Music critic and Author
PROFILE
Ben Ratliff
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FROM Ben Ratliff
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The Organist
The New World Where do speech balloons come from? How does time move from panel to panel? This week we explore the techniques of comic-book storytelling through Chris Reynolds’s graphic series, newly anthologized as The New World. Join us as we travel deep into the artist’s world to find the source of these bizarrely mundane comics’ depth and beauty.
The Treatment
Mark Harris: Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War "The sixth character was alcohol," journalist Mark Harris says of "Five Came Back," about five directors who filmed from the WWII trenches.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Should we keep rebuilding in fire-prone Malibu? Private firefighters successfully defended Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s $50 million mansion from the Woolsey Fire. Insurance companies with a lot at stake have recently started hiring private wildfire defense teams to protect their clients’ properties.
LA Observed
Where the fire started, a checkered past The Woolsey Fire continues to rage at a little more than a third containment today. Areas in, and north and west of, Malibu are feeling the brunt of the impact. But across the Ventura County Line, headed past Point Mugu, and toward Oxnard, is a plot of land that has a lot of history. And controversy. With fires burning inside the grounds of the former Rocketdyne Field Lab, some folks who live nearby are worried.