A01=Nathan Gelgud
activism
auteur
Author_Nathan Gelgud
Category=XAK
Category=XQT
Cinema
critics
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_graphic-novels-manga
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Godard
hipsters
Humour
Kurosawa
movies
Ozu
Political Philosophy
pop culture
revolution
satire
Tarantino
Truffaut
Product details
- ISBN 9781770468153
- Dimensions: 114 x 191mm
- Publication Date: 04 Nov 2025
- Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
- Publication City/Country: CA
- Product Form: Paperback
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An absurdist comic strip satire of cinephilia in the attention economy. A spectre is haunting the cinema. A contrarian crew of small town theatre employees trade quips about directors, film criticism, and contemporary moviegoing, but underneath their banter and clashes with customers, an ideology begins to take shape. With the help of a dissatisfied cinephile and some witchy magic, the employees radicalize, take over the theatre, and seize the means of projection. What starts out as a workplace comedy simmers and then explodes into an absurdist Marxist-Leninist cinema-focused tract. The Reel Politik revolutionaries demand that we ditch the small screens in our pockets for the big ones in the theater as they take on streaming services, phone addiction, algorithms, phony democracy, and the conventions of moviegoing etiquette. Does that mean they hijack the Criterion Closet van? You bet it does. Cartoonist Nathan Gelgud both champions and lampoons the aspirations and failures of cinema and not a single sacred cinematic cow goes un-punched in this manifesto for revolution through film.
Nathan Gelgud is a cartoonist living in South Pasadena. His comics have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and Hyperallergic. Gelgud s illustration clients include Paris Review, Nike, Penguin Random House, ESPN, New York Review of Books (NYRB Classics), BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Ford Foundation, and The Believer.
