Close or literal in translation.
I became a fan of Ben Katchor’s Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer the day I discovered it in 1990. I landed in New York in October of that year and quickly discovered the New York Press, a free weekly newspaper that carried Katchor’s Knipl cartoons. If you have never seen them then you are missing something not just beautiful but which exquisitely captures the sadness which some of us understand saturates the world.
Ben Katchor is, as far as I know, the only comic artist to receive a MacArthur Genius Grant.
I always found the name of strip’s main character to be a little awkward. It provokes titters, no matter how deliberately I enunciate the K in ”Knipl". I find myself saying "kuh-nipple" or "ka-nipe-ul" in efforts to avoid saying anything that sounds remotely like "nipple" but, like any written correspondence which refers to the New York Public Library as "NYPL" it is simply unavoidable that lingering adolescence will intrude.
Just recently, in fact, I attempted to introduce Katchor’s Julius Knipl to an older man at the Old Town Bar near Union Square. Our conversation — which came about because of a comics convention happening in the city that day — had seemed seasoned and adult enough until I tried to pronounce "Knipl", falling once again in to the nipple trap. The old man looked at me, cock-eyed, asking if I had just said what he thought I said. I attempted to spell the word but he was unimpressed, and moved his genteel attentions to the drunk woman sitting to his right.
Knowing the thoroughness of poetry which infuses Katchor’s work I guess I should not have been surprised to learn that “Knipl” actually means something. “Knipl” is, according to a reviewer, an untranslatable Yiddish word meaning “the handful of change or small bills required to get by or just get home from some unforeseeable urban adventure.” Since discovering that definition I stash my knipl in a pocket when my wayward wanderings lead me away from this spot.
