In the comics of Greenpoint artist Lisa Hanawalt, familiar things get very odd, very fast. The award-winning artist, who's been published in The New York Times, The Believer, VICE, and Vanity Fair (to name a few) draws straight from her own dark Id, yet manages to turn subjects that could be icky into whimsical nonsense that can't help but confuse and delight. In her disturbingly detailed pages, the secret lives of dogs and celebrity chefs are revealed. Dirty daydreams involve miniaturizing the surfing bank robbers from Point Break. Anna Wintour gives birth to fanciful birds. If you sex a lady just right, she might turn into a velociraptor.

Two years in the making, her new book My Dumb Dirty Eyes is released by indie comics powerhouse Drawn & Quarterly next Monday. There's a book launch for it at 7PM tonight at the Power House Arena in DUMBO. Ahead of all this excitement, we talked to Hanawalt about her book, her illustration career, her dirty mind, and the fetish communities just hankering for new drawings of sexy lizard ladies.

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The L Magazine: When you are doing commercial illustration for the New York Times or Business Week, is it weird trying to find the line of what it is just absurd enough for that context? Can you tell when something starts to get too unsettling?

Lisa Hanawalt: I think art directors like me because I know what’s appropriate but I’ll push it just a little bit. Like, in the New York Times I had a comic about Thanksgiving and it had kid's drawn turkeys. Like a hand turkey, a foot turkey, and then a “bottom turkey.” I originally wrote “butt turkey” and they said, “That’s just a tiny bit too blunt, so let’s switch it to bottom.” I actually think that’s funnier.

This week kicked off with the sort of unfortunate news that the lit scene's favorite Brooklyn transplant, Martin Amis, may or may not completely hate it here. Sort of a bummer, but Brooklyn is a big place, and a lone hater is pretty easy to brush off. But two? Well, this is maybe getting to be a problem.

• A punch to the face is always more welcome than a cruel comment.

Words hurt. No one knows this more than a writer. The power that a malicious comment can have is exponentially stronger than any punch to the face. Cruel words worm their way into your psyche, establish themselves deep inside, and remain hidden, lying in wait should you ever doubt yourself again, then striking at your confidence over and over until you are utterly defeated. The potential for damage that words contain is immeasurable. But the damage of a fist is finite. Bruises heal. Split lips mend. Maybe this is why so many writers have been been notoriously pugilistic, even if only when drunk. After all, writers, more than anyone know that a punch can land but not linger, whereas words last forever. Or maybe writers the reason writers are so prone to fisticuffs is just the alcohol. Anyway. None of that is to say that writers don't insult each other through words. They do. Obviously they do. And when they do? The insults are of such a singular and cutting nature that it would be a shame not to honor the perverse cruelty of the author-to-author insult. Here are ten of my favorites.

• Author Benjamin Percy, who has the deepest voice I've ever heard.

In his novel, "Red Moon", author Benjamin Percy wrestles with such familiar coming-of-age issues as divorced parents, first infatuations, changing bodies, and clandestine handjobs. Also, werewolves. And terrorism. And the possibility of dealing with a pandemic. In other words, this novel defies any easy classification. Is it a classic horror story? Is it a coming-of-age tale? Is it an allegory for our country's obsession with the terrorists within? Yes. Yes, to all of those things. But it is also, in seamlessly combining so many different genres, so much more. I spoke with the very deep-voiced (for sure what a wolf would sound like if one could talk) Percy about his novel and its themes that, despite dwelling in the realm of horror, resonate so deeply in our society today.

• Martin Lawrence/Daily Mail/Rex Features

So, I'm of two minds about this. One is that as a crotchety elder statesmen, this is the kind of stuff we love and expect from Martin Amis, and anyway, a short Evening Standard article citing a single anonymous source is... not exactly concrete proof of anything. But then again, geez!

For our readers who may not be familiar with your work, what’s the most accurate thing someone else has said about it?
"Intelligent, hallucinatory, and, most important: heartfelt"—Gary Shteyngart.

• AUSTIN MCALLISTER

Last week we wrote about the opening of Mellow Pages, a new reading room among the artists' spaces at 56 Bogart in Bushwick. And it's all part of a larger trend: in less than a year, the neighborhood has seen an explosion of small book-sellers. Combined with a couple of neighborhood stalwarts, it makes for a lot of options whether you're looking to buy, re-sell, or just hang out and read books. In some cases, maybe even have a drink or two while you do it.

• AUSTIN MCALLISTER

For most people in Brooklyn — most people anywhere, really — books and beer aren't exactly a tough sell. So it makes sense, then, that just a week after their opening on February 21st, Matt Nelson and Jacob Perkins have been garnering both publicity and word of mouth for their small but impressive new reading room, Mellow Pages.

What neighborhood do you live in now?
I live in Carroll Gardens, and have been there for the past 18-plus years. I think it’s a terrific neighborhood. It has a lovely street-scale of brownstones, trees and gardens front and back, plenty of good food shopping, and no end of restaurants, boutiques, funeral parlors, and other amenities.

• Matthew Porter

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Williamsburg. I ended up meeting my now-husband when I lived on the Upper West Side. He convinced me to move to Graham Avenue four years ago, and we've been here ever since. I love the area because there are still a lot of neighborhood places and it's very Italian. You can stop at Fortunato's and have a cannoli or go to Emily's Pork Store to grab some handmade sausages for dinner. Or get "the best iced coffee in New York" at Caffe Capri, which I highly recommend.

I heard you don't live in Brooklyn anymore—is that true?
I'm out in California these days, working on some movie projects, but I'd love to move back home someday. I really love Brooklyn, despite having written this hostile take-down of it.


What neighborhood do you live in?
I never saw the sky from my last Manhattan apartment, which languished on the second floor of a tall building, just above the trash collection area. Here in low-rise Brooklyn, there’s sky and light all over the place, not to mention smaller trash piles. Much cheerier. I’ve lived in Park Slope now for 20 years.

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Brooklyn Heights. I’ve lived there since 1998. I came over to visit a friend who lived in Cobble Hill. I was living on the Upper West Side at the time in an apartment I couldn’t really afford. My wife and I have two children and apartment living can be challenging. We’ve looked in Westchester and New Jersey and, as lovely as those places are, we always come back after those trips and realize how much we love Brooklyn.

• Lauren Mechling

What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Gowanus, on Carroll Street, up from Monte’s, around the corner from Littleneck. I love Gowanus, but not a day goes by that I don’t wish it wouldn’t go the way of Fourth Avenue.

Is that where you grew up?
I grew up on President Street in Park Slope. I went away to college, did a decade in Manhattan, and now Gowanus feels awfully close to coming home to Park Slope to me. But I always say I live in Gowanus. Five years ago nobody knew where I was talking about. Now everybody does.

For our readers who may not be familiar with your work, what’s the most accurate thing someone else has said about it?
As much as I'd love to over-flatter myself here, I think Ben Loory (author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day) said it best: "I always love a book that makes me fear for the writer’s sanity. I’m over here praying for Amber Sparks." But don't worry, readers—my loss of sanity is your gain! At least, I hope so.

• BROKEN. Broken.

The crazy new technology that everyone over the age of 40 (and every lame, self-conscious young luddite) decried as the inevitable death of the book industry — the dedicated e-reader — is already dying a slow but steady death, just 5 years into its existence. Because everyone realized they weren't getting the full, sentimental hands-on experience, "the smell of thing thing," right?

Hahaha no, silly, no one who money people would ever categorize as an "influencer" gives a shit about anything like that. What they do care about is convenience and the ability for an expensive device to do something besides displaying books and accommodating "rudimentary Web surfing." All the things that are offered by tablets, in other words.