Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer

Katchor embodies his love of the fading small-business community in an imaginary East Coast city in the title character, a small businessman who wanders the streets taking pictures and being sidetracked into surreal escapades.

Strips often depict Knipl's chance encounters with obscure, marginal businesses (e.g. a company that distributes newspaper weights to newsstands), eccentric hobbyists, and enigmatic details of the urban landscape.

A collection of Julius Knipl strips was published in 1991 by Penguin Books (as a RAW One-Shot) as Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay.

NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday ran audio versions of several Julius Knipl stories in 1995 and 1996, narrated by Katchor and starring Jerry Stiller in the title role.

[1] In 1988 publisher Russ Smith approached Raw co-editor Art Spiegelman about comic strips for the weekly alternative newspaper New York Press.