Fresh Comics

Originally published by Fantagraphics in 2003 in hardcover and out-of-print for almost a decade, The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove collects in one gorgeous, coffee-table art book all of Gene Deitch's 1940s and 1950s work for The Record Changer, a magazine aimed squarely at the jazz-obsessed. Deitch's virtuoso images exquisitely embody the ecstasies and absurdities of the 1950s hipster ("the Cat"), and are a visual paean to the joys of collecting and appreciating jazz records.