A review by kristennd
All Over Coffee by Paul Madonna

3.0

He's like a west coast Maira Kalman, which is a good thing. These pieces originally ran in the newspaper, one at a time, so they tend to be very self-contained and it's better to space out the reading over time to keep them from all mushing together. Although I really like how he draws buildings, San Francisco ends up not very attractive. Maybe it's just the sort of grimy color wash. Trees and clouds, on the rare occasions where they appear, don't look quite right, although they improved significantly towards the end (the strips are chronological). The text is a nice series of little moments. I'm glad he put his explanation of the process in the back of the book instead of in the front, leaving you to make your own impressions first. Particularly liked the one on Emil (?) Hopper and the xkcd-esque one about whether the devil is self-aware. I understand how making it a horizontal book with pages you turn up rather than to the left makes for neater shelving, but it was still a pain to flip through that way.