Because never mind the #$&%! male gaze already, okay?
Because the artists included in this latest issue of the series edited by Kelly Phillips and Claire Folkman have gazes of their own. Because the artists (more than fifty of them!) whose work appears in the new Dirty Diamonds: Beauty anthology have diverse and personal perspectives on what beauty means, on what perceived lack of beauty means, on what it means to be a female human in this world where human beauty, but especially female human beauty, is rampantly commodified.
We reviewed the last number of the series in these pages about sixth months ago, and we can attest that Phillips and Folkman do an excellent job of wrangling contributors, a fine job of producing books worth adding to your library. And, sure as Phillips recently attended Austin’s New South Festival of Literary Arts and Cartooning to represent Dirty Diamonds and her other graphic endeavors, we’re recommending you check out the Kickstarter campaign that’s building crowdsourced steam to drive this vehicle of sequential-art expression to the printers and, eventually, to lucky bookshelves everywhere.
Because, after all, a thing of beauty – sing it, Keatsy-kun – is a joy forever.
This article appears in June 19 • 2015.