Book picks similar to
Back, Sack & Crack (& Brain): A Rather Graphic Novel About Living With Embarrassing Health Problems by Robert Wells
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memoir
Off Season
James Sturm - 2019
Depression. Divorce. Politics. Love. A visceral story that you can see, taste, and feel.How could this happen? The question of 2016 becomes deeply personal in James Sturm’s riveting graphic novel Off Season, which charts one couple’s divisive separation during Bernie Sanders’s loss to Hillary Clinton, Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, and the disorienting months that followed.We see a father navigating life as a single parent and coping with the disintegration of a life-defining relationship. Amid the upheaval lie tender moments with his kids—a sleeping child being carried in from the car, Christmas-morning anticipation, a late-night cookie after a temper tantrum—and fallible humans drenched in palpable feelings of grief, rage, loss, and overwhelming love. Using anthropomorphized characters as a tactic for tempering an otherwise emotionally fraught situation, Off Season is unaffected and raw, steeped in the specificity of its time while speaking to a larger cultural moment.A truly human experience, Off Season displays Sturm’s masterful pacing and storytelling combined with conscious and confident growth as the celebrated cartoonist and educator moves away from historical fiction to deliver this long-form narrative set in contemporary times. Originally serialized on Slate, this expanded edition turns timely vignettes into a timeless, deeply affecting account of one family and their off season.
Labor
Thi Bui - 2011
Should she induce labor and have an epidural and succumb to the doctors wishes for many seemingly invasive procedures or try to wait it out? Bui’s writing presents the stress and lack of control with a honest and personal style."
Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir
Tom Hart - 2016
His heart-breaking and emotional illustrations strike readers to the core, and take them along his family's journey through loss. Hart uses the graphic form to articulate his and his wife's on-going search for meaning in the aftermath of Rosalie's death, exploring themes of grief, hopelessness, rebirth, and eventually finding hope again. Hart creatively portrays the solace he discovers in nature, philosophy, great works of literature, and art across all media in this expressively honest and loving tribute to his baby girl. Rosalie Lighting is a graphic masterpiece chronicling a father's undying love.
Amar Bari Tomar Bari Naxalbari
Sumit Kumar
In the newly independent India - food production is at an all time low, Zamindars control the farms, Nehru is dead, the coalation bengal government is headed for the wall and a tiny village in West Bengal plays host to an uprising. From the tiny village of Naxalbari the story travels back and forth in time, as it takes you to pre-independence Hyderabad, post independence Andhra Pradesh and finally to the jungles of Dandkaranya (Bastar and surrounding regions) where the sparks of Naxalbari finally grew into the fire that today impacts India and its people.
Nothing Lasts Forever
Sina Grace - 2017
Chronicling a year of heartbreaks, writer's block, career highs, emotional lows, and the emergence of a mystery illness, Nothing Lasts Forever is Grace's unflinching exploration of how to pick up the pieces and find hope when absolutely everything falls apart. If life's a show, Grace makes certain that it's worth every pay-per-view.
The Alcoholic
Jonathan Ames - 2008
Unfortunately, the first place his search takes him is the bottom of a bottle as he careens from one off-kilter encounter to another in search of himself.
My Friend Dahmer [2002]
Derf Backderf - 2002
Dahmer would later be known as one of the nation's most notorious serial killers.In 2012 Derf published a different, and much longer comic with the same name "My Friend Dahmer".
Father-ish: Tales from a Dad Fumbling His Way Through Fatherhood
Clint Edwards - 2020
After Clint’s first collection of stories, which act as an apology to his wife (with essays taking a humorous yet critical look of his role as a husband), this natural follow up will place the author’s children at the center of the apology and recount funny and relatable tales of Clint’s various parenting fails. Stories will detail incidents of the author half surviving, half ruining birthdays, holidays, vacations and other important milestones in his children’s lives, and touchingly examine the ways he makes up for them.With this book exploring the widely universal theme of parenting, new audiences (as well as Clint’s dedicated following) will see stories as both a mirror of their own lives and a comic relief from it, and eagerly sink their teeth into this truthful and entertaining narrative. Essays include titles like, “I Changed A Friend’s Name in my Phone to Santa and Had Him Text Threats to my Children,” “Pro Tip: Pick Up The Dog Poop BeforeThe Easter Egg Hunt,” “Reasons My Children Cried At Their Own Birthday Parties,” and “I Am A Summer Scrooge.” Clint’s addicting voice, writing about being a parent around Christmas, Halloween, New Years and more, will help anyone who is a mother or father, who works with young children, is member of a large family or has ever taken care of another human being before relate to and connect with these stories.
Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story
Frederik Peeters - 2001
One summer night at a house party, Fred met Cati. Though they barely spoke, he vividly remembered her gracefulness and abandon. They meet again years later, and this time their connection is instantaneous. But when things become serious, a nervous Cati tells him that she and her three-year-old son are both HIV positive. With great beauty and economy, Peeters traces the development of their intimacy and their revelatory relationship with a doctor whose affection and frankness allow them to fully realize their passionate connection.
One Hundred Demons
Lynda Barry - 2002
Name that Demon!!! Freaky boyfriends! Shouting Moms! Innocence betrayed! These are some of the pickled demons you'll meet as Lynda Barry mixes the true and the un-true into something she calls "autobificitionalography." From her nattering and intolerant/loving Filipina grandmother to the ex-boyfriend from hell who had lice, Lynda Barry's demons jump out of these pages and double-dare you to speak their names. Called by Time magazine "a work of art as well as literature," One Hundred Demons has been hailed for its shimmering watercolor images and unforgettable stories about life's little monsters.
The Complete Strangers in Paradise, Volume 3, Part 4
Terry Moore - 2002
Francine and Katchoo are high-school best friends who are reunited when Francine comes back to town after years away from her hometown. David is their new friend entangled in their complicated lives. From creepy ex-boyfriends and insensitive bosses to the reality of AIDS and underworld prostitution, you never know what will come up next - but you can always count on laughing and crying at the same time. This foil-stamped casebound hardcover with color dust jacket includes a special color cover art section, sketches, and more.
Looney Tunes (1994-) #78
David Cody Weiss - 2001
A classic Looney rivalry hits prime time as Elmer hosts a TV fix-it show and Bugs throws a monkey wrench into the mix! Plus, Daffy and Porky become superspies, and Sylvester is forced to guard Tweety with his life!
Feynman
Jim Ottaviani - 2011
. . Nobel winner . . . bestselling author . . . safe-cracker. In this substantial graphic novel biography, First Second presents the larger-than-life exploits of Nobel-winning quantum physicist, adventurer, musician, world-class raconteur, and one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century: Richard Feynman. Written by nonfiction comics mainstay Jim Ottaviani and brilliantly illustrated by First Second author Leland Myrick, Feynman tells the story of the great man's life from his childhood in Long Island to his work on the Manhattan Project and the Challenger disaster. Ottaviani tackles the bad with the good, leaving the reader delighted by Feynman's exuberant life and staggered at the loss humanity suffered with his death. Anyone who ever wanted to know more about Richard P. Feynman, quantum electrodynamics, the fine art of the bongo drums, the outrageously obscure nation of Tuva, or the development and popularization of the field of physics in the United States need look no further than this rich and joyful work.• One of School Library Journal's Best Adult Books 4 Teens titles of 2011 • One of Horn Book's Best Nonfiction Books of 2011
How to be Alive
Tara Booth - 2017
Straying from the narrative form of her first 2 publications, How To Be Alive is a series of densely patterned, colorful, one page vignettes.Tara Booth is an artist from Philadelphia, PA currently based in Portland, Oregon. Since she began making comics in 2015, her work has been published by küs! comics, Colorama Press, Brainfreeze Comics and in various anthologies.
Tender is the Scalpel's Edge: Stories from the Journal of an NHS Consultant Surgeon
Gautam Das - 2016
What is it like to be the senior surgeon when a young woman is brought to casualty with a life-threatening bleed? What does the fear of cancer do to a person? Is it ever best not to tell the patient everything? Tender is the Scalpel’s Edge draws on Gautam Das’s real-life experiences working in Britain’s busy NHS hospitals, from the plunging depths of a patient dying on the operating table to the euphoria of a life saved by teamwork and skill. Described in exquisite detail and with extreme sensitivity, Gautam shares his journey from a medical student fighting his own inner demons to a senior NHS consultant surgeon. Shards of his earlier life in India add to the richness of the narrative in tales that observe life with all its contradictions, like the little village boy with bone cancer. While other anecdotes take in the lighter side of life, Tender is the Scalpel’s Edge is written to inform and engross the general reader, as well as those with a curiosity of life behind the surgeon’s mask. Written in a manner similar to other medical biographies including Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm, Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Tender is the Scalpel’s Edge is a moving collection of true stories from a professional at the frontline of medical care.