent, in an agile, very entertaining narrative style. You can’t ask for more. Buy the book and you’ll have a rich, full life.

I had the fortune to coincide with Joe Matt in the comic fair held at the MOCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) over the weekend. He was presenting his new work Spent. Since Matt hasn’t published anything for a very long time, coming across him and his new book on the same day was a double thrill for me. As soon as I arrived, I religiously bought four copies of Spent (some of them for gifts) and went to the table where the great man was autographing copies. Matt turned out to be a very open, friendly guy who replied pleasantly to my long interrogation while he drew funny dedications on my copies. When he finished, he thanked me for my interest in his work, we said good-bye and I returned home practically skipping like a school girl with my signed comics under my arm and my mythomaniac desires thoroughly satisfied. What can I say…silly things like this really make me happy.