By 
Ben Katchor
 | 
TED Stage Talk

Comics of bygone New York

In this captivating talk from the TED archive, cartoonist Ben Katchor reads from his comic strips. These perceptive, surreal stories find the profound hopes and foibles of history (and modern New York) preserved in objects like light switches and signs.

Related tags:

art
cities
humor
books
comedy
united states
TED is supported by ads and partners

Watch next

5:39
Robert Chang
The dark history of the Chinese Exclusion Act
5:07
Susan M. Reverby
Ugly History: The US syphilis experiment
5:07
Orisanmi Burton
What really happened during the Attica Prison Rebellion
5:11
Ilan Stavans
Who decides what's in the dictionary?
4:46
Brian A. Pavlac
A brief history of the devil
4:28
Karen L. Cox
Debunking the myth of the Lost Cause: A lie embedded in American history
5:08
Evan Zodl
The unexpected math of origami
4:49
Melanie E. Peffer
The artist who won a Nobel Prize... in medicine
5:48
Amanda Gorman
"The Hill We Climb"
4:47
Yen Pham
Why should you read Toni Morrison's "Beloved"?
5:17
Noah Charney
The strange history of the world's most stolen painting
16:49
Katherine M. Gehl
US politics isn't broken. It's fixed
9:43
Leslie Herod
What if mental health workers responded to emergency calls?
10:13
Elizabeth Diller
A stealthy reimagining of urban public space
10:28
María Teresa Kumar
How the new generation of Latinx voters could change US elections
10:11
Tim Nevius
The exploitation of US college athletes
4:06
Elizabeth Cox
Can you outsmart the fallacy that started a witch hunt?
16:25
Van Jones
What if a US presidential candidate refuses to concede after an election?