And the Pursuit of Happiness


Maira Kalman - 2010
    Energized and inspired by the 2008 elections, on inauguration day Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a national tour that would take her from a town hall meeting in Newfane, Vermont, to the inner chambers of the Supreme Court.As we follow Kalman's wholly idiosyncratic journey, we fall in love with Lincoln alongside her as she imagines making a home for herself in the center of his magisterial memorial; ponder Alexis de Tocqueville's America; witness the inner workings of a Bronx middle-school student council; take a high-speed lesson in great American women in the National Portrait Gallery; and consider the cost of war to the brave American service families of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The observations she makes as she travels charm and inform, and-as we have come to expect with Kalman-the route is always one of fascinating indirection.Kalman finds evidence of democracy at work all around us. And the cast of characters we meet along the way is rousing good company, featuring visits from Benjamin Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. And the Pursuit of Happiness is a remarkable tribute to our history and a powerful reminder of the potential our future holds, from a true national treasure. Watch a Video

To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel


Siena Cherson Siegel - 2006
    Siena was six—and her dreams kept skipping and leaping, circling and spinning, from airy runs along a beach near her home in Puerto Rico, to dance classes at the School of American Ballet, to her debut performance on stage with the New York City Ballet while working with ballet legend George Balanchine. Part family history, part backstage drama, this beautifully updated graphic memoir—which features a refreshed design and a brand-new scrapbook of Siena’s mementoes—is an original, firsthand look a young dancer’s beginnings.

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken: A Picture Novella


Seth - 1998
    While trying to understand his dissatisfaction with the present, Seth discovers the life and work of Kalo, a forgotten New Yorker cartoonist from the 1940s. But his obsession blinds him to the needs of his lover and the quiet desperation of his family. Wry self-reflection and moody colours characterize Seth's style in this tale about learning lessons from nostalgia. His playful and sophisticated experiment with memoir provoked a furious debate among cartoon historians and archivists about the existence of Kalo, and prompted a Details feature about Seth's "hoax".

A Year Without Mom


Dasha Tolstikova - 2015
    But Dasha is more worried about her own challenges as she negotiates family, friendships and school without her mother. Just as she begins to find her own feet, she gets word that she is to join her mother in America — a place that seems impossibly far from everything and everyone she loves.This gorgeous and subtly illustrated graphic novel signals the emergence of Dasha Tolstikova as a major new talent.

Super Chill: A Year of Living Anxiously


Adam Ellis - 2018
    With a bright, positive outlook and a sense of humor, Super Chill tells a story that is both highly relatable and intensely personal.

The Best We Could Do


Thi Bui - 2017
    Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent — the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through.With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home. The Best We Could Do brings to life her journey of understanding and provides inspiration to all who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.

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.

Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert's Story


Debbie Tung - 2017
    Presented in a loose narrative style that can be read front to back or dipped into at one’s leisure, the book spans three years of Debbie's life, from the end of college to the present day. In these early years of adulthood, Debbie slowly but finally discovers there is a name for her lifelong need to be alone: she’s an introvert.The first half of the book traces Debbie’s final year in college: socializing with peers, dating, falling in love (with an extrovert!), moving in, getting married, meeting new people, and simply trying to fit in. The second half looks at her life after graduation: finding a job, learning to live with her new husband, trying to understand social obligations when it comes to the in-laws, and navigating office life. Ultimately, Quiet Girl sends a positive, pro-introvert message: our heroine learns to embrace her introversion and finds ways to thrive in the world while fulfilling her need for quiet.

Room to Dream


David Lynch - 2018
    Lynch responds to each recollection and reveals the inner story of the life behind the art.

Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution


Mary Gabriel - 2011
    Drawing upon years of research, acclaimed biographer Mary Gabriel brings to light the story of Karl and Jenny Marx's marriage. We follow them as they roam Europe, on the run from governments amidst an age of revolution and a secret network of would-be revolutionaries, and see Karl not only as an intellectual, but as a protective father and loving husband, a revolutionary, a jokester, a man of tremendous passions, both political and personal. In LOVE AND CAPITAL, Mary Gabriel has given us a vivid, resplendent, and truly human portrait of the Marxes-their desires, heartbreak and devotion to each other's ideals.

I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi


Gina Siciliano - 2019
    Frustrated by the hypocritical social mores of her day, Gentileschi releases her anguish through her paintings and, against all odds, becomes a groundbreaking artist. Meticulously rendered in ballpoint pen, this gripping graphic biography serves as an art history lesson and a coming-of-age story. Resonant in the #MeToo era, I Know What I Am highlights a fierce artist who stood up to a shameful social status quo.

Sick


Gabby Schulz - 2016
    . . . Gabby Schulz has gone on to create a similarly unnerving web comic series titled Sick."—FlavorwireThe author of the perennial classic, Monsters (written as Ken Dahl), Gabby Schulz returns with a new graphic novel, Sick, which Hicksville author Dylan Horrocks calls "a punch in the face and well worth reading." Like Monsters, Sick focuses on health and social policy, this time expanding from the subject of STDs and their stigma to the larger, hot-button issue of national healthcare.Severely ill, uninsured, alone, and confined to his bed for weeks, Schulz was left searching—only to find himself. Sick documents his discovery in gory, glorious, water-colored detail, finally completed and collected here for the first time in a beautiful, album-sized hardcover edition.Since Monsters, Schulz has produced a host of online comics including SEXISM, a viral sensation written up everywhere from the Stranger to Scientific American. The web-serialized Sick was an Ignatz Award nominee for Outstanding Online Comic. His work has appeared on narrative.ly and BuzzFeed and in Arthur magazine.Gabby Schulz, sometimes known as Ken Dahl, grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. His graphic novel, Monsters won two Ignatz Awards, was an Eisner Award nominee, and was a Best American Comics selection. His other works include the collection Welcome to the Dahl House and the web comic Sick, an Ignatz Award nominee for Outstanding Online Comic. Schulz currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Houdini: The Handcuff King


Jason Lutes - 2007
    This is a snapshot of Houdini's life, centering on one of his most famous jumps. As Houdini prepares for a death-defying leap into the icy Charles River in Boston, biographer Jason Lutes and artist Nick Bertozzi reveal Houdini's life and influence: from the anti-Semitism Houdini fought all his life, to the adulation of the American public; from his hounding by the press, to his loving relationship with his wife Bess; from his egoism to his insecurity; from his public persona -- to the secret behind his most amazing trick! And it's all in graphic form, so it's fresh, original, and unlike anything previously published about this most fascinating of American showmen.

Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams


Mike Allred - 2020
    In death, the cult of Bowie has only intensified. As a musician alone, Bowie’s legacy is remarkable, but his place in the popular imagination is due to so much more than his music. As a visual performer, he defied classification with his psychedelic aesthetics, his larger-than-life image, and his way of hovering on the border of the surreal. Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams chronicles the rise of Bowie’s career from obscurity to fame; and paralleled by the rise and fall of his alter ego as well as the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. As the Spiders from Mars slowly implode, Bowie wrestles with his Ziggy persona. The outcome of this internal conflict will change not only David Bowie, but also, the world.

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories


Will Eisner - 1978
    The human drama, the psychological insight -- Eisner captures the soul of the city and its troubled inhabitants with pen and ink. The comics medium was altered forever with the publication of this seminal work.