9781937541637 • 76pp • 5.5 × 8.515” • 2023
"Gorgeous" —Margot Ferrick, Yours, Dognurse
Iku Kawaguchi’s drawings of girls who are refined, fashionable, sleeping. Young women who are collapsing, vamping, strutting. Laughing ruddily, reading, petting, leaning, smoking, & looking in the mirror. In ballpoint pen, pencil, and watercolor.
Iku Kawaguchi lives and works in Tokyo. frozengirl collects drawings made between 2008 and 2023.
"Most of my motifs are women, but I think I draw something different. I'll leave it up to the viewer to decide what it is." —Iku Kawaguchi
“Their charming features had ceased to be indistinct and impersonal. I dealt them like cards into so many heaps to compose (failing their names, of which I was still ignorant): the big one who jumped over the banker, the little one who stood out against the horizon of sea with her plump and rosy cheeks, her green eyes; the one with the straight nose and dark complexion, in such contrast to all the rest, another, with a white face like an egg on which a tiny nose described an arc of a circle like a chicken's beak; yet another, wearing a hooded cape.” —Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Vol. II Within a Budding Grove - Seascape with Frieze of Girls
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kristina tzekova — house illustrator
publisher in search of some transcendent moment — a piece of liberating information. comics, art, literature, and the internet. est. 2007.
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praise...
i had a hard time coming up with a way to say this — i want to read all of [ 2dcloud’s ] books. [ 2dcloud is ] one of the few publishers who consistently puts out material I love. maybe that's better than the quote below.
2dcloud has a specific, idiosyncratic voice, like that of an artist. it’s a point of view that’s recognizable, but hard to define. it’s art books-meet-comics with a sense of warmth, humanity and vulnerability. it’s pain, with hope, always beautiful and surprising. —keiler roberts, author of rat time, and chlorine gardens
nobody is publishing weird, avant-garde, and visually innovative art comix like 2dcloud. it’s the kind of work that, by its very nature, will never be lucrative, but they do it because they believe in artists, and i believe in them.
i want to see art with a unique hand. i want artists that tell stories no one else can. i want my visual vocabulary expanded when I look at what you do. comics that look how a comic should look are for babies and for the birds. —julia gfrörer, author of laid waste, and black is the color
[this] small publisher [is] upping the whole country’s alt-comics game. —aiga eye on design
2dcloud takes its inspiration from the loose, in-progress aesthetic of some conceptual artists. —hyperallergic
2dcloud continues to publish work that, with exhilarating honesty and fresh illustration, captures the vastness of what it is like to be alive in this moment. —rachel davies, rookie magazine
2dcloud [is] one of the most interesting and exciting independent publishers working today. —blouin artinfo
2dcloud is king of the jungle! their books are wild! Their artists are nuts! I love everything they're doing. —anna haifisch, author of the artist
2dcloud takes chances on work that takes chances. their optimism is contagious. the world of comics — and the world of culture — can’t afford to be without them. —bill kartalopoulos, the best american comics series editor
"2dcloud goes boldly where other comics publishers fear to tread. —anders nilsen, Poetry is Useless
everything 2dcloud is doing right now isn’t just good; it’s exciting. there’s no better publisher of its size and orientation working in comics." —tom spurgeon, the comics reporter
it doesn't make sense not to support 2dcloud. —dash shaw, director of my entire high school sinking into the sea
2dcloud is a vital force within the comics industry and print publishing as a whole. they showcase the work of experimental practitioners of the medium; [work that] widen[s] the scope of comics beyond what most readers think is possible. 2dcloud’s dedication to creating books with the highest quality production value exemplifies their understanding of what consumers in the mass market are attracted to. comic shops and bookstores alike would benefit from carrying the 2dcloud line. —jacquelene cohen, director of publicity & promotion for fantagraphics books inc.