Book picks similar to
Johnny 23 by Charles Burns


comics
graphic-novels
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Asterios Polyp


David Mazzucchelli - 2009
    An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait. Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape” really about? As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he’s gotten to where he is. And isn’t. And we meet Hana: a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she’s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli’s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.Asterios Polyp is David Mazzucchelli’s masterpiece: a great American graphic novel.

Never Ending Summer


Allison Cole - 2004
    Parties, excessive drinking, and financial instability add to the commotion. Drawn in a beautiful minimal style with delicate two-color printing.

Crumple: The Status of Knuckle


Dave Cooper - 2000
    A satirical and at times shocking story of the fear and anxiety surrounding one man's lack of control over his own destiny in a world where women belong to a secret cult intent on the elimination of the male.

Haw!


Ivan Brunetti - 2001
    HAW! is not for the young or weak of heart!

PINKI AND HAIRY UNCLE


Pran Kumar Sharma - 2016
    This applies appropriately to PINKI, the five year old little girl, who is often seen carrying her pet Kut-Kut, the squirrel. This strip was created by cartoonist Pran in 1978. The series became a tremendous hit in short period. Soon the hilarious encounters of PINKI started appearing in Punjab Kesari, JagBani, Hind Samachar, Sandhaya Times, Mayura, Lot Pot and several other newspapers. M/s Diamond Comics Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, have compiled it into book forms in ten languages. Many manufactures have used this character on their children goods to promote the sales. The whole neighbourhood of Pinki is scared of menace of her doings. She wants to help uncle Jhapatji busy painting the furniture. "If you want to help me, go away!" He screms. Other characters in the series are, Champu, Bhiku, Didi, Principal Tasmut, PINKI'S parent and grand parents.

Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale: Yellow, Blue and Gray


Jeph Loeb - 2014
    Relive Daredevil's heartwarming and heartbreaking debut! Then, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy want to spend the rest of their lives together...but first, Spider-Man must run a gauntlet of his greatest foes. And no matter how powerful the incredible Hulk becomes, his heart can still be shattered by Betty Ross...the daughter of his greatest enemy!COLLECTING: DAREDEVIL: YELLOW 1-6, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE 1-6, HULK: GRAY 1-6

Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion


Hans Rickheit - 2012
    He has been a basement- dweller, gallery troll, and a purveyor of forbidden notions. Originally distributed into the world as Xeroxed pamphlets, these “underground comix” reflect the true nature of its nomenclature: Here are the archeological findings of the subterranean ruins of the psyche. Finally, these scattered elements have been compiled into a compact, lushly illustrated bedside reader. Give your cerebellum a tug and become a spelunker of the subconscious as we trespassamong the scorched archaic wastelands of the offspring of apes and fools. Here we find the profane, beautiful progeny of prurient ideals. Immerse yourself in the nocturnal meanderings of unnamed protagonists. Ponder the uncomfortable sexuality of the twins, Cochlea Eustachia. Recoil at the doings of a dwarfish malefactor in Hail Jeffrey, or simply stare at the pretty pictures. Suffice to say that readers of The Squirrel Machine will not be disappointed.The author instructs you not misuse this tome. Poke it gently with a long stick, if you must. Careful, it might ruin the carpet. Placate it with a belly-rub or sweet pastry before it attacks the children. Don’t worry, your tongue won’t stick. If it fits, don’t shove it in too quickly. Keep it as your own cherished object; a shameful, guarded secret. The filter for reality’s blinding glare. Detritus of the Under-Brain. The Unspeakable Thing You Always Knew.FOLLY: The Consequences Of Indiscretion. By one of the most inscrutable and discomforting cartoonists alive.

Bradley of Him


Connor Willumsen - 2019
    The lines between character and actor are blurring under the verisimilitude of the Vegas strip, the desert sun and the impossibly shiny surface of Bradley’s shades.

Pompeii


Frank Santoro - 2013
    The story follows Marcus, a young expat artist from Paestum who works as an assistant to Flavius, a seemingly well-regarded painter. Aside from mixing paint, Marcus is entangled in the older artist's romantic deceptions, while stuck figuring out his own. Nicole Rudick wrote of this work in "The Comics Journal": "Santoro's drawings are wonderful; his reduction of figures to tone and line and shape recall illusionistic Roman frescoes and the drawings of Giacometti and Emile Bernard, but endowed with comic-strip dynamism. But if Pompeii were just a series of clever sight lines and intriguing artwork, it would not be as satisfying [ ] the story's physical structure is married to its themes, and to be aware of one is to be more appreciative of the other."

The Biologic Show, Number: 1


Al Columbia - 1995
    The first issue, #0, was released in October 1994 by Fantagraphics Books, and a second issue, #1, was released the following January. A third issue (#2) was announced in the pages of other Fantagraphics publications and solicited in Previews but was never published. "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", a color short story with a markedly different art style originally intended for issue #2, appeared instead in the anthology Zero Zero. In a 2010 interview, Columbia recalled that the unfinished issue "looked so different that it just didn’t look right, it didn’t look consistent, and it didn’t feel right to keep putting out that same comic book, to try to tell a story where the style is mutating."[1] The series' title is taken from a passage in the William S. Burroughs book Exterminator! (in the chapter "Short Trip Home"). The passage in question is quoted briefly in a story from issue #0, also titled "The Biologic Show".Each issue of The Biologic Show contains several short stories and illustrated poems. Many of the pieces deal with disturbing subject matter such as mutilation, incest, and the occult. Issue #0 introduces three of Columbia's recurring characters: the hapless, Koko the Clown-like Seymour Sunshine in the opening story "No Tomorrow If I Must Return", and the sibling duo Pim and Francie in "Tar Frogs". (Both "Tar Frogs" and the aforementioned "The Biologic Show" had originally appeared in the British comics magazine Deadline but were partially redrawn for Columbia's solo book.) Issue #1 is dominated by the 16-page Pim and Francie story "Peloria: Part One", intended as the start of an ongoing serial. It includes another character, Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, who reappears in Columbia's later work. Upon the demise of The Biologic Show Fantagraphics announced that Peloria would be released as a stand-alone graphic novel,[2] but this plan was also abandoned.

The Sandman: Overture


Neil Gaiman - 2015
    Williams III (Batwoman, Promethea), whose lush, widescreen images provide an epic scope to The Sandman’s origin story. From the birth of a galaxy to the moment that Morpheus is captured, The Sandman: Overture will feature cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as The Corinthian, Merv Pumpkinhead and, of course, the Dream King’s siblings: Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny.Collects: The Sandman: Overture 1-6

Transmetropolitan: All Around the World


Warren Ellis - 2011
    Transmetropolitan combined black humor, political scandal, and moral ambiguity to look into the mind of gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem and The City he inhabits. Aided by his embattled Editor and his two Filthy Assistants, Jerusalem blazes a path through a futuristic world of skyscrapers and technological wonders, dark alleys, and unspeakable depravity.Transmetropolitan: All Around The World is a lovingly crafted and designed tribute to a seminal work. Contributors include: Aaron Alexovich, Stephanie Buscema, Jim Calafiore, Stefano Caselli, Cliff Chiang, Richard C. Clark, Kevin Colden, Molly Crabapple, Camilla d’Errico, Kristian Donaldson, Ryan Dunlavey, Gary Erskine, Richard Friend, Dan Goldman, Cully Hamner, Lea Hernandez, Phil Hester, Rantz Hoseley, Matt Howarth, K Thor Jensen, Seth Kushner, Jonathan Luna, Milo Manara, John McCrea, Moritat, Dean Motter, Darick Robertson, Jimmie Robinson, Stuart Sayger, Tim Seeley, Fiona Staples, Bryan Talbot, Pete Woods, and many, many others.[text from http://cbldf.org/homepage/transmetrop... ]

I Touched a Cat and I Liked it: The Ultimate Book for Cats and Cat Lovers


Anna Blandford - 2018
    Anna Blandford's easy humor points out cat behaviour at its best, and worst, and why humans still find cats irresistible. Because let's be honest, we're obsessed: if a cat lover is presented with a choice of products and one of them has a cat on it, hands down that will be the one selected. And as Anna asks, 'If it doesn't have a cat on it, is it even worth owning?'Cat lovers worldwide will relate to Anna's whimsical drawings and hilarious insights.

Megahex


Simon Hanselmann - 2014
    Mogg is her black cat. Their friend, Owl, is an anthropomorphized owl. They hang out a lot with Werewolf Jones. This may sound like a pure stoner comedy, but it transcends the genre: these characters struggle unsuccessfully to come to grips with their depression, drug use, sexuality, poverty, lack of work, lack of ambition, and their complex feelings about each other in ways that have made Megg and Mogg sensations on Hanselmann's GirlMountain tumblr. This is the first collection of Hanselmann's work, freed from its cumbersome Internet prison, and sure to be one of the most talked about graphic novels of 2014, featuring all of the "classic" Megg and Mogg episodes from the past five years as well as over 70 pages of all-new material.

Dockwood


Jon McNaught - 2012
    The work is certainly poetic but not precious or twee. And the drawings are beautiful. Masterful stuff for someone so young."—Seth, author of Wimbledon Green and George Sprott: 1894�1975 in TimeDockwood is a small town in the Southeast of England, seven miles east of Brampton Moor. It has a population of 26,000 and is home to a bowling alley, a boating lake, and Willowbrook Outlet Village.It's a cloudy Tuesday in October and the residents of the town are going about their business as usual. In Elmsview Nursing Home, a kitchen porter dutifully prepares lunch for residents. Elsewhere, a council worker sweeps the fallen leaves from the pavements. Along Nettlefield Road, a paperboy is delivering his daily round. And in the trees, swallows gather noisily in preparation for their annual migration.In this new work, Jon McNaught weaves together the everyday lives of three locals against an evocative backdrop of autumnal transitions. Bittersweet and contemplative, Dockwood is for anyone who believes the stories that take place within life's small moments can often be the most meaningful of all.Jon McNaught is a printmaker and cartoonist living in Bristol, England. He also works as a printmaking instructor at the University of the West of England. He has produced comic strips for Nobrow, Art Review, and Stripburger, among others. His first book Birchfield Close was published in 2010 by Nobrow Press, as was his second, Pebble Island.