DRAWN & QUARTERLY
CITY OF BELGIUM HC
(W) Brecht Evens (A) Brecht Evens (CA) Brecht Evens
As night falls in the City of Belgium, three strangers in their late twenties - a most dangerous age - arrive at a popular restaurant. Jona is about to move away; he calls his wife, who's already settled in Berlin, before trying to make plans with friends for one last night on the town. No one bites-they're all busy or maybe they just don't want to party-but he's determined to make this night something to remember. Victoria is lively and energetic, but surrounded by friends and family who are buzzkills, always worrying about what is best for her. Rodolphe glumly considers his own misery and then suddenly snaps out of it, becoming the life of the party. The three careen through the city's nightlife spots and underbelly, chasing pleasure-or at least a few distractions from their daily lives. Each has a series of adventures that reveal them to be teetering on the edge between lucid dream and tooth-grinding nightmare.
CONTRADICTIONS GN
(W) Sophie Yanow (A) Sophie Yanow (CA) Sophie Yanow
Sophie's young and queer and into feminist theory. She decides to study abroad, choosing Paris for no firm reason beyond liking French comics. Feeling a bit lonely and out of place, she's desperate for community and a sense of belonging. An anarchist student-activist committed to veganism and shoplifting, Zena offers Sophie a whole new political ideology that feels electric. Enamored - of Zena, of the idea of living more righteously - Sophie finds herself swept up in a whirlwind friendship that blows her even farther from her rural Californian roots as they embark on a disastrous hitchhiking trip to Amsterdam and Berlin full of couch surfing, drug tripping, and radical book fairs.
I WANT YOU GN
(W) Lisa Hanawalt (A) Lisa Hanawalt (CA) Lisa Hanawalt
Before the critically acclaimed animated shows, the bestselling graphic novel Coyote Doggirl, or the humor collections Hot Dog Taste Test and My Dirty Dumb Eyes, cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt was a comic book industry sensation with her Ignatz Award-winning minicomic series I Want You. Hanawalt's outlandish humor and ingenious formalism are evident in the comics collected here. Her love of anthropomorphism and scatology are on full display, all lovingly and grotesquely drawn by Hanawalt in obsessive, unnerving detail. A master humorist and cartoonist, Hanawalt strikes the perfect balance of drawing the gorgeous and the repugnant, the fantastical and the lifelike, the bizarre and the hilarious-creating a deeply human experience that everyone can relate to.
LEAGUE OF SUPER FEMINISTS HC
(W) Mirion Malle (A) Mirion Malle (CA) Mirion Malle
The League of Super Feminists is an energetic, fierce, and disruptive comic wherein cartoonist Mirion Malle guides young readers through some of the central tenets of feminism. Issues of consent, intersectionality, privilege, inclusivity, body image, and gender identity are demystified in the form of a witty, down-to-earth dialogue. Malle's insightful and humorous comics effectively transport lofty concepts from the ivory tower to the eternally safer space of open discussion. The League of Super Feminists is an asset to the classroom, library, and household alike.
NINETEEN GN
(W) Ancco (A) Ancco (CA) Ancco
At nineteen, the idea that you have your whole life ahead of you with endless possibilities can leave you terrifyingly stiff. Autobiography blends with fiction in these coming-of-age stories about people reckoning with their place in their community and women coming to terms with other women. A boy living with HIV tries to decide how he's going to tell his parents-or whether he should tell them at all. A mother puts pressure on her daughter to pass her exams, and the stress of it all drives them both to drink, fueling a toxic relationship with a lot of care just below the ugly surface. Another girl keeps getting bruises, but who's inflicting the damage-herself or a loved one? Ancco expertly renders the moment of suspension between the desire to grow up and the fear that accompanies it.
PAUL AT HOME GN
(W) Michel Rabagliati (A) Michel Rabagliati (CA) Michel Rabagliati
Paul at Home is Michel Rabagliati's most personal book yet, a riveting, emotional, and frequently amusing take on the losses and loneliness of being closer to retirement than to university. Paul is in his mid-50s, a successful cartoonist with an achy shoulder living in a house he once shared with his wife and daughter. Left unspoken but lingering in the background is Paul's divorce after a three decade relationship with his high school sweetheart. Online dating only seems to make the world worse. Rabagliati doesn't shy away from these intimate issues, approaching them as much with self-deprecating humor as with sorrow or pain.