Book picks similar to
Bird Brain: Comics About Mental Health, Starring Pigeons by Chuck Mullin
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Trashed
Derf Backderf - 2015
Trashed, Derf Backderf's follow-up to the critically acclaimed, award-winning international bestseller My Friend Dahmer, is an ode to the crap job of all crap jobs--garbage collector. Anyone who has ever been trapped in a soul-sucking gig will relate to this tale. Trashed follows the raucous escapades of three 20-something friends as they clean the streets of pile after pile of stinking garbage, while battling annoying small-town bureaucrats, bizarre townfolk, sweltering summer heat, and frigid winter storms. Trashed is fiction, but is inspired by Derf's own experiences as a garbageman. Interspersed are nonfiction pages that detail what our garbage is and where it goes. The answers will stun you. Hop on the garbage truck named Betty and ride along with Derf on a journey into the vast, secret world of garbage. Trashed is a hilarious, stomach-churning tale that will leave you laughing and wincing in disbelief.
Lighter than My Shadow
Katie Green - 2013
She'd sit at the table in silent protest, hide uneaten toast in her bedroom, listen to parental threats that she'd have to eat it for breakfast.But in any life a set of circumstance can collide, and normal behavior might soon shade into something sinister, something deadly.Lighter Than My Shadow is a hand-drawn story of struggle and recovery, a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness, an exposure of those who are so weak as to prey on the vulnerable, and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to endure towards happiness.
I Hope This Helps: Comics and Cures for 21st Century Panic
Tommy Siegel - 2020
Tommy Siegel’s debut essay and comics collection is the perfect pandemic gift—an uplifting, topical, and deeply funny view of millennial culture, phone addiction, and coping with the extreme weirdness of 21st-century life.Tommy Siegel's debut book collection includes 200+ pages of comics, essays, and extremely helpful guides to coping with 21st-century panic. With comics titled “Choose your social anxiety coping mechanism” and “What your coffee drink of choice says about you,” I Hope This Helps offers clever and sardonic commentary on our social media-driven culture, as well as a series of devastatingly funny relationship comics starring his popular Candy Hearts characters.Tommy Siegel’s comics began as doodles in the back of a van as a touring rock musician, and quickly earned a viral global fanbase and shout-outs from cultural heavyweights including Ringo Starr, Tim Heidecker, Vic Berger, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. With a perfect balance of absurd humor and insightful writing, I Hope This Helps outlines the journey from the author’s earliest "van doodles" all the way to the socially-distanced awkwardness of the present day.
Seconds
Bryan Lee O'Malley - 2014
She’s a talented young chef, she runs a successful restaurant, and she has big plans to open an even better one. Then, all at once, progress on the new location bogs down, her charming ex-boyfriend pops up, her fling with another chef goes sour, and her best waitress gets badly hurt. And just like that, Katie’s life goes from pretty good to not so much. What she needs is a second chance. Everybody deserves one, after all—but they don’t come easy. Luckily for Katie, a mysterious girl appears in the middle of the night with simple instructions for a do-it-yourself do-over: 1. Write your mistake 2. Ingest one mushroom 3. Go to sleep 4. Wake anew And just like that, all the bad stuff never happened, and Katie is given another chance to get things right. She’s also got a dresser drawer full of magical mushrooms—and an irresistible urge to make her life not just good, but perfect. Too bad it’s against the rules. But Katie doesn’t care about the rules—and she’s about to discover the unintended consequences of the best intentions. From the mind and pen behind the acclaimed Scott Pilgrim series comes a madcap new tale of existential angst, everyday obstacles, young love, and ancient spirits that’s sharp-witted and tenderhearted, whimsical and wise.
Alone Forever: The Singles Collection
Liz Prince - 2011
Finally bringing her popular webcomic to printed form, Alone Forever explores the joys of flying solo, free to focus on what really matters: comics, punk rock, and cute boys with beards. Drawn in Liz Prince's ultra-charming style, filled with self-deprecation and cats, there's something for everyone to relate to in this celebration of self-reliance in the age of OkCupid.
Embroideries
Marjane Satrapi - 2003
Embroideries gathers together Marjane’s tough–talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men.As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one’s virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most important, keep up appearances. Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere—and to teach us all a thing or two.
The Times I Knew I Was Gay
Eleanor Crewes - 2020
As a girl, she wore black, obsessed over Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and found dating boys much more confusing than many of her friends did. As she grew older, so did her fears and a deep sense of unbelonging. From her first communion to her first girlfriend via a swathe of self-denial, awkward encounters, and everyday courage, Ellie tells her story through gorgeous illustrations—a fresh and funny self-portrait of a young woman becoming herself. The Times I Knew I Was Gay reminds us that people sometimes come out not just once but again and again; that identity is not necessarily about falling in love with others, but about coming to terms with oneself. Full of vitality and humor, it will ring true for anyone who has taken the time to discover who they truly are.
That Can Be Arranged: A Muslim Love Story
Huda Fahmy - 2020
They're just another walk in the park for this leading lady, who is on a mission to find her leading lad. From the brilliant comics Yes, I'm Hot in This, Huda Fahmy tells the hilarious story of how she met and married her husband. Navigating mismatched suitors, gossiping aunties, and societal expectations for Muslim women, That Can Be Arranged deftly and hilariously reveals to readers what it can be like to find a husband as an observant Muslim woman in the twenty-first century.So relevant in today's evolving cultural climate, Fahmy's story offers a perceptive and personal glimpse into the sometimes sticky but ultimately rewarding balance of independent choice and tradition.
Slothilda: Living the Sloth Life
Dante Fabiero - 2018
Though Slothilda's sluggish ways might occasionally hold her back, it turns out her perceived deficits are actually her greatest attributes.Slothilda gives us permission to feel unashamed about our slothy tendencies and emphasizes the importance of celebrating our authentic selves.From former Simpsons animator Dante Fabiero comes this all-too-real comic series about an adorable little sloth who's driven by her desire for self-improvement. Slothilda explores an inner conflict we can all relate to–the desire to succeed and grow, while paradoxically dealing with the ever-present temptation to sloth.With hilarious themes related to work, fitness, food, shopping, and pets, this book shows that you're not the only sloth at heart.
Sass & Sorcery
Kurtis J. Wiebe - 2014
Meet Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Smidgen Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent, monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack! Collecting Rat Queens #1-5!
War and Peas: Funny Comics for Dirty Lovers
Jonathan Kunz - 2020
You’ll be laughing out loud.” — Sarah Andersen, creator of Sarah's Scribbles"One of the most exciting and funniest webcomics in the world," — Bored Panda From the creators of the hugely popular Instagram comic War and Peas, this offbeat four-panel comic features a dark, fairy-tale aesthetic and a twist ending each time. War and Peas: Comics To Die For combines twisted humor with a beloved cast of characters including the grim reaper (seen here as an unintentionally lethal man of leisure), a robot in hopelessly in love with his scientist creator, and a promiscuous yet self-assured witch. Unlike most webcomic collections, this one tells a story using dozens of never-before-seen comics to chronicle the lives of several different characters and their follies during life, death, and their glorious reunions in the the afterlife (and the after-afterlife).
The Apocalypse Suite
Gerard Way - 2007
Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children; when asked why, his only explanation was, "To save the world."These seven children form the Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic and deadly Eiffel Tower, piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel. Nearly a decade later, the team disbands, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again.Collecting: The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite 1-6, as well as out-of-print short stories and an expanded sketchbook section featuring work by Gabriel Bá, James Jean, and Gerard Way
The Odd 1s Out: How to Be Cool and Other Things I Definitely Learned from Growing Up
James Rallison - 2018
He wasn't partying in high school or winning football games like his older brother. Instead, he posted comics on the Internet. Now, he's ready to share his hard-earned advice from his 21 years of life in the funny, relatable voice his fans love.In this illustrated collection, Rallison tells his own stories of growing up as the "odd one out": in art class with his twin sister (she was more talented), in the middle school locker room, and up to one strange year of college (he dropped out). Each story is filled with the little lessons he picked up along the way, serious and otherwise, like:* How to be cool (in seventh grade)* Why it's OK to be second-best at something, and* How to survive your first, confidence-killing job interviewsFilled with fan-favorite comics and never-before-seen material, this tongue-in-cheek take on some of the weirdest, funniest parts of life is perfect for both avid followers and new converts.
Waves
Ingrid Chabbert - 2017
Their relationship is put to the test as they forge ahead, working together to rebuild themselves amidst the churning tumult of devastating loss, and ultimately facing the soul-crushing reality that they may never conceive a child of their own.Based on author Ingrid Chabbert’s own experience, coupled with soft, sometimes dreamlike illustrations by Carole Maurel, Waves is a deeply moving story that poignantly captures a woman’s exploration of her pain in order to rediscover hope.
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness
Kabi Nagata - 2016
Told using expressive artwork that invokes both laughter and tears, this moving and highly entertaining single volume depicts not only the artist’s burgeoning sexuality, but many other personal aspects of her life that will resonate with readers.