Book picks similar to
Good Night, Hem by Jason


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Saint Cole


Noah Van Sciver - 2015
    Saint Cole depicts four days in the life of a twenty-eight-year-old suburbanite named Joe, who works at a pizzeria to support his girlfriend Nicole and their infant child and then Nicole invites her troubled mother to move into their two-bedroom apartment until she lands on her feet again. Joe reacts by retreating into alcohol: he wants out, and he's angry. He s in a position to act rashly and he does.

The Flintstones, Vol. 1


Mark Russell - 2017
    Shining a light on humanity's ancient customs and institutions in a funny origin story of human civilization, Mark Russell (PREZ) blends modern interpretations with Hanna-Barbera's classic character's, bringing a breath of fresh stone-age air. Hanna-Barbera has created some of the most recognizable animated characters of all time. As part of DC Comics' re-imagination of cartoons like Scooby-Doo, The Flintsones, Johnny Quest, Space Ghost, and Wacky Racers, these new series will be infused with modern and contemporary concepts while keeping the heart and soul of the classic animation. Collects THE FLINTSTONES #1-6.

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.

Ice Haven


Daniel Clowes - 2005
    He’s also its would-be poet laureate. Would-be, that is, were it not for the “florid banalities” of his archrival, Ida Wentz, pub­lished ad nauseam in the Ice Haven Daily Progress. Among Wilder’s other fellow Ice Havians are the love­lorn Violet Vanderplazt and Vida Wentz; the adorable interracial moppets Carmichael and Paula; the Blue Bunny, newly sprung from prison and the bitterest rabbit in town; and poor little David Goldberg, miss­ing for more than a week now. . . . The lives of the men and women of Ice Haven are woven into a multilayered tale that, while it owes a debt to Our Town, is ultimately based on and inspired by . . . Leopold and Loeb. No kidding. Only Daniel Clowes could do it and, luckily for us, he has.

My Most Secret Desire


Julie Doucet - 1995
    Her comics are densely inked and detailed with a pulsating neurosis from a decidedly female point of view that set the comic-book world on its head when the series debuted. Doucet returns to comics after a five-year hiatus with a reworked edition of her dream journal My Most Secret Desire, complete with never-before-published material.My Most Secret Desire is considered to be Doucet ’s most innovative work, exploring the longings, pressures, and exploits of the feminine subconscious. Nightmarish tales of pregnancy, menstruation, sex changes, and boyfriends haunt Doucet’s nocturnal psyche with a feverish and surreal pitch.

Let Us Be Perfectly Clear


Paul Hornschemeier - 2006
    Perfectly Clear brings back into print stories that Hornschemeier published prior to his Three Paradoxes Fantagraphics debut from a variety of sources—his own self-published Forlorn Funnies, as well as strips that originally appeared in independent magazines and papers—none of which has been available to the book trade.The book is designed as a "flip book" in the tradition of the old Ace paperbacks, with one side featuring comedic work (or as comedic as Hornschemeier's mind allows), and the other decidedly more morose. With almost every page, we see a new style, a new direction; with the resultant effect being that of an anthology by creators of vastly contrasting sensibilities.On the "funny" menu, we are treated to Dr. Rodentia (an unfortunate-looking fellow with only apathy as his weapon), a detailed artist's catalogue exploring such modern masterpieces as "Accidental Late-Night Sex With a Radiator," musings on the cancerous nature of civilization as observed by a deceased cat and a cotton-based airbus, the scatological "Feelings Check," the ever pathetic Vanderbilt Millions and his fantasies of self-worth, and the multi-narrative story that started the Forlorn Funnies comics series: "The Men and Women of the Television."Clearly, there is a fine line in the Hornschemeier lexicon between funny and morose.On our "forlorn" plate we are served the cold examination of the dyslexic narcoleptic and his bungled plans of murder, a sea creature's balancing of morality and sustenance, the Western romance "Wanted," a metal man's self-destructive search for meaning, and the story the alternative website Ain't It Cool News describes as delivering "a complicated mixture of disgust and pity."Let Us Be Perfectly Clear demonstrates Paul Hornschemeier's versatility and breadth in an elegantly produced book that will appeal to connoisseurs of contemporary, cutting-edge cartoons and graphic novels.

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.

Set to Sea


Drew Weing - 2010
    When he gets shanghaied aboard a clipper bound for Hong Kong, he finds the sailor’s life a bit rougher than his romantic nautical fantasies. He helps rebuff a pirate assault, survives a gunshot to the eye, and learns to live—and love—a Conradian life on the sea, all the while writing poetry about pirates, bad food, unceremonial funerals, foreign ports, and unexpected epiphanies. By the end of his life, he’s found satisfaction in living a life of adventure and finding a receptive and appreciative readership. What more could one ask for?This is Drew Weing’s debut graphic novel, after honing his craft with numerous, lovingly produced self-published comic stories. Drawn in an elaborate crosshatched style that falls somewhere between Gustave Doré engravings and E. C. Segar’s Popeye, Set to Sea is part rollicking adventure, part maritime ballad told in visual rhyme. Every page is a single panel, every panel is a stunning illustration, every illustration a part of a larger whole that tells a story in the deft language of cartooning.

Coyote Doggirl


Lisa Hanawalt - 2018
    A gifted equestrian, Coyote Doggirl is half dog, half coyote, and a whole lot of attitude. She and her steed Red are on the run from a trio of vengeful bad guys when Coyote gets clobbered by a few well-placed arrows. Her attackers, a clan of wolves, take her in and nurse her back to health so she can get back on the road, track down Red, and evade the men who are hunting her. By turns delightfully absurd and intensely emotional, Coyote Doggirl charts one weird woman's escape into the wild.

Tamara Drewe


Posy Simmonds - 2007
    Plastic surgery, a different wardrobe, a smouldering look, have given her confidence and a new and thrilling power to attract, which she uses recklessly. Often just for the fun of it.People are drawn to Tamara Drewe, male and female. In the remote village where her late mother lived Tamara arrives to clear up the house. Here she becomes an object of lust, of envy, the focus of unrequited love, a seductress. To the village teenagers she is 'plastic-fantastic', a role model. Ultimately, when her hot and indiscriminate glances lead to tragedy, she is seen as a man-eater, a heartless marriage wrecker, a slut.First appearing as a serial in the Guardian, in book form Tamara Drewe has been enlarged, embellished and lovingly improved by the author.

Goddamn This War!


Jacques Tardi - 2008
    Vastly different sequentially (eschewing Trenches' splintered narrative, Goddamn is split into six chronological chapters, one for each year of the war), graphically (Tardi deploys his more recent pen-ink-and-watercolor technique, with the bold colors of the early chapters fading into a grimy near-monochrome in the later ones as the war drags on), and narratively (all of Goddamn is told, with insight, dark wit and despair, as a first-person reminiscence/narration by an unnamed soldier), Goddamn This War! shares with Trenches its sustained sense of outrage, pitch-black gallows humor, and impeccably scrupulous historical exactitude. In fact, Goddamn This War! includes an extensive year-by-year historical text section written by Tardi's frequent World War I research helpmate, the historian and collector Jean-Pierre Verney, including dozens of stunning rare photographs and visual documents from his personal collection.

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.

Berlin, Vol. 1: City of Stones


Jason Lutes - 2000
    Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters intertwined with the historical events unfolding around them. City of Stones covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a glowing shadow.

Mark Twain's Autobiography, 1910-2010


Michael Kupperman - 2011
    Twain s own introduction says it all: GREETINGS, STRANGER OF THE FUTURE. If you are reading this, it means the written word has survived, that the world of tomorrow still exists, and that for some reason my ramblings are still considered worth reading. My name is Mark Twain, and I write these words to you in the good old days of August 2010. What s that, you say, didn t you die a hundred years ago, you old coot? I hear your memoirs have just been published, right now in 2010, because they had to wait a century after your death, blah blah blah and so on. The truth is I never died, but the same old rumors got exaggerated and then the Great War happened, so people forgot I was still alive. And I ve kept alive, due to a magic spell cast upon me by a wizard but I ve promised not to tell that tale until 1,000 years have passed. I let them do the century book because otherwise I might have to pay the advance back again, and I couldn t afford it. I suppose by now you all know how I was Jack the Ripper, and why it was in a good cause that I committed those foul murders. Also that I was directly responsible for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Hopefully you ve forgiven me these indiscretions Readers eager to see how Twain hunted the Yeti ( Come out here and face me, you snow-covered coward ), met the Six Million Dollar Man, had a love affair with Mamie Eisenhower ( Boy oh boy, this lady was one hot dish ), and accidentally became involved in X-rated films, will devour this tome, which of course is augmented with Kupperman s hilariously deadpan illustrations.

Funny Misshapen Body


Jeffrey Brown - 2009
     Drawn with Brown's scratchy, spare, trademark style, Funny Misshapen Body resonates with true-to-life observations on love, fear, and ambition. Through his bare bones graphic style, he reveals his most embarrassing personal moments in raw, intimate detail -- including how he survived high school, binge drinking, mild drug experimentation, doomed friendships, and being diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Ultimately coming to terms with his art and identity, Brown describes the ups and downs of his adolescence with understated simplicity, dark humor, and charm.