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List Price: $24.95 | | Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Salesrank: 59504
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| Our Price: $16.12 |
| Used Price: $12.95 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
In February 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle began printing an enigmatic feature called "All Over Coffee." Almost immediately, letters of love and hate, confusion and praise poured in. Accustomed to the familiar formats of comic strips and cartoons, some readers struggled to understand a creation that seemed to live both within and beyond those boundaries.
All Over Coffee blends the timing of comics with the depth of poetry. Artist and writer Paul Madonna has fused art, literature, and comics by pairing timeless cityscapes with philosophical musings and poignant stories in masterfully rendered ink-wash drawings that surpass the art of Ben Katchor in elegance and architectural detail. His work has been compared to "a meeting of the tone of Edward Gorey, the uniqueness of Chris Ware, and the artfulness of Raymond Pettibon."
Quirky, whimsical, and often profound, All Over Coffee's stunning imagery and thoughtful writing combine to create a conceptual world, both dreamlike and familiar. This selection will delight anyone who has ever lived in or visited San Francisco-or dreamed of doing so-with its original, off-the-beaten-path view of the city and its inhabitants.
Paul Madonna moved to San Francisco and began to self-publish comics after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University's fine arts program and an internship at MAD magazine. In 2002 he launched his incredibly popular website, www.paulmadonna.com, posting a new cartoon each week. In 2004 the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com picked up his strip "All Over Coffee," which continues to appear weekly.
All Over Coffee Reviews:
Pure Genius! 
2009-05-11 - I have never written a review of anything, but Paul Madonna's "All Over Coffee" is so brilliant, I can't not write one. "All Over Coffee" is not just a comic that appears in the SFC, or, maybe, to some, that's all it is. But if you take the time to look at each drawing and really reflect on it, the drawing and accompanying text will likely become so much more. Some drawings and textss are simply windows into poignant moments, but others are so startling and arresting that reading them will make you stop what you are doing and reconsider what you've just seen and read, only this time, with regard to your particular station and situation in life. I bought this book at City Lights Bookstore while visiting San Francisco in June 2008. The cover interested me, so I picked it up and looked inside. I opened to drawing #299 (not page #299), "It's more than possible that all sides are wrong." I knew I had to have this book. I have purchased, to date, eight copies of this book for other people. Everyone I give it to finds new things in the drawings and in the texts, and not just new, but different than what I found when I looked at the same drawings and texts. Buy this book! Not every drawing may speak to you immediately, but they likely will at some point. And when they do, they will mean something to you. And there's a good chance that what you see is altogether different from what anyone else saw. That's the genius of Paul Madonna!
beautiful, serene, wise
2009-01-06 - Paul Madonna's book is delightfully quirky, in an inoffensive yet bitingly honest way. I read the whole thing through in one sitting, enjoying the detailed (yet almost sloppy) pen and ink drawings.
I am thoroughly bored and very, very unimpressed with the comics page in my local newspaper. Besides a small handful (RIP Calvin & Hobbes and Far Side . . . you are missed dearly) they are tedious, repetitive, and uninspiring. All Over Coffee is the opposite. Every scene is delicious; perfectly composed and rendered with such grace the light feels like it comes straight from the sun. And the text, while sometimes a little odd and perhaps a bit too "make you think", it consistently makes me smile, makes me shake my head and chuckle, and even, yes, make me think. Which is a good thing.
The artwork is glorious and the writing sublime. I highly recommend this book.
Adventures of the Spirit and Eye
2008-02-02 - I love this book! Madonna is superb illustrator with a mischievous wit and Zen spirit. A native San Franciscan, the Victorian and other architectural details of the old neighborhoods are familar to me, and it is fun to determine locations of his panels. He forces us to be aware of similar details of our lives, of the juxtapositions of form and space, and in but a few words, like a haiku, he captures relationships, moods, and the human condition. Even if you are not rooted in The City, this book deserves study, whether you are an artist or a philosopher. I look forward to a second collection, for Paul Madonna continues his work at the SF Chronicle. What joy!
Maybe You Had to Be There 
2007-08-23 - I ended up buying this one essentially sight unseen, after seeing a couple of excerpts on the Comics Journal blog. And excerpted is probably not the best way to comprehend this - Madonna's art is stunning from the get-go, and any individual page has a really satisfying (and very 1970's-ish) feel. But as comics, it doesn't ever come together, particularly when read grouped.
Madonna's vibe seems to be a captured moment, and having 200 or so captured moments in a row doesn't do anything to increase their impact - if anything, it dilutes the strength of whatever standout strips there are.
I give it a four-star review because as a reprint volume, the standards are some of the highest I've ever seen. The sepia washes are rich and nuanced, the color is sharp and vibrant, the paper stock is top notch, etc. If you are already a fan of the strip, or really have a yen for moody yet celebratory renderings of San Francisco, this is quite a gem. If you're unfamiliar, I would recommend finding more than a few of Madonna's strips to read over and then decide if you're on his wavelength or if you want to fork over the cash for what amounts to a nice urban sketchbook with some random dialogue thrown in for effect.
A coffee buzz for your eyes!
2007-07-08 - I have been a big fan of Paul Madonna's exquisite drawings and thought-provoking captions since All Over Coffee debuted in the SF Chronicle. I left SF nearly 3 years ago and his strip on the web kept me connected to home. The book was very enjoyable because it documents the evolution of the strip, and has forever put to rest the question: "but what does it really mean?"
Do you love San Francisco? Do you appreciate finely rendered drawings of unique architecture or everyday things most people overlook? Ever wonder how much work a working artist really does? Do you like to eavesdrop on strangers' conversations and try to put the fragments of what you hear into context? If you answered yes to any one of the above, you will enjoy "All Over Coffee."
Thank you, Paul for giving your fans something tangible to linger over, with a good cup of coffee.
