Book picks similar to
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graphic-novel
Sunny Side Down: A Collection of Tales of Mere Existence
Levni Yilmaz - 2009
Armed only with insecurity, doubt, and a seemingly inadvisable tenacity, Lev trudges through his days furiously analyzing himself and the world around him, desperately trying to figure out where he fits in. If you have ever felt like a perpetual square peg in a world of round holes, you have found a kindred spirit.
Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe
Tim Leong - 2013
This book by one of Wired magazine's art directors traverses the graphic world through a collection of pie charts, bar graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more. Super Graphic offers readers a unique look at the intricate and sometimes contradictory storylines that weave their way through comic books, and shares advice for navigating the pages of some of the most popular, longest-running, and best-loved comics and graphic novels out there. From a colorful breakdown of the DC Comics reader demographic to a witty Venn diagram of superhero comic tropes and a Chris Ware sadness scale, this book charts the most arbitrary and monumental characters, moments, and equipment of the wide world of comics.
Nick Cave: Mercy on Me
Reinhard Kleist - 2017
1957) is a Renaissance man. His wide-ranging artistic output—always uncompromising, hypnotic, and intense—is defined by an extraordinary gift for storytelling. In Nick Cave: Mercy on Me, Reinhard Kleist employs a cast of characters drawn from Cave’s music and writing to tell the story of a formidable artist and influencer. Kleist paints an expressive and enthralling portrait of Cave’s childhood in Australia; his early years fronting The Birthday Party; the sublime highs of his success with The Bad Seeds; and the crippling lows of his battle with heroin. Capturing everything from Cave’s frenzied performances in Berlin to the tender moments he spent with love and muse Anita Lane, Kleist’s graphic biography, like Cave’s songs, is by turns electrifying, sentimental, morbid, and comic—but always engrossing.
Cats of the Louvre
Taiyo Matsumoto - 2018
At night, within its darkened galleries, an unseen and surreal world comes alive—a world witnessed only by the small family of cats that lives in the attic. Until now…Translated by Tekkonkinkreet film director Michael Arias.
Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?
Harold Schechter - 2021
DID YOU HEAR WHAT EDDIE GEIN DONE? is an in-depth exploration of the Gein family and what led to the creation of the necrophile who haunted the dreams of 1950s America and inspired such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. Painstakingly researched and illustrated, Schechter and Powell's true-crime graphic novel takes the Gein story out of the realms of exploitation and gives the reader a fact-based dramatization of these tragic, psychotic and heartbreaking events. Because, in this case, the truth needs no embellishment to be horrifying.
Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life
Ulli Lust - 2009
Twenty-five years later, this talented Austrian cartoonist has looked back at that tumultuous summer and delivered a long, dense, sensitive,and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece.Miraculously combining a perfect memory for both emotional and physical detail with the sometimes painful lucidity two and half decades’ distance have brought to her understanding of the events, Lust meticulously shows the who, where, when, and how (specifically, how an often penniless young girl can survive for months on the road) of a sometimes dangerous and sometimes exhilarating journey. Particularly haunting is her portrait of her fellow traveler, the gangly, promiscuous devil-may-care Edi who veers from being her spunky, funny best friend in the world to an out-of-control lunatic with no consideration for anything but her own whims and desires.Universally considered one of the very finest examples of the new breed of graphic novels coming from Europe, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life won the 2011 Angouleme “Revelation” prize, and Fantagraphics is proud to bring it to English speaking readers.
Boundless
Jillian Tamaki - 2017
An anonymous music file surfaces on the internet and a cult springs up in its wake. A group of city animals briefly open their minds to us. Helen finds her clothes growing baggy, her shoes looser, and as she shrinks, the world around her recedes. A lifetime of romantic relationships are charted against the rise and fall of the celebrity cast of a classic film.Jillian Tamaki brings her characteristic blend of realism and humor to her first collection of short stories. Boundless explores the lives of women and how the expectations of others influence their real and virtual selves. Mixing objective reality, speculative fiction, out-and-out fantasy, and a deep understanding of the contemporary world's contradictions, Tamaki shows herself to be a short story talent equal to her peers Adrian Tomine and Eleanor Davis. Tamaki's styles shift from story to story, each delicately setting the mood for her characters' inner turmoil: thick chunky blocks of ink become hyper-realist detailing which become brushy drawings of plants, all effortlessly rendered in Tamaki's distinctive hand.
Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D
David Kushner - 2017
Like the game itself, the narrative casts the reader into the adventure from a first person point of view, taking on the roles of the different characters in the story. Gygax was the son of immigrants who grew up in Lake Geneva, WI, in the 1950s. An imaginative misfit, he escaped into a virtual world based on science fiction novels, military history and strategic games like chess. In the mid-1970s, he co-created the wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons game. Starting out in the basement of his home, he was soon struggling to keep up with the demand. Gygax was a purist, in the sense that he was adamant that players use their imaginations and that the rules of the game remain flexible. A creative mind with no real knowledge of business, he made some strategic errors and had a falling out with the game's co-creator, his close friend and partner, David Arneson. By the late 1970s the game had become so popular among kids that parents started to worry -- so much so that a mom's group was formed to alert parents to the dangers of role play and fantasy. The backlash only fueled the fires of the young fans who continued to play the game, escaping into imaginary worlds. Before long, D&D conventions were set up around the country and the game inspired everything from movies to the first video games. With D&D, Gygax created the kind of role playing fantasy that would fuel the multibillion dollar video game industry, and become a foundation of contemporary geek culture.
Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey
G.B. Tran - 2011
Born and raised in South Carolina as a son of immigrants, he knew that his parents had fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. But even as they struggled to adapt to life in America, they preferred to forget the past—and to focus on their children’s future. It was only in his late twenties that GB began to learn their extraordinary story. When his last surviving grandparents die within months of each other, GB visits Vietnam for the first time and begins to learn the tragic history of his family, and of the homeland they left behind. In this family saga played out in the shadow of history, GB uncovers the root of his father’s remoteness and why his mother had remained in an often fractious marriage; why his grandfather had abandoned his own family to fight for the Viet Cong; why his grandmother had had an affair with a French soldier. GB learns that his parents had taken harrowing flight from Saigon during the final hours of the war not because they thought America was better but because they were afraid of what would happen if they stayed. They entered America—a foreign land they couldn’t even imagine—where family connections dissolved and shared history was lost within a span of a single generation.In telling his family’s story, GB finds his own place in this saga of hardship and heroism. Vietnamerica is a visually stunning portrait of survival, escape, and reinvention—and of the gift of the American immigrants’ dream, passed on to their children. Vietnamerica is an unforgettable story of family revelation and reconnection—and a new graphic-memoir classic.
Fowl Language: Welcome to Parenting
Brian Gordon - 2016
Parenting is hard and often gross. Laughing about it helps. If you liked Toddlers Are A**holes, you'll love Fowl Language!Parenting can be a magical journey full of bliss and wonder . . . if you're on the right meds. For the rest of us, it's another thing altogether. Fowl Language Comics takes an unvarnished look at the tedium and aggravation of parenting, while never forgetting that the reason we put up with those little jerks is that we love them so damn much. By poking fun at the daily struggles parents face, these cartoons help all of us feel less alone in our continual struggle to stay sane.Brian Gordon, creator of Fowl Language Comics, has two small children of his own and knows well the trials and tribulations that go along with raising them. With more than eighteen years of experience in humorous illustration, writing, and cartooning, Brian's visual point of view is memorable, authentic, and instantly recognizable. From Brian: "They say 'write what you know.' Well, I don’t know much, but I do know what it’s like to be the father of two brilliant, beautiful, bat-shit-crazy kids."Launched in July 2013, the relatable humor of Fowl Language broke out on HuffPost Parents, Pop Sugar Moms, Bored Panda, Awkward Family Photos, and countless other humor and parenting blogs. Thanks to more than 200,000 fans on social media, including Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, it continues to grow in popularity at a rapid pace.
Plumdog
Emma Chichester Clark - 2014
My name is Plum and I’m a whoosell – that’s whippet mixed with Jack Russell and poodle. I especially like swimming, leaping, catching, and croissants, and my favourite fragrance is fox poo. I live with Emma, an illustrator, and Rupert. My sister, Liffey, lives nearby.Over the last year I’ve been keeping a diary. Emma has helped with the pictures, but the words are all mine.Since 2012 Emma Chichester Clark, one of Britain’s best-loved authors and illustrators, has been delighting thousands of followers with her blog Plumdog, which records the day to day life of Plum, her dog, in Plum’s own words and Emma’s drawings.
Spinning
Tillie Walden - 2017
Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark.Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again.She was good. She won. And she hated it.For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden's life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. It was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But over time, as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the figure skating team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. It all led to one question: What was the point? The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she'd outgrown her passion--and she finally needed to find her own voice.
Sunday In The Park With Boys
Jane Mai - 2012
For $666.00 she will give you a bad date where you will get punched in the face; for $666.00 she will give you a good date where you might not. With Sunday in the Park with Boys she has given us a poetic account of self-discovery and self-loathing. In this comic as emotional cartography, persona and person collide as Mai contends with loneliness, heartache and herself.
Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too
Jomny Sun - 2017
Always feeling apart, even among his species, Jomny feels at home for the first time among the earthlings he meets. There is a bear tired of other creatures running in fear, an egg struggling to decide what to hatch into, a turtle hiding itself by learning camouflage, a puppy struggling to express its true feelings, and many more.The characters are unique and inventive—bees think long and hard about what love means, birds try to eat the sun, nothingness questions its own existence, a ghost comes to terms with dying, and an introverted hedgehog slowly lets Jomny see its artistic insecurities. At the same time, Jomny’s curious presence allows these characters to open up to him in ways they were never able to before, revealing the power of somebody who is just there to listen.Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too is also the story behind the widely-shared and typo-filled @jonnysun twitter account. Since the beginning, Sun intentionally tweeted from an outsider’s perspective, creating a truly distinct voice. Now, that outsider has taken shape in the character of Jomny, who observes Earth with the same intelligent, empathetic, and charmingly naïve voice that won over his fans on social media. New fans will find it organic, and old fans will delight at seeing the clever words that made them fans in the first place.Through this story of a lost, lonely and confused Alien finding friendship, acceptance, and love among the animals and plants of Earth, we will all learn how to be a little more human. And for all the earth-bound creatures here on this planet, we will all learn how sometimes, it takes an outsider to help us see ourselves for who we truly are.
Together
Luke Adam Hawker - 2021
A book to share with the friends and family that we have been missing.A beautiful book to connect us after such a challenging time.'Dark clouds were looming in the distance. We watched them gather, and we wondered... When will it come? How long will it last?'A monumental storm brings huge and sudden change. We follow a man and his dog through the uncertainty that it brings to their lives. Through their eyes, we see the difficulties of being apart, the rollercoaster of emotions that we can all relate to, and the realisation that by pulling together we can move through difficult times with new perspective, hope and an appreciation of what matters most in life.THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER