Artist Statement

Early issues of Classics Illustrated ended with this injunction: Now that you have read the Classics Illustrated edition, don’t miss the added enjoyment of reading the original, obtainable at your school or public library. Soon, however, this statement disappeared, replaced by an advertisement to Build Your Own Library by purchasing An Attractive Permanent Binder to hold your growing collection of issues. Our notions of library are transformed in this transition, morphing from a public space to something a person can own and even construct herself. I didn’t buy the binder but did build The Old Man’s Illustrated Library.

Johnny Damm’s work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from Denver Quarterly, Timber, and Chicago Quarterly Review. An editor for A Bad Penny Review and Opo Books & Objects, he lives in Athens, GA, where he is a doctoral candidate in creative writing at the University of Georgia.