1-800-Mice Pierre Oscar Lévy Chicago’s Black press—from The Chicago

Chicago’s Black press—from The Chicago Defender to the Negro Digest to self-published pamphlets—was home to some of the best cartoonists in America

Doug TenNapel

Steven helps a baby songbird find its mother

an unseen and surreal world comes alive—a world witnessed only by the small family of cats that lives in the attic

By Mark Siegel

1-800-Mice Pierre Oscar Lévy Chicago’s Black press—from The ChicagoBy Matthew Thurber. Published by PictureBox. Hardcover, 160 pages, B&W, 2011. "1 800 MICE" is Matthew Thurber's comic book anthropological study of the imaginary city of Volcano Park: a cross between Thomas Pynchon, Robert Altman and J. R. R. Tolkien. Over the course of the story we meet Peace Punk, a punker on the verge of a bourgeois lifestyle; Tom Chief, a beat cop with an identity crisis; and Groomfiend, a daffy creature who leads the narrative.