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Matt Madden

comics, education, translation, oubapo

Unhappy Catalog Living

July 14, 2010 by matt Leave a Comment

Though hard to explain to visitors, their dedication to minimalism precluded ablutions and eliminations, so the bath was moved to the basement.
(photo and caption from Unhappy Hipsters; Photo: Uncredited; Dwell)

There are now two blogs out there that add narrative captions to catalog or magazine photos. An early (1995) comic of mine did something similar—you can read it after the jump.

Catalog Living takes catalog photos and adds inane captions that lean towards a silly satire of consumer culture and the Martha Stewart Era. Unhappy Hipsters, applies the same idea exclusively to photos from Dwell magazine, exposing a Ballardian architecture of alienation.

I based “Don’t Wait for a Sale!” on a Sunday newspaper ad for a department store. I redrew the images, partly to learn how to control ink wash, and added new text to the copy, though I preserved as much of the original as possible. It was published in my old minicomics series, Terrifying Steamboat Stories. #4, I think.

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