Book picks similar to
Constantly by GG


graphic-novels
graphic-novel
comics
mental-health

Building Stories


Chris Ware - 2012
    Taking advantage of the absolute latest advances in wood pulp technology, Building Stories is a book with no deliberate beginning nor end, the scope, ambition, artistry and emotional prevarication beyond anything yet seen from this artist or in this medium, probably for good reason.

In Waves


A.J. Dungo - 2019
    With his passion for surfing uniting many narratives, he intertwines his own story with those of some of the great heroes of surf.

Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir


Liz Prince - 2014
    But she wasn't exactly one of the guys, either. She was somewhere in between. But with the forces of middle school, high school, parents, friendship, and romance pulling her this way and that, "the middle" wasn't exactly an easy place to be.Tomboy follows award-winning author and artist Liz Prince through her early years and explores—with humor, honesty, and poignancy—what it means to "be a girl."

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.

Deogratias, a Tale of Rwanda


Jean-Philippe Stassen - 2000
    He is an ordinary teenager, in love with a girl named B�nigne, but Deogratias is a Hutu and B�nigne is a Tutsi who dies in the genocide, and Deogratias himself plays a part in her death. As the story circles around but never depicts the terror and brutality of an entire country descending into violence, we watch Deogratias in his pursuit of B�nigne, and we see his grief and descent into madness following her death, as he comes to believe he is a dog.Told with great artistry and intelligence, this book offers a window into a dark chapter of recent human history and exposes the West's role in the tragedy. Stassen's interweaving of the aftermath of the genocide and the events leading up to it heightens the impact of the horror, giving powerful expression to the unspeakable, indescribable experience of ordinary Hutus caught up in the violence. Difficult, beautiful, honest, and heartbreaking, this is a major work by a masterful artist.

Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir


Amy Kurzweil - 2016
    Amy weaves her own coming-of-age as a young Jewish artist into the narrative of her mother, a psychologist, and Bubbe, her grandmother, a World War II survivor who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto by disguising herself as a gentile. Captivated by Bubbe’s story, Amy turns to her sketchbooks, teaching herself to draw as a way to cope with what she discovers. Entwining the voices and histories of these three wise, hilarious, and very different women, Amy creates a portrait not only of what it means to be part of a family, but also of how each generation bears the imprint of the past. Flying Couch uses Bubbe’s real testimony and her playful, idiosyncratic sensibility to investigate the legacy of trauma, the power of family stories, and the meaning of home. The result is this bold illustrated memoir, both an original story of self-discovery and an important entry into the literature of the Holocaust.“Flying Couch is perfect. It’s perceptive, emotionally on point, surprising and funny in its details, told in an intuitive way that’s completely direct, and about something that matters. This is an important book.” —Liana Finck, author of The Bintel Brief“Flying Couch is a moving, intricate story of identity and family history.”—Ariel Schrag, author of Likewise and Awkward and Definition“I read Flying Couch in one sitting, without moving, literally laughed and literally cried.” —Rachel Fershleiser, co-editor of the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning"Amy Kurzweil's moving debut is a story of trauma and survival, and a search for identity and belonging. Fluctuating, in words and images, from the bubbly to the intense, this graphic memoir exposes the complicated and powerful ways we are shaped by the histories and relationships that anchor us."—Tahneer Oksman, author of How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage


Sydney Padua - 2015
    . . in which Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures. Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines. But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)

Just Peachy: Comics About Depression, Anxiety, Love, and Finding the Humor in Being Sad


Holly Chisholm - 2019
    The all-too-real cartoon protagonist gives readers a character to empathize with, and helps explain some of the not often talked about consequences and symptoms of having depression. The comics also explore the themes of heartbreak, finding love, dealing with stress, and capturing the magical moments in life that keep us going.Through dark humor and cute illustrations, the subject matter becomes a bit more bearable, allowing for honest discussion about things like treatment and getting through anxiety attacks, and providing some comfort in times of struggle.For anyone affected by mental illness, Just Peachy shows that you are not alone. Simply put, this is an encouraging collection of comics about being just okay sometimes."So brave of Holly Chisholm to share her struggles with mental health issues through this creative medium. Just Peachy will inspire others to connect to, navigate through, and recover from their own day-to-day trials and tribulations of living with a mental illness. Well done!"—Dr. Carlin Barnes and Dr. Marketa Wills, authors of Understanding Mental Illness and founders of Healthy Mind MDs

The Undertaking of Lily Chen


Danica Novgorodoff - 2014
    Which means that Deshi must find him an eligible body before the week is up. Lily Chen, sweet as a snakebite, needs money and a fast ride out of town. Haunted by the gods of their ancestors and the expectations of the new world, Deshi and Lily embark on a journey with two very different destinations in mind.They travel through a land where the ground is hard and the graves are shallow, where marriage can be murder and where Lily Chen is wanted—dead and alive.

Ethel and Ernest


Raymond Briggs - 1998
    They meet during the Depression -- she working as a chambermaid, he as a milkman -- and we follow them as they encounter, and cope with, World War II, the advent of radio and t.v., telephones and cars, the atomic bomb, the moon landing. Briggs's portrayal of his parents as they succeed, or fail, in coming to terms with their rapidly shifting world is irresistably engaging -- full of sympathy and affection, yet clear-eyed and unsentimental.The book's strip-cartoon format is deceptively simple; it possesses a wealth of detail and an emotional depth that are remarkable in such a short volume. Briggs's marvelous illustrations and succinct, true-to-life dialogue create a real sense of time and place, of what it was like to experience such enormous changes. Almost as much a social history as it is a personal account, Ethel & Ernest is a moving tribute to ordinary people living in an extraordinary time.

Rx


Rachel Lindsay - 2018
    But work takes a strange turn when she is promoted onto the Pfizer account and suddenly finds herself on the other side of the curtain, developing ads for an anti-depressant drug. Overwhelmed by her professional life and the self-scrutiny it inspires, her mania takes hold. She quits her job to become an artist, only to be hospitalized by her parents against her will. Over the course of her two weeks in the ward, she tries to find a path out of the hospital and this cycle of treatment. One where she can live the life she wants, finding freedom and autonomy, without sacrificing her dreams in order to stay well.

Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film


Edward Ross - 2015
    In Filmish, Ross's cartoon alter-ego guides readers through the annals of cinematic history, introducing us to some of the strange and fascinating concepts at work in the movies. Each chapter focuses on a particular theme - the body, architecture, language - and explores an eclectic mix of cinematic triumphs, from A Trip to the Moon to Aliens. Sitting within the tradition of bestselling non-fiction graphic novels like Scott McClouds Understanding Comics and the Introducing...series, Filmish tackles serious issues - sexuality, race, censorship, propaganda - with authority and wit, throwing new light on some of the greatest films ever made.

No One Else


R. Kikuo Johnson - 2021
    She is barely holding their lives together when tragedy strikes and leaves Charlene and Brandon on their own. Charlene, who has put everyone but herself first for years, sees it as an opportunity for a new start of sorts. That is, at least, until her easy-come, easy-go brother, Robbie — a well-intentioned but unserious semi-professional musician — rolls back into town after a long absence. Brandon, a good kid who aches for life to return to normal, focuses his grief on his cat, Batman, who hasn't been seen for a few days since he ran into the sugar cane fields that lie on the edge of their housing tract.No One Else is a graphic novel of great tender truth, as Charlene, Brandon, and Robbie learn to navigate life day to day with their plans, fears, and desires. Gorgeously drawn and set in the author's hometown on the Hawaiian island of Maui, it is the long-awaited follow up to Johnson's acclaimed debut graphic novel, Night Fisher, and a mature work of literary fiction that is certain to be one of the most talked-about books of 2021.

Swallow Me Whole


Nate Powell - 2008
    Swallow Me Whole is a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one's unraveling.In his most ambitious book to date, Nate Powell quietly explores the dark corners of adolescence -- not the clich�d melodramatic outbursts of rebellion, but the countless tiny moments of madness, the vague relief of medication, and mixed blessing of family ties. As the story unfolds, two stepsiblings hold together amidst schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguided love, and the tiniest hope that everything will someday make sense.Deliberately paced, delicately drawn, and drenched in shadows, Swallow Me Whole is a landmark achievement for Nate Powell and a suburban ghost story that will haunt readers long after its final pages.

Kusama: The Graphic Novel


Elisa Macellari - 2020
    From rural Japan to international icon – Yayoi Kusama has spent her remarkable life immersed in her art.Follow her incredible journey in this vivid graphic biography which details her bold departure from Japan as a young artist, her embrace of the buzzing New York art scene in the 1960s, and her eventual return home and rise to twenty-first century super-fame.