Somtimes in the City

61Chi

144 pages / 20 x 20cm / color / hardcover

The city.  A fascinating entity, rapidly transforming yet at the same time rendering its inhabitants immobile.  This book, Sometimes in the City, is devoted to that place.  The title has two levels of meaning: it is a convenient beginning for an infinite number of sentences; and an evocation of the interesting moments, feelings, and happenings of city life.  

Sometimes in the City contains descriptions and illustrations of one particular city: Taipei, Taiwan.  However, even considering the differences among cities, so many of the compromises and absurdities, the feelings of alienation, loneliness, and helplessness that are the focus of this book, have proven to be shared experience for city dwellers worldwide.

In a way, this is a comic book, but there is no dialogue and no traditional storyline.  Each chapter is a full single page of illustration, divided into between 3 and 9 frames, telling a story of city life, drawn as if snapped by a camera in sequence from a fixed position.  These stories are moments, vignettes just seconds in length. The illustrations and accompanying text descriptions evoke a wide range of emotions and experiences, and constitute a fresh, unconventional comic book reading experience.

61Chi

61Chi graduated from a graduate school majoring in design. In 2007, she published

her first Doujinshi illustration book and has so far published more than a dozen books

at her expense.

In 2014, her first comic work Room with Dala Publishing Company marked the beginning of her career as a professional comic artist. 61Chi still illustrates and makes graphic design on regular basis, bringing the aesthetic touches of the art and design into her works of comics and illustration. Having immersed in computer graphing for years, 61Chi is now trying to return to comics creation featuring exclusive hand-painted materials.