Book picks similar to
Sounds of Your Name by Nate Powell


graphic-novels
comics
fiction
graphic-novel

Love and Rockets: New Stories #1


Gilbert Hernández - 2008
    It was the first comic series to give a voice to minorities and women in the medium's then 50-year history. This collection features all-new stories.

Evie


Joe Sugg - 2015
    When times are tough, all she wants is a chance to escape from reality and be herself.Despite his failing health, Evie's father comes close to creating such a virtual idyll. Passing away before it's finished, he leaves her the key in the form of an app, and Evie finds herself transported to a world where the population is influenced by her personality. Everyone shines in her presence, until her devious cousin, Mallory, discovers the app... and the power to cause trouble in paradise.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1


Emil Ferris - 2017
    Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Full-color illustrations throughout.

Never Goodnight


Coco Moodysson - 2008
    Now they’re almost teenagers, and their anarchist ideals and dreams of forming a world-beating punk band set them apart from the other girls at school. They can’t play any instruments, practice with pillows and pans, and keep getting told that punk is dead. But they’re not going to let any of those things get in their way…Published in English for the first time, Never Goodnight is a hilarious and life-affirming memoir that will remind you that all you need in life is your best friends, a can of hairspray and three guitar chords.

Welcome to the Dahl House: Alienation, Incarceration, and Inebriation in the New American Rome


Ken Dahl - 2008
    "Gordon Smalls Goes to Jail", "No!", and "Blind Fart"! 2006 Ignatz Winner!

Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 1


Chuck Dixon - 2012
    Pushed to the limits, he comes face-to-face against the monstrosity known as Bane, who delivers a crippling blow destined to change the Caped Crusader forever!This volume collects Batman: Vengeance of Bane Special #1, Batman #491-500, Detective Comics #659-666, Showcase '93 #7-8 and Batman: Shadow of the Bat #16-18.

Black Hole


Charles Burns - 2005
    We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways—from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable)—but once you've got it, that's it. There's no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters—some kids who have it, some who don't, some who are about to get it—what unfolds isn't the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it, or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape. And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it—back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird. To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…

Epileptic


David B. - 2002
    has created a masterpiece in Epileptic, his stunning and emotionally resonant autobiography about growing up with an epileptic brother. Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English for the first time all six volumes of the internationally acclaimed graphic work.David B. was born Pierre-François Beauchard in a small town near Orléans, France. He spent an idyllic early childhood playing with the neighborhood kids and, along with his older brother, Jean-Christophe, ganging up on his little sister, Florence. But their lives changed abruptly when Jean-Christophe was struck with epilepsy at age eleven. In search of a cure, their parents dragged the family to acupuncturists and magnetic therapists, to mediums and macrobiotic communes. But every new cure ended in disappointment as Jean-Christophe, after brief periods of remission, would only get worse.Angry at his brother for abandoning him and at all the quacks who offered them false hope, Pierre-François learned to cope by drawing fantastically elaborate battle scenes, creating images that provide a fascinating window into his interior life. An honest and horrifying portrait of the disease and of the pain and fear it sowed in the family, Epileptic is also a moving depiction of one family’s intricate history. Through flashbacks, we are introduced to the stories of Pierre-François’s grandparents and we relive his grandfathers’ experiences in both World Wars. We follow Pierre-François through his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, all the while charting his complicated relationship with his brother and Jean-Christophe”s losing battle with epilepsy. Illustrated with beautiful and striking black-and-white images, Epileptic is as astonishing, intimate, and heartbreaking as the best literary memoir.From the Hardcover edition.

Hark! A Vagrant


Kate Beaton - 2011
    No era or tome emerges unscathbed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world's revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction. She deftly points out what really happened when Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt, that the world's first hipsters were obviously the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses from eighteenth-century France, that Susan B. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha," and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 5600.000 unique monthly visitors to harkavagrant.com already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilarious as Beaton.

I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf


Grant Snider - 2020
    We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics. With a striking package including a die-cut cover, I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf is the perfect gift for bookworms of all ages.

Dykes to Watch Out For


Alison Bechdel - 1986
    Grin, giggle, and guffaw your way through this celebrated cartoonist's graphic commentary of contemporary lesbian life.

Underwire


Jennifer Hayden - 2011
    These everyday observations about marriage, motherhood, and modern life are so perfectly captured, you'll start to feel like a member of the family yourself! Here's the wisdom that comes with wearing an underwire -- and you don't have to own a bra to enjoy it! These stories are about the little things that give us the big picture. Jennifer Hayden started writing and drawing Underwire as a webcomic at www.ACT-I-VATE.com. Since then, it has gained critical attention as a fresh indie comic about womanhood, parenthood, and being-in-the-middle-of-life-hood. Here are twenty-two of the original stories, plus seventeen new pages of comix and art created exclusively for this collection.

Cat Diary: Yon & Muu; 猫日記よん&むー; Neko Nikki Yon to Mū


Junji Ito - 2009
    J-kun, a dog person, was coerced into adopting two cats by his fiancee A-ko: Muu, a Norwegian cat, and Yon who has an accursed face. Much to the chagrin of J, the cats do not immediately love him. The difference between fear and comedy is paper thin. Here's a cat comedy from a horror manga author.

The End of the Fucking World


Charles Forsman - 2013
    streaming to follow soon thereafter). Originally released to critical and public acclaim in 2013, Charles Forsman’s graphic novel debut follows James and Alyssa, two teenagers living a seemingly typical teen experience as they face the fear of coming adulthood. Forsman tells their story through each character’s perspective, jumping between points of view with each chapter. But quickly, this somewhat familiar teenage experience takes a more nihilistic turn as James’s character exhibits a rapidly forming sociopathy that threatens both of their futures. He harbors violent fantasies and begins to act on them, while Alyssa remains as willfully ignorant for as long as she can, blinded by young love.

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.