Book picks similar to
Art and Beauty Magazine by Robert Crumb
comics
art
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graphic-novels
Awkward and Definition: The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag
Ariel Schrag - 1997
During the summer following each year at Berkeley High School in California, Ariel wrote a comic book about her experiences, which she would then photocopy and sell around school. Some friends thrilled to see themselves in the comic, others not so much, but everyone was interested. Awkward chronicles Ariel's freshman year, and Definition, her sophomore year. With anxiety in excess and frustration to the fullest, Ariel dives in -- meeting new people, going to concerts, crushing out, loving chemistry, drawing comics, and obsessing over everything from glitter-laden girls to ionic charges and the constant pursuit of the number-one score. Totally true and achingly honest, with every cringe-inducing encounter and exhilarating first moment documented -- Awkward and Definition is an unflinching look at what it's like being a teenage girl in America.
Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope
Emmanuel Guibert - 2000
So I did."When Alan Cope joined the army and went off to fight in World War II, he had no idea what he was getting into. This graphic memoir is the story of his life during wartime, a story told with poignant intimacy and matchless artistry.Across a generation, a deep friendship blossomed between Alan Cope and author/artist Emmanuel Guibert. From it, Alan's War was born - a graphic novel that is a deeply personal and moving experience, straight from the heart of the Greatest Generation - a unique piece of WWII literature and a ground-breaking graphic memoir.
Basewood
Alec Longstreth - 2014
Along the way he meets an old hermit who lives in a treehouse with his loyal dog, a young woman who fights for what she believes and a giant wolf-dragon who threatens their survival.
Skullkickers, Vol. 1: 1000 Opas and a Dead Body
Jim Zub - 2011
Image's new hit fantasy action-comedy series has gone through multiple printings of each issue released so far and is getting rave reviews from readers and critics alike. Pick up the first collection and find out what all the excitement is about.Collects SKULLKICKERS #1-5 and the short stories from POPGUN, VOL. 2 & 3
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.
Three Shadows
Cyril Pedrosa - 2007
The taste of cherries, the cool shade, the smell of the river... That was how we lived, in a vale among the hills—sheltered from storms, ignorant of the world, as though on an island, peaceful and untroubled.And then...And then everything changed.Can you ever escape your fate?Three shadows stand outside the house—and Louis and Lise know why the spectral figures are there. The shadows have come for Louis and Lise’s son, and nothing anyone can do will stop them. Louis cannot let his son die without trying to prevent it, so the family embarks on a journey to the ends of the earth, fleeing death.Poignant and suspenseful, Three Shadows is a haunting story of love and grief, told in moving text and sweeping black and white artwork by Cyril Pedrosa.
Ganges #1
Kevin Huizenga - 2006
Ganges tries to decide what to do when confronted with "The Litterer"; gets into an argument with his wife Wendy about The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home"; indulges in some whimsical "Time Travelling" while on a walk around his neighborhood; and more! Huizenga's elegant neo-clear-line style brings a crispness and humor to these low-key slice-of-life stories, and the gray-blue duotone he has picked gives the art a new depth and complexity
Poorly Drawn Lines: Good Ideas and Amazing Stories
Reza Farazmand - 2015
Embrace it.A bear flies through space. A hamster suffers a breakdown. Elsewhere, a garden snake is arrested by animal control and jailed for home invasion, while a child marvels at the wonder of nature as worms emerge from the ground and begin looking for vodka (as they always have). These are common occurrences in the world of Reza Farazmand’s wildly popular webcomic, Poorly Drawn Lines. Traveling from deep space to alternate realities to the bottom of the ocean, this eponymous collection brings together fan favorites with new comics and original essays to share Farazmand’s inimitable take on love, nature, social acceptance, and robots.
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.
Locas
Jaime Hernández - 2004
Created over 15 years from 1981-96 in the pages of the legendary comic Love and Rockets and collected here in a giant deluxe hardcover.One of the most humane, graceful and imaginatively inexhaustible artists in American popular culture, Jaime Hernandez has created in Locas one of the great American novels of the last 30 years, graphic or otherwise. Created over 15 years from 1981 to 1996 in the pages of the legendary comic book series Love and Rockets, Locas tells the story of Maggie Chascarrillo, a bisexual, Mexican-American woman attempting to define herself in a community rife with class, race and gender issues.Maggie's story begins in the early-1980s Southern California rock scene, when it was shifting from the excesses of the 1970s to the gritty basics of punk and new wave. Hardcore punk rock came to the fore, and the teenaged Maggie finds herself drawn to the anarchy, energy and diversity of the scene, which in Jaime's hands becomes a very real, habitable place populated with authentic human beings rather than stereotypes. She quickly befriends Hopey Glass, a feisty anti-authoritarian punkette who quickly becomes Maggie's on-again, off-again lover and a constant presence in her life throughout the book.As the New York Times Book Review has described it, "These stories have all the visual smarts of film and the narrative smarts of literature....Hernandez specializes in psychological detail; we see both text and subtext immediately....What better than to open a book that shows there is more going on than we dream of in our workaday philosophies?"
Escapo
Paul Pope - 1999
A meditation on life, love, and mortality, Escapo is not to be missed! Originally published in 1999 and long out of print, the new Z2 edition of Escapo is fully colored and redesigned in the French BD format, featuring 50+ pages of bonus content. Included here is the rare two-page alternate ending, only seen in the French edition, as well as a new ten-page story and added pin-ups and sketchbook content by Paul Pope.
Ripple: A Predilection for Tina
Dave Cooper - 2003
Unlike those works, Ripple is a highly realistic story in terms of subject matter and drawing style. Martin is a floundering painter desperately attempting to pursue his fine art inclinations rather than toil in the world of commercial art. He hires a homely model, Tina, to pose for a series of "erotic" paintings that he hopes will be his breakthrough into the gallery world. Over time, Martin and Tina's relationship evolves from a tenuous working relationship to a confused sexual one. Martin's initial repulsion for Tina slowly turns to attraction and eventually lust, causing him to re-evaluate his own notions of beauty and sexuality. Meanwhile, Tina's own motives behind working for Martin are slowly turned upside down as well, building the book towards its inevitably explosive end. Throughout it all, Ripple is a complex love story poked and prodded from all angles, from Martin and Tina's physical and emotional feelings toward each other, Martin's dishonesty to himself, Tina's self-loathing, and everything in between. Sad, funny, and often uncomfortably titillating, Ripple is a remarkably introspective graphic novel, rendered with kinetic realism in a pen technique that calls to mind a more controlled Edward Sorel and Jules Feiffer.
Hellbound Lifestyle
Alabaster Pizzo - 2016
Kaeleigh Forsyth wryly observed and recorded the weird moments of her life in private notes on her phone, and now her friend Alabaster Pizzo has illustrated these secret thoughts in hilarious detail.
Garfield: Homecoming
Scott Nickel - 2019
Along the way, he meets up with a clown who works in an old-timey travelling circus. Convinced that this is the place for him, Garfield becomes part of the act. Wait. What is that cannon for? Join Garfield as he travels to find the perfect home, and as he finds a lot of not-so-perfect homes along the way. Writer Scott Nickel (Garfield: His 9 Lives) teams up with artists Sara Talmadge (Steven Universe), Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb (Adventure Time), Ben Sears (The Ideal Copy), and Genevieve FT (Betty & Veronica) for this epic adventure
5,000 km Per Second
Manuele Fior - 2009
Executed in stunning watercolors and broken down into five chapters (set in Italy, Norway, Egypt, and Italy again), 5,000 Kilometers Per Second manages to refer to Piero and Lucia's actual love story only obliquely, focusing instead on its first stirrings and then episodes in their life during which they are separated--a narrative twist that makes it even more poignant and heart-wrenching. 5,000 Kilometers Per Second is another delicate graphic-novel masterpiece from Europe.