Joe Sacco, Guy DeLisle, and other graphic art journalist type stuff

[Ferris]

Terrible title, sorry.

As you may (or may not, frankly) be able to tell I am trying to read more. My shitty ADD-addled brain has meant that I've gravitated back to graphic novels because I find them much easier to parse and absorb (though I am reading an actual book! A big one! Watch this space...)

Anyway, I've gravitated to these kind of journalistic graphic novels that focus on exploring a real-world place or issue. I mentioned Sacco and DeLisle because they're the masters. The problem - I think I've now read everything they've released and am clamouring for more stuff in a similar vein.

After a few months, I finally found time to finish Sacco's Paying the Land. It was brilliant - a really nuanced, thoughtful and informed take on Canada's Northern communities, resource extraction and land ownership, and the legacy of colonialism and the repeated violation of Indigenous sovereignty. It also made me feel frankly uncomfortable as metropolitan, white Canadian. I really, highly recommend you try and find a copy if you have any interest in the subject or just humans in general. It is unflinching and clever and funny, and captures something really essential in all the people it profiles as their stories.

Anyway - I had a similar reaction to Footnotes in Palestine and DeLisle's trilogy (sort of?) about living in Shenzhen, Jerusalem, and Pyongyang.

Who else is doing similar work? I've read Joe Matt and he was a similar kind of writer albeit with a focus on smaller, domestic type work.

Have you written an adult comic book about the Middle East? Are you a reporter who uses doodles to communicate meaning? Have you written a funny wordless 3-pager about a tortoise that my son still asks to read months later because he likes the cartoon characters? All this and more should go in this thread.

[popcorn]

I only know the obvious famous ones, so forgive me if this one is too obvious and famous. I read it a long time ago and I liked it.



I suppose it's not really journalistic in the same sense but it's all about growing up in Iran after the Islamic revolution innit.

[Ferris]

@popcorn no that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about!

We have a copy of it somewhere (in fact I seem to remember I bought it for my partner) and I've never read it so that is an excellent suggestion, thank you!

Keep the recommendations coming, I suppose.

[DocDaneeka]

I haven't read it yet as it seems like a huge bummer, but you may like Ducks by Kate Beaton.

I like her funny webcomics but this is a proper 436 page work all about her two years working in the Oil Sands in Alberta.

To be honest as a Canadian it's your duty.

[Shaxberd]

Haven't read it but a friend recently recommended Flic, a French journalist's expose of his two years undercover in the police, illustrated with Maus-esque cat-people.

[Ferris]

I haven't read it yet as it seems like a huge bummer, but you may like Ducks by Kate Beaton.

I like her funny webcomics but this is a proper 436 page work all about her two years working in the Oil Sands in Alberta.

To be honest as a Canadian it's your duty.

A good recommendation in the spirit of the thread but I have of course already read (and enjoyed) it.

Beaton is not just Canadian, she's Nova Scotian (in fact she's a Caper, I'd bet money she's related to Mrs Ferris somehow). There was no way I'd avoid her graphic novel.

[madhair60]

Ducks was the kind of thing that prompted very real and painful soul searching, or at the very least digging up old memories and recontextualising them and going "wow that can't have been very fun for her"

Spoiler alert

nothing nearly as bad as what happened to Kate, i hasten to add, but just that examination of the power men have in a room even in apparently benign situations

[close]

anyway i don't know any. I nominate Paying For It by Chester Brown even though it's not really within the remit

[Brundle-Fly]

Some great nominations so far. Here's my cent's worth of autobiographical stuff.



Depresso
Does what it says on the side of the tin.



Moresukine
Ex-pat's diary of living in the heart of Tokyo.



Love Addict
Promiscuity on the modern dating scene, Its pleasures, its pitfalls.



Illegal
This could be more up your street. Not strictly autobiographical but obviously comes from truth.



The Alcoholic
Self explanatory. The daily life of being a dipso.



Trashed
From the man who brought us My Friend Dahmer, an insight into the world of the refuse collector.



All The Answers

The genius behind Tales To Thrizzle reveals his father's utterly fascinating childhood back story.



Blankets
Based on Craig Thompson's upbringing, a story of growing up in an evangelical Christian household and affairs of the heart.



Lowlife
Ed Brubaker has gone on in a very different direction now, but his early stuff stands shoulder to shoulder with the late Joe Matt.



Dotter Of Her Father's Eyes

Interesting story telling device in this coming of age(s) memoir.



Dennis .P. Eichorn's Real Stuff
These autobiographical vignettes have never been put in a collection but do seek out back issues. Like Harvey Pekar's American Splendor but with a hard on, a bottle of Bourbon and a packet of Marlboro.

[Ferris]

@Brundle-Fly thats brilliant, lots to read about there. Thanks!

[Brundle-Fly]

@Brundle-Fly thats brilliant, lots to read about there. Thanks!

Pleasure. It's encouraged me to delve back into my comic collection again after a long break.

[Small Man Big Horse]

anyway i don't know any. I nominate Paying For It by Chester Brown even though it's not really within the remit

I've read that but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it, it does make a strong case for decriminalising prostitution but I also found it really repetitive, and quite unsettling in places where Chester suspects the woman is underage or being trafficked but still has sex with her.

I do rate Jonathan Ames's The Alcoholic though, but I'm a fan of pretty much all of his work and it does echo some of the ideas found in his collections of articles / diary entries, etc.

[madhair60]

I've read that but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it, it does make a strong case for decriminalising prostitution but I also found it really repetitive, and quite unsettling in places where Chester suspects the woman is underage or being trafficked but still has sex with her.

that's what i found so compelling to be honest; the sociopathic nastiness, the cold reality of it all

[Small Man Big Horse]

that's what i found so compelling to be honest; the sociopathic nastiness, the cold reality of it all

I can absolutely understand that, and in that way it does exist in a state where it makes a good case as to why prostitution should be legalised, but jesus, do your research and do as much as you can to make sure the sex worker is there by choice if you wish to hire one. And I know that isn't something anyone can 100% do, but I really wish Brown had tried it more often than he did, and because he didn't I don't have any interest in reading any of his other work.

[madhair60]

i think that is completely fair enough. I hugely enjoy "confessional" comic stuff like that (and his little squad, Joe Matt and Seth) and I think Paying For It is the pinnacle really, that moment is so jarring and changes everything about the book and about him and I think it's incredible he included it, just this warts and all thing of like despite everything, despite all his pretensions toward morality... you know? the best comics of that nature make you re-examine yourself, Ducks did that for me, Paying For It did too (not that i ever, you know, did that or anything even close to it)

I think it's a great comic, but it's so completely amoral

[Brundle-Fly]

If it actually happened that way with the possibly trafficked girl. I gather autobiographical cartoonists play hard and fast with the actual truth to allow the narrative to flow better. A friend of a friend of Joe Matt said that you had to take his retelling of events with a big pinch of salt. Things are exaggerated for comic/dramatic effect or details omitted. Matt made himself out to be far worse than he actually was.

Who was that poster on CaB who took such a moral high ground that he had vowed to himself to never buy Chester Brown's books again, but still read any new publications by him cover to cover while browsing in comic shops?

[madhair60]

Small Man Big Horse

[Small Man Big Horse]

If it actually happened that way with the possibly trafficked girl. I gather autobiographical cartoonists play hard and fast with the actual truth to allow the narrative to flow better. A friend of a friend of Joe Matt said that you had to take his retelling of events with a big pinch of salt. Things are exaggerated for comic/dramatic effect or details omitted. Matt made himself out to be far worse than he actually was.

Who was that poster on CaB who took such a moral high ground that he had vowed to himself to never buy Chester Brown's books again, but still read any new publications by him cover to cover while browsing in comic shops?

Small Man Big Horse

Haha, but no. I do remember that post as well though, but the person has changed their forum name so it's probably best not to mention it.

[Deskbound Cunt]

I thought this was excellent.



Edit: ffs. I should read the OP properly. So you'll know this already.

[Ferris]

Edit: ffs. I should read the OP properly. So you'll know this already.

No I don't think I do! That's definitely one for my list.

I should really say I've read everything Sacco/DeLisle have done that's widely available, but DeLisle in particular has some stuff that's hard to get hold of including a trilogy (?) on parenting that I'd love to read but it's really expensive to import from Europe.

[Ferris]

I got a recommendation not from CaB* that I thought I'd share as it looks relevant.

Vanni: A Family's Struggle Through the Sri Lankan Conflict so let's add that to the pile and all. I have a copy on order so that's one to look forward to.

^{*I know I know}

[elliszeroed]

Ordered myself a copy of Ducks by Kate Beaton, looking forward to reading it!

[madhair60]

Ordered myself a copy of Ducks by Kate Beaton, looking forward to reading it!

it's brilliant but be warned, very, very tense read and by the end i was in tears.

[Ferris]

I re-read Ducks today as a result of this thread and thoroughly enjoyed it, if that's the right word.

Glad I did, a brilliant piece of work.

Spoiler alert

I have a vendetta against the Loose Cannon on Argyle Street (last few pages of the book) because someone was rude to me there circa 2011, which I'm sure everyone was dying to know.

[close]

[Oh, Nobody]

I can absolutely understand that, and in that way it does exist in a state where it makes a good case as to why prostitution should be legalised, but jesus, do your research and do as much as you can to make sure the sex worker is there by choice if you wish to hire one. And I know that isn't something anyone can 100% do, but I really wish Brown had tried it more often than he did, and because he didn't I don't have any interest in reading any of his other work.

And he got a government grant to make it! Fucking kids on the Man's dime.

[Ferris]

Re-read Persepolis and loved it, impulse bought the sequel which has just arrived.

[popcorn]

Don't forget the movie!

[Ferris]

Sort of related, but I just finished Asterios Polyp, a recommendation from a very good friend who studied philosophy with me a thousand years ago.

I can see why he liked it. It was clever and interesting and odd. I enjoyed it immensely.

There's also a one-page payoff that made me laugh the hardest I've ever laughed at a graphic novel. I'm still chuckling at it. Very good book.

[madhair60]

i went to Abstract Sprocket in Norwich a few months back and they gave me a copy of Asterios Polyp for free. I have no idea why. I said "are you sure??" and they just said yes, don't worry about it. I did buy something but it wasn't an outrageous amount, £25 or so, not exactly "throw in a perfectly good hardcover graphic novel" tier. still baffles me, but on the plus side, i now own a copy of Asterios Polyp.

i think it may just be that norwich is a city of dreams.

[Ferris]

i went to Abstract Sprocket in Norwich a few months back and they gave me a copy of Asterios Polyp for free. I have no idea why. I said "are you sure??" and they just said yes, don't worry about it. I did buy something but it wasn't an outrageous amount, £25 or so, not exactly "throw in a perfectly good hardcover graphic novel" tier. still baffles me, but on the plus side, i now own a copy of Asterios Polyp.

i think it may just be that norwich is a city of dreams.

Stupid question - have you read it? It's ponderous and weird in places but has enough ideas in there to keep it moving along.

I liked it anyway.

[madhair60]

no, not yet, i'll get round to it