Hagai Palevsky (he/him)

Comics writer and critic. Street cat photographer. President of the Great Clown Pagliacci fan club. Enjoyer of posts and content. #JewishPope2023

[dialhforhagai]

In the way of a renewed introduction...

Hello, Tumblr! I haven’t been here in... quite some time. I'm Hagai Palevsky, and I’m a comics writer and critic. Three comics I wrote are out now (two online, one in an anthology), as is a prose story I wrote and posted on here, and eleven of my reviews and essays have been published by online outlets (namely SOLRAD, the Gutter Review, and PanelxPanel). I’m always on the lookout for new projects and collaborators, but mostly I’m just here for a good time. What’s up?

You can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Cohost, Hive, and Mastodon with the same @. My Linktree:

Hagai Palevsky @DialHForHagai | Twitter, Instagram, TikTok | Linktree

Hagai Palevsky (he/him) is an Israeli comics writer and critic.

[dialhforhagai]

locking eyes and holding hands must feel so good if you’re a twin high maintenance machine

[dtaphanel]

Untitled, art by me, words by Hagai Palevsky.

insta | masto | portfolio | prints | kofi | patreon

[dialhforhagai]

oh hey I wrote a new poetry comic

[dialhforhagai]

it’s 2014, and you’re an artist with a decent online following. you’ve just finished this drawing and posted it to Tumblr, Twitter, and 9gag. you captioned it with the first verse of “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles, and now you’re leaning back and watching the likes and shares go up. life is good

[dialhforhagai]

RIP Samuel Beckett you would have loved posting, at least this is what I think, and as I think so I voice it out into the world, I have always been this way, thought and then voice, though at times it is true the first stage might be skipped in matters of importance high and low alike, always alike,

[dialhforhagai]

GIANT DAYS by Allison, Sarin, Treiman, Cogar, Fleming, Campbell, and guests (BOOM! Box, 2015-2019)

I finally finished reading this one, which is a pleasure from start to finish. There's a wonderful harmonious flow to the whole thing, operating on a mode of comedic heightening that many strive for and yet few reach, creating its own dialect and fully inhabiting it.

[dialhforhagai]

USAGI YOJIMBO by Stan Sakai (1984)

I just finished the Dark Horse volume I was missing, and I am perpetually struck by how perfect this book is; just strikingly elegant, managing to tread familiar ground without ever feeling tired or repetitive. Quite possibly the best "genre" comic I've ever read…

[dialhforhagai]

SACRED HEART by Liz Suburbia (Fantagraphics, 2015)

I finally got a chance to read this, which is a gem. Suburbia perfectly establishes a tone and carries it out to a beautifully jagged execution. A wonderfully-realized piece of comics with some really lovely cartooning.

[dialhforhagai]

BUILDING STORIES by Chris Ware (Pantheon, 2012)

There's so much to this one that I don't know where to start: awe-inspiring in its scope-of-form and theory-in-practice, oppressive in the inevitable totality of its weltschmerz. This is the apotheosis of Chris Ware's work—I'm just not sure if that's a good thing.

[dialhforhagai]

we all love the documentary movie “stop making sense” featuring the band “talking heads,” but I’d like to tell you about a very special man for whom the world “started making sense” when he saw the “talking heads” of moses and elijah up on the mountain. let’s all open our bibles to

[dialhforhagai]

LUPIN THE III: THICK AS THIEVES by Monkey Punch (English edition tr. Adrienne Beck: Seven Seas, 2023)

I just finished reading the new collection, and Monkey Punch's cartooning, as ever, remains a joy, and is at its best when it pushes slapstick kinesis to such an abstract degree that it only barely scans as human. Almost a Yokoyama-esque presence to this art.

[dialhforhagai]

BIG NUMBERS #1-3 by Moore, Sienkiewicz, and Columbia (Mad Love, 1990; #3 unpublished)

This is a fascinating read: its panoramic soap-opera view of town is both an extension of Moore's output of that same time and a complete departure, with some lovely frenetic art by Sienkiewicz (and Columbia for #3). Alas, it was not to be…

[dialhforhagai]

KANE, Volumes 1-3 by Paul Grist (collected edition: Image, 2004)

This is a phenomenal little comic. Grist forms a beautiful balance between lean and stylized, with a tight grasp of the modes of the procedural that is confident enough to never grow tired. I loved it.

[dialhforhagai]

PRISM STALKER by Sloane Leong (first volume lettered by Ariana Maher: Image, 2018; second volume lettered by Lucas Gattoni: Dark Horse, 2023)

I read both volumes today, and this book is phenomenal. A gorgeous dive into the oft-thwarted attempt to imagine an existence free of subsumption, with some of the most rich—and particularly richly-textured—cartooning you're likely to find.

[dialhforhagai]

ALVAR MAYOR, Vol. 3: THE THREE DEATHS OF ALVAR MAYOR by Trillo and Breccia (Epicenter, 2023)

Trillo’s attempted Toppiesques start to wear themselves thin, but Breccia’s art as ever crackles with energy—the beauty of his balance between Cam Kennedy-like ruggedness and ethereal minimalism, with his command of omission, never fails to hit.

[dialhforhagai]

HEAVEN NO HELL by Michael DeForge (Drawn and Quarterly, 2021)

The sort of book that fills you with the immensity of an artform. DeForge’s grasp on mode and tone is pitch-perfect, with some really stunning ideas on display, all at the exact point between articulation and abstraction that they need to be.

[dialhforhagai]

RUSTY BROWN by Chris Ware (Pantheon, 2019)

Similarly to Jimmy Corrigan, I found myself admiring this more than enjoying it. Ware's fascination with raw, overwhelming emotion is clear, but his panorama is perhaps too impressive, too overwhelming, for me to properly feel it.