Book picks similar to
Magritte: This is Not a Biography by Thomas Campi
graphic-novel
comics
art
graphic-novels
The Making Of
Brecht Evens - 2011
With lush watercolors and his characteristic wit, Evens details the fumbling, amateurish foibles of the participants of a small art festival in the Flemish countryside. Pieterjan is invited to the festival as an honored guest. From the moment he arrives, things start going wrong, and since no one seems ready to step in, Pieterjan takes over the show. He decides to build a giant garden gnome as a symbol of Flemish identity, but the construction process brings buried tensions to the surface as the other artists become jealous of Pieterjan’s authority. In The Making Of, Evens delves deep into the petty tensions, small misunderstandings, and deadpan humor that pervade modern relationships. With a keen eye for the subtleties of body language, Evens’s The Making Of builds on the iconic visual style showcased in The Wrong Place. Sweeping watercolors jump off the page, surrealist scenery intermingles with crowds of people, and small suburban plot homes have never looked so lovely.
Gonzo
Will Bingley - 2010
Thompson's extraordinary life he was publicly branded a bum, a vandal, a thief, a liar, an addict, a freak and a psychopath. Only some of which are true. Even in the 20th century crowded with celebrity, his legacy remains a brilliantly vital force.The great American iconoclast, the great American outlaw, the great American hedonist... However you choose to view him, Thompson remains the high-water mark for all social commentators the world over, and a truly fearless champion of individual liberties.This is his story... the story of a troubled kid from Louisville, Kentucky, who went on to become an international icon. This is a story that charts the legendary heights of so-called "Gonzo Journalism", plumbs the darkest depths of American politics, and presents a lifestyle beyond imagination."No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride."
Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker
Ed Piskor - 2012
but Kevin "Boingthump" Phenicle could always see more than most people. In the world of phone phreaks, hackers, and scammers, he's a legend. His exploits are hotly debated: could he really get free long-distance calls by whistling into a pay phone? Did his video-game piracy scheme accidentally trigger the first computer virus? And did he really dodge the FBI by using their own wiretapping software against them? Is he even a real person? And if he's ever caught, what would happen to a geek like him in federal prison? Inspired by the incredible stories of real-life hackers, Wizzygig is the thrilling tale of a master manipulator -- his journey from precocious child scammer to federally-wanted fugitive, and beyond. In a world transformed by social networks and data leaks, Ed Piskor's debut graphic novel reminds us how much power can rest in the hands of an audacious kid with a keyboard.
Siberia
Nikolai Maslov - 2004
Stunned by the intensity of the work, Durand offered Maslov a modest advance to quit his job and finish the book. The result is this extraordinary visual portrayal of Russian life and spirit.Awash in alcohol from the first pages to the last, Siberia charts Maslov’s bleak path through the labyrinths of the Soviet system, from the desolate Siberian countryside, to military service with the Red Army in Mongolia, to the psychiatric hospital where he was admitted after his brother’s death. Drawn entirely in pencil on paper, the book’s nuanced gray tones document with unremitting clarity and delicate nuance the austere Siberian landscape, the bad vodka, the daily brawls, the cynicism and violence of life in Siberia, but also the perseverance and hope of those in this often neglected but fascinating part of the world.
James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner: A Graphic Biography
Alfonso Zapico - 2011
With evocative anecdotes and hundreds of ink-wash drawings, Alfonso Zapico invites the reader to share Joyce's journey, from his earliest days in Dublin to his life with his great love, Nora Barnacle, and their children, and his struggles and triumphs as an artist.Joyce experienced poverty, rejection, censorship, charges of blasphemy and obscenity, war, and crippling ill-health. A rebel and nonconformist in Dublin and a harsh critic of Irish society, he left Ireland in self-imposed exile with Nora, moving to Paris, Pola, Trieste, Rome, London, and finally Zurich. He overcame monumental challenges in creating and publishing Dubliners, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake. Along the way, he encountered a colorful cast of characters, from the Irish nationalists Charles Parnell and Michael Collins to literary greats Yeats, Proust, Hemingway, and Beckett, and the likes of Carl Jung and Vladimir Lenin.
Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story
Peter Bagge - 2017
If Bagge had not already had a New York Times bestseller with his biography of Margaret Sanger, his newest biography, Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story, would seem to be an unfathomable pairing of author and subject. Yet through Bagge’s skilled cartooning, he turns what could be a rote biography into a bold and dazzling graphic novel, creating a story as brilliant as the life itself.Hurston challenged the norms of what was expected of an African American woman in early 20th century society. The fifth of eight kids from a Baptist family in Alabama, Hurston’s writing prowess blossomed at Howard University, and then Barnard College, where she was the sole black student. She arrived in NYC at the height of the Harlem Renaissance and quickly found herself surrounded by peers such as Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman.Hurston went on to become a noted folklorist and critically acclaimed novelist, including her most provocative work Their Eyes Were Watching God. Despite these landmark achievements, personal tragedies and shifting political winds in the midcentury rendered her almost forgotten by the end of her life. With admiration and respect, Bagge reconstructs her vivid life in resounding full-color.
Here
Richard McGuire - 2014
Here is Richard McGuire's unique graphic novel based on the legendary 1989 comic strip of the same name.Richard McGuire's groundbreaking comic strip Here was published under Art Spiegelman's editorship at RAW in 1989.Built in six pages of interlocking panels, dated by year, it collapsed time and space to tell the story of the corner of a room - and its inhabitants - between the years 500,957,406,073 BC and 2313 AD.The strip remains one of the most influential and widely discussed contributions to the medium, and it has now been developed, expanded and reimagined by the artist into this full-length, full-colour graphic novel - a must for any fan of the genre.
The Sculptor
Scott McCloud - 2015
Thanks to a deal with Death, the young sculptor gets his childhood wish: to sculpt anything he can imagine with his bare hands. But now that he only has 200 days to live, deciding what to create is harder than he thought, and discovering the love of his life at the 11th hour isn't making it any easier! This is a story of desire taken to the edge of reason and beyond; of the frantic, clumsy dance steps of young love; and a gorgeous, street-level portrait of the world's greatest city. It's about the small, warm, human moments of everyday life…and the great surging forces that lie just under the surface. Scott McCloud wrote the book on how comics work; now he vaults into great fiction with a breathtaking, funny, and unforgettable new work.
Hey, Kiddo
Jarrett J. Krosoczka - 2018
But Jarrett's family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett's life. His father is a mystery -- Jarrett doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives with his grandparents -- two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children until Jarrett came along.Jarrett goes through his childhood trying to make his non-normal life as normal as possible, finding a way to express himself through drawing even as so little is being said to him about what's going on. Only as a teenager can Jarrett begin to piece together the truth of his family, reckoning with his mother and tracking down his father.Hey, Kiddo is a profoundly important memoir about growing up in a family grappling with addiction, and finding the art that helps you survive.
Berlin
Jason Lutes - 2001
Berlin is one of the high-water marks of the medium: rich in its well-researched historical detail, compassionate in its character studies, and as timely as ever in its depiction of a society slowly awakening to the stranglehold of fascism.Berlin is an intricate look at the fall of the Weimar Republic through the eyes of its citizens—Marthe Müller, a young woman escaping the memory of a brother killed in World War I, Kurt Severing, an idealistic journalist losing faith in the printed word as fascism and extremism take hold; the Brauns, a family torn apart by poverty and politics. Lutes weaves these characters’ lives into the larger fabric of a city slowly ripping apart.The city itself is the central protagonist in this historical fiction. Lavish salons, crumbling sidewalks, dusty attics, and train stations: all these places come alive in Lutes’ masterful hand. Weimar Berlin was the world’s metropolis, where intellectualism, creativity, and sensuous liberal values thrived, and Lutes maps its tragic, inevitable decline. Devastatingly relevant and beautifully told, Berlin is one of the great epics of the comics medium.
Stuck Rubber Baby
Howard Cruse - 1995
Toland’s story is both deeply personal and epic in scope, as his search for identity plays out against the brutal fight over segregation, an unplanned pregnancy and small-town bigotry, aided by an unforgettable supporting cast.
Three Shadows
Cyril Pedrosa - 2007
The taste of cherries, the cool shade, the smell of the river... That was how we lived, in a vale among the hills—sheltered from storms, ignorant of the world, as though on an island, peaceful and untroubled.And then...And then everything changed.Can you ever escape your fate?Three shadows stand outside the house—and Louis and Lise know why the spectral figures are there. The shadows have come for Louis and Lise’s son, and nothing anyone can do will stop them. Louis cannot let his son die without trying to prevent it, so the family embarks on a journey to the ends of the earth, fleeing death.Poignant and suspenseful, Three Shadows is a haunting story of love and grief, told in moving text and sweeping black and white artwork by Cyril Pedrosa.
Don't Go Where I Can't Follow
Anders Nilsen - 2007
It is an appreciation of the time they shared together, and a heartbreaking account of the progression of her illness. Including early love notes, simple and poetic postcards, tales of their travels together in written and comics form, journal entries and drawings done in the hospital during her final days, and a beautifully rendered tear-jerking account of Weaver's memorial, Don't Go Where I Can't Follow is a deeply personal romance, and a universal reminder of our mortality and the significance of the relationships we build.
Susceptible
Geneviève Castrée - 2012
After reading the last page I closed the book and wept a little bit about its simple, perfect ending."-MIRANDA JULY, author of It Chooses You and No One Belongs Here More Than YouGoglu is a daydreamer with a young working mother, a disengaged stepfather, and a father who lives five thousand miles away. Drawing, punk rock, and the promise of true independence guide Goglu to adulthood while her home's daily chaos inevitably shapes her identity. Susceptible is a devastating graphic novel debut by Geneviève Castrée; it's a testament to the heartbreaking loss of innocence when a child is forced to be the adult amongst grownups..
Dragon Hoops
Gene Luen Yang - 2020
Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships.Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.