The Voyeurs


Gabrielle Bell - 2012
    It collects episodes from her award-winning series Lucky, in which she travels to Tokyo, Paris, the South of France, and all over the United States, but remains anchored by her beloved Brooklyn, where sidekick Tony provides ongoing insight, offbeat humor, and enduring friendship.“The Voyeurs is the work of a mature writer, if not one of the most sincere voices of her literary generation. It’s a fun, honest read that spans continents, relationships and life decisions. I loved it.”— Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library“As she watches other people living life, and watches herself watching them, Bell’s pen becomes a kind of laser, first illuminating the surface distractions of the world, then scorching them away to reveal a deeper reality that is almost too painful and too beautiful to bear.”— Alison Bechdel, Fun Home“A master of the exquisite detail, Bell provides a welcome peephole into our lives.”— Françoise Mouly, The New Yorker“I don’t think I could tolerate her if she wasn’t so talented.”— Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindGabrielle Bell’s work has been selected for the 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Houghton-Mifflin Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and has been featured in McSweeney's, The Believer, and Vice magazines. ‘Cecil and Jordan In New York,’ the title story of her most recent book, was adapted for the screen by Bell and director Michel Gondry in the film anthology Tokyo! She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Hot Dog Taste Test


Lisa Hanawalt - 2016
    Her designs define the look of the wildly popular Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman. Her culinary-focused comics and illustrated essays in Lucky Peach magazine won her a James Beard Award.Now, Hot Dog Taste Test collects Hanawalt's devastatingly funny comics, gorgeous art, and screwball lists as she tucks into the pomposities of the foodie subculture. Hanawalt dismantles the notion of breakfast; says goodbye to New York through a street food smorgasbord; shadows chef Wylie Dufresne, samples all-you-can-eat buffets in Vegas; and crafts an eerie comic about being a horse lover yet an avid carnivore.Hot Dog Taste Test explodes with color, hilarity, charm, and, occasionally, reproductive organs. Lush full-spread paintings of birds getting their silly feet all over a kitchen, a fully imagined hot dog show (think Best in Show but with hot dogs), and a holiday feast gone awry are the creamy icing on this imaginative rainbow-colored cake. But Hanawalt's wit and heart extend far beyond gags--her insightful musings on popular culture, relationships, and the animal in all of us are as keen and funny as her watercolors are exquisite.

American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar


Harvey PekarVal Mayerik - 1987
    For over 25 years he's been writing comic books about his life, chronicling the ordinary and everyday in stories both funny and moving.This 320 page collection was issued on the heels of the film "American Splendor," and it includes material previously published in the first two collected volumes in the American Splendor series.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist


Adrian Tomine - 2020
    When a sudden medical incident lands Tomine in the emergency room, he begins to question if it was really all worthwhile: despite the accolades, awards, and opportunities of a seemingly charmed career, it's the gaffes, humiliations, slights, and insults he's experienced (or caused) within the industry that loom largest in his memory.But as those memories are delineated in excruciatingly hilarious detail, a different, parallel narrative plays out in the background. In between chaotic book tours, disastrous interviews, and difficult interactions with other artists, life happens: Tomine fumbles his way into marriage, parenthood, and an indisputably fulfilling existence. While mining his conflicted relationship with comics and comics culture, Tomine illustrates the amusing absurdities of life and how we choose to spend our time. Through these cringe-inducing moments, a deeper emotional story emerges, and we see Tomine’s life develop into something much more robust than the blunders. In a bold departure in style from his award-winning Killing and Dying, Tomine distills his art to the loose, lively essentials of cartooning. His stripped-down lines communicate effortlessly, with each pen stroke economically imbued with human depth. Designed as a sketchbook complete with place-holder ribbon and an elastic band, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist shows an acclaimed artist at the peak of his career.

Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!


Art Spiegelman - 1977
    and how it formed him!This book opens with Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, creating vignettes of the people, events, and comics that shaped Art Spiegelman. It traces the artist's evolution from a MAD-comics obsessed boy in Rego Park, Queens, to a neurotic adult examining the effect of his parents' memories of Auschwitz on his own son.The second part presents a facsimile of Breakdowns, the long-sought after collection of the artist's comics of the 1970s, the book that triggers these memories. Breakdowns established the mode of formally sophisticated comics that transformed the medium, and includes the prototype of Maus, cubist experiments, an essay on humor, and the definitive genre-twisting pulp story Ace Hole-Midget Detective.Pulling all this together is an illustrated essay that looks back at the sixties as the artist pushes sixty, and explains the obsessions that brought these works into being. Poignant, funny, complex, and innovative, Breakdowns alters the terms of what can be accomplished in a memoir.

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.

I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real Life Missed Connections


Julia WertzJoey Sayers - 2009
    Lonely hearts, romantics, and even cynics pore over missed connection ads in search of love, to gawk and giggle, or out of curiosity. These posted stranger sightings and chance encounters lay bare the truths and oddities of real-life loneliness and attractions and bring out the voyeur in the best of us. I Saw You takes this phenomenon and makes it even better. Julia Wertz has gathered the stars and soon-to-be-stars of the graphic art world, including Peter Bagge, Jesse Reklaw, Tom Hart, Sam Henderson, Laura Park, Emily Flake, Keith Knight, Janelle Hessig, Gabrielle Bell, Aaron Renier, Austin English, Corinne Mucha, Jeffrey Brown, Alec Longstreth, Minty Lewis, Joey Sayers, David Malki, Kazimir Strzepek, Ken Dahl, Shannon Wheeler, Shaenon Garrity, Rodd Perry, Abby Denson, Damien Jay, Sarah Glidden, and dozens more, to interpret these plaintive, hopeful postings in drawings that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disarmingly strange.

Drawn Together: The Collected Works of R. and A. Crumb


Aline Kominsky-Crumb - 2012
    Crumb, her nerdy, neurotic boyfriend, to pass the time drawing together a “two-man” comic. The result is a jaw-dropping yet tender account, not only of the joys and challenges of a legendary marriage but also of the obstacles faced by struggling female artists. In Drawn Together, our foremost male-female cartooning couple recall their success at shocking America with Weirdo Magazine, the life-altering birth of their precocious daughter Sophie, and their astonishing move to the safe haven of France. With an irresistible introduction and a striking four-color section, Drawn Together becomes a graphic cause-célebre and a must-have for any comics devotee.

Imagine Wanting Only This


Kristen Radtke - 2017
    Over time, this fascination deepened until it triggered a journey around the world in search of ruined places. Now, in this genre-smashing graphic memoir, she leads us through deserted cities in the American Midwest, an Icelandic town buried in volcanic ash, islands in the Philippines, New York City, and the delicate passageways of the human heart. Along the way, we learn about her family and a rare genetic heart disease that has been passed down through generations, and revisit tragic events in America's past.A narrative that is at once narrative and factual, historical and personal, Radtke's stunning illustrations and piercing text never shy away from the big questions: Why are we here, and what will we leave behind?(With black-and-white illustrations throughout; part of the Pantheon Graphic Novel series)

Wilson


Daniel Clowes - 2010
    In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of onesided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor. After his father dies, Wilson, now irrevocably alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption.Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family—a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.In the first all-new graphic novel from one of the leading cartoonists of our time, Daniel Clowes creates a thoroughly engaging, complex, and fascinating portrait of the modern egoist—outspoken and oblivious to the world around him.Working in a single-page-gag format and drawing in a spectrumof styles, the cartoonist of GhostWorld, Ice Haven, and David Boring gives us his funniest and most deeply affecting novel to date.

The Secret Loves of Geek Girls


Hope NicholsonSarah Winifred Searle - 2015
    Featuring work by Margaret Atwood (The Heart Goes Last), Mariko Tamaki (This One Summer), Trina Robbins (Wonder Woman), Marguerite Bennett (Marvel's A-Force), Noelle Stevenson (Nimona), Marjorie Liu (Monstress), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), and over fifty more creators. It's a compilation of tales told from both sides of the tables: from the fans who love video games, comics, and sci-fi to those that work behind the scenes: creators and industry insiders.

Clumsy


Jeffrey Brown - 2002
    Oh, and it also has a lot of sex.

Drinking at the Movies


Julia Wertz - 2010
    Don’t worry—this isn’t the typical redemptive coming-of-age tale of a young woman and her glorious triumph over tragedy or any such nonsense. It’s simply a hilarious—occasionally poignant—book filled with interesting art, absurd humor and plenty of amusing self-deprecation. Box by box, Wertz chronicles four sketchy apartments, seven terrible jobs, family drama, traveling fiascos, and too many whiskey bottles to count.

Solutions and Other Problems


Allie Brosh - 2020
    Allie Brosh returns with a new collection of comedic, autobiographical, and illustrated essays.Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.

McSweeney's #13


Chris WareArt Spiegelman - 2004
    Contibutors include Daniel Clowes, Gary Panter, Charles Burns, Art Spiegelman, Ben Katchor, Kim Deitch, Adrian Tomine, Joe Sacco, Seth, Joe Matt, Chester Brown, Kaz, and many others.