Reel Politik

In his ongoing comic strip “Reel Politik,” the California cartoonist (and Lowbrow Reader contributor) Nathan Gelgud stealthily melds together various passions, principally cinema snobbery and leftist agitating. Gelgud’s strips are at once fiercely intelligent and unapologetically fun, his characters cranky and his punchlines broad. Although tied to the present, there’s a cool whiff of the ’70s.

For a stretch, readers have gotten regular doses of the strip through Gelgud’s Substack and last year, Drawn & Quarterly brought out the strip’s first collection, Reel Politik. Now, the publisher has unveiled a second book: No Concessions! A Reel Politik Collection. “Remember,” Gelgud’s fearsome star says within, “we are a revolutionary movement and will use the cinema as our primary means of radical change.” Hear, hear!

This weekend, Gelgud will be making his presence known in New York. On November 14 and 15, he signs books at the Brooklyn Expo of Comics, at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, while on November 14, he heads to the Lower East Side’s Metrograph Theater to introduce the movies Slither and The State of Things. Following the screenings, hop a plane to Chicago: Gelgud will be at the lovely Music Box Theatre on November 19, introducing everybody’s second favorite Gremlins movie, Gremlins 2. Check it all out—and pick up a copy of No Concessions!…stat!