[A] powerful indictment of one of the most prevalent wrongs in contemporary society… Damm’s direct approach does more to condemn the brutality and corruption of modern law enforcement than academic tomes ten times its length.
—The Comics Journal, “The Best of 2023”
Damm’s combinatorial work recontextualizes and reactivates familiar genre tropes and twice-seen images; the results have a needling urgency. At once politically necessary and formally cool, “I’m a Cop” offers visual poetry with teeth.
—The Comics Journal, “The Best Comics of 2022”
Damm upends the usual fare of celebratory biographies of successful lives by finding inspiration in artists who tried and failed to change the world around them. Using collage techniques to mash up vintage horror and sci-fi comics like Tomb of Terror with WPA photography from the Great Depression, Damm documents forgotten lives and plumbs great meaning via unusual, macabre visuals that manage to jibe with their real-world subjects’ lives… Drawing on Jack Halberstam’s theoretical framework in “The Queer Art of Failure,” it’s Damm’s goal to subvert the “neoliberal vision of ‘success’” in favor of a more attainable and holistic worldview. It’s a heady concept at which he—ironically enough—wholeheartedly succeeds in accomplishing… [A] weird and engrossing volume.
—Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review of Failure Biographies
Funny, irreverent and urgent, FAILURE BIOGRAPHIES’ method is best described as creative mayhem. Immerse yourself in this tribute to failure and embrace all it has to offer. Magnificent!
-Jack Halberstam, Author of The Queer Art of Failure
To say [Damm] has created a fusion of poetry, art, storytelling, and pulp comics doesn’t seem to do the work justice, principally because it’s a great deal more sophisticated and delightfully bizarre than that. There’s really no way to describe the experience of reading this book as it juxtaposes and repurposes textbook diagrams, prose poetry, and comics panel sequences while opining on the imagined comings and goings of literary giants, failed mid-20th-century filmmakers, and the history of the blues. Damm’s ideal reader is an open-minded culture junkie and fan of poetry, high art, and comics, someone with a penchant for everything from Dada to Derrida. [Those] who fall into that category will make this the centerpiece of their literary collections.
—Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review of The Science of Things Familiar
The startling juxtapositions of this hybrid book will shock readers into awareness of the various subtexts—emotional, sexual, racial, environmental—of twentieth-century American popular culture.
—Rain Taxi Review of Books
In an age of hybrid texts, The Science of Things Familiar stands out for its hybridity… It’s arresting stuff… [D]ark and original territory.
—DIAGRAM
An eccentric mashup of what author Johnny Damm calls “common phenomena” (music, film, and comic books) with personal narrative, fabricated stories of aging authors, and film bios-turned-records of lived experience, this book keeps you on your toes. Its short and captivating chapters, visually akin to both zines and old-timey science books, read similarly to the addictive scrolling of an infinite social media feed. The Science of Things Familiar presents universal topics in an endearing, poetic, and often revealing way.
—Literary Hub (“10 Small Press Books to Read This Summer”)
Johnny Damm’s newest comic book, “I’m a Cop”: Real-Life Horror Comics, has been featured in The Washington Post, Boing Boing, and In These Times and named one of “The Best Comics of 2022” by The Comics Journal. Damm is also the author of the acclaimed graphic novels Failure Biographies and The Science of Things Familiar, both published by The Operating System. His comics, prose, and visual poetry have appeared in Guernica, Poetry, The Offing, and elsewhere. He lives in Santa Cruz, California and teaches at San José State University.