In an article on the front page of the 'Arts and Leisure' section of Sunday's New York Times, Alexandra Star takes a long and loving look at Grant Morrison's Manhattan Guardian comic book series in which the Scottish writer has created a vision of New York (known as 'Cinderella City' to differentiate it from its 'ugly stepsisters' Gotham City and Metropolis) that includes numerous architectural wonders which were proposed, but never constructed.  The striking architectural backdrops for the Manhattan Guardian comic include a hotel designed by the great Spanish/Catalonian architect Antonio Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright's design for remaking Ellis Island, Hans Hollein's 'Rolls Royce' Building (with a facade like a Silver Cloud's grill), and city planner Robert Moses' elevated Mid-Manhattan Expressway.

In addition to quotes from Morrison and artist Cameron Stewart, the article, which is entitled 'It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Architecture,' includes numerous full color illustrations (including covers for the first two issues of Manhattan Guardian), which totally dominate a full interior page (page 26) devoted to demonstrating the unique ability of the comics to create or recreate architectural environments at a fraction of the cost of other media such as film.  European comic artists such as the Belgian Francois Schuiten, who created elaborate retro industrial cityscapes for his Les Cites Obscures series of graphic novels and the Italian Vittorio Giardino, who recreated the central European capitals of the mid-1930s for his Max Friedmann sagas, have demonstrated in their own very personal ways the architectural potential of the comic book medium.  It's not that American comic artists haven't created superb architectural backgrounds before -- the mean streets and soaring skyscrapers of our urban landscapes have long been a staple of superhero comics and alt-comics genius Chris Ware's work on the 'Lost Chicago' project is proof that architectural sensibility is not limited to the mainstream -- it's just great to have Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart do their own architectural thing for DC Comics in Manhattan Guardian -- and get noticed for it as well.