EDITOR'S STATEMENT CONCERNING PANTHEON 'COMICS'

Here at Pantheon Books, we are beyond pleased to foist upon you, the slack-jawed and all-accepting public, our newest fiber-board bound collections of full- and partially-colored illustrated picture stories. Only the minimalist of expense has been spared to place into your sausage-fingered hands what many consider to be entirely above average and mostly worthwhile endeavors into the art of "image-driven narrative."

True, there have been one or two premature notices concerning these fictions that have been less than gracious, but this publisher would like to attribute those and their ilk to our culture's gentle yet unfortunate slide into a discourse fueled by bilious leanings, coupled with a journalistic industry increasingly dependent on our weary legal system's thriving work-release programs.

That said, we nonetheless hold our heads high as we set forth to canvass the countryside with the spectacle of these fine works, to which the words "adorable" and "pleasing" seem scarcely adequate.

So it is our hope, with all our hearts, that you will tearfully take them into yours and encourage others to do the same. In multiple copies of each.

Bless you,

Mr. Chas I. Kidd Assoc. Editorial Director, Pantheon 'Comics' division

Mr. Kidd is a graphic designer and writer living in New York City. His book jacket designs for Alfred A. Knopf (where he has worked for over thirteen years) have helped spawn a revolution in the art of American book packaging. His work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Eye, Print (cover story), Entertainment Weekly, The New Republic, Time, The New York Times, Graphis, New York, and ID magazines. The latter chose him as part of its first ID 40 group of the nation's top designers and has awarded him "Best of Category, Packaging" twice. In 1997 he received the International Center of Photography's award for Use of Photography in Graphic Design, and he is a regular contributor of visual commentary to the Op-ed page of the New York Times. He has been the design consultant for The Paris Review since 1995, and in 1998 he was made a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.

His designs have been described as "Monstrously ugly" (John Updike), "apparently obvious" (William Boyd), "Faithful flat-earth rendering" (Don DeLillo), "surprisingly elegant" (A. S. Mehta), "a distinguished parochial comic balding Episcopal priest" (Allan Gurganus), "Two colors plus a sash" (Martin Amis) and "not a piece of hype. My book was lucky." (Robert Hughes).

Mr. Kidd has also written about graphic design and popular culture for Vogue, The New York Observer, Entertainment Weekly, Details, 2WICE, The New York Post, ID and Print. His first book, Batman Collected (Bulfinch, 1996), was awarded the Design Distinction award from ID magazine. He is the co-author and designer of the two-time Eisner award-winning Batman Animated (HarperCollins, Fall 1998). As an editor, Kidd has overseen the publication of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, and Dan Clowes's David Boring at Pantheon Books, and the definitive book of the art of Charles Schulz.

The Cheese Monkeys, his first novel, will be published by Scribner in Fall 2001.