One of those books that take all of 15 minutes to read, hours to look at, and days to fully absorb, it’s almost easier to catalogue what Niv Bavarsky and Michael Olivo’s handsomely-produced new Fantagraphics Underground hardback, Old Growth, isn’t about rather than what it is — but if we were about taking the easy way out around these parts, then this book wouldn’t find itself under the ol’ metaphorical microscope in the first place.  It’s a challenging and multi-faceted work, then — but it’s also cleverly disguised in such visually arresting and tonally “light” trappings that it doesn’t necessarily feel like anything other than an utter delight.

Don’t, then, let anyone tell you that fun and hard intellectual work are necessarily mutually exclusive, because they’re certainly not — but it’s well beyond interesting to note how Bavarsky and Olivo almost use the former to lull you into the…