Salty, crunchy, delicious fun.
In this graphic memoir, complete with recipes, a New Yorker cartoonist looks back on years of eating her way into adulthood.
Opening and closing with scenes from a gig as a 33-year-old burlesque dancer, Campbell shows off her experience as a stand-up comic with a quip-laden narrative in which she chronicles both her youth as a picky eater from childhood through college and a yearslong, riotously contentious, on-again, off-again relationship with a sometimes pushy, sometimes disturbingly sensitive foodie she dubs “E.” “My truest self is a 5-year-old,” she starts out, “legitimately terrified” of most food from a young age. But “I fucking LOVE Kraft cheese,” and so throughout ensuing trials and tribulations she inserts frequent recipes for comfort foods like Burnt Potato Chips (“pairs well” with gin and tonics and M&M’s). In art as busy and disheveled as her life, she crams friends, family, foods, and winningly ungainly images of her own figure, along with hand-lettered commentary and dialogue, into panels and montages that teem with informal line work and pop with colored highlights. Reflecting the classic stand-up’s truism that “people think it’s funny when I’m sad,” even when she’s listing her fears or turns to bulimia while wrestling with shame and depression at her weight, her tone is at its lowest only self-deprecatory. Anyway, it’s the high moments that best capture attention—from a wonderfully epiphanic sequence of reaction shots in the wake of her first primary school teacher’s announcement of “Snack Time!” and the mind-bending discovery that cream cheese wrapped in salami actually tastes good to a final view of her triumphantly twirling her pasties onstage while declaring a well-earned determination “to live my life the way that I want!”
Salty, crunchy, delicious fun.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781524876456
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A cartoonist’s gentle and charming epistolary memoir.
A cartoonist uses fans’ questions to trace his personal history.
Tomine began self-publishing his work at the age of 16. Since then, he’s developed a devoted fandom that, he says, has stuck by him for almost three decades. Although cartooning is a solitary profession, Tomine says his relationship with his readers has helped him stave off the loneliness that is, so often, a hazard of the job. He writes, “It’s never felt that way. In fact, I often think of my career as a decades-long conversation between myself and an amorphous, mostly anonymous group of people who are for some reason drawn to my work.” In Q&A, Tomine continues this conversation by responding to some of the most common queries, which include how to correctly pronounce his name (which, it turns out, Tomine didn’t know until a trip to Japan), his favorite brands of art supplies, his ability to balance the inspirations and frustrations of parents, and his thoughts about adapting his comics into films. He also offers career advice, describing how he got his start at theNew Yorker, spelling out his opinions on self-publishing and marketing, and providing ideas for connecting with comic artists who could serve as role models or mentors. Although this memoir doesn’t necessarily contain a clear character arc, it does provide a fascinating insight into a beloved artist’s personal history. Tomine’s writing is compassionate, empathetic, and tongue-in-cheek, and his narratorial voice has the intimate, confessional frankness of a good friend. The book’s visuals—which include Tomine’s illustrations—are a welcome addition to the text.
A cartoonist’s gentle and charming epistolary memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781770467309
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An impassioned message of rage and hope.
The author of Persepolis returns with a collection about burgeoning activism in Iran.
In September 2022, the beating and death of Mahsa Jina Amini, an Iranian student arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly, incited a solidarity movement among women and men that spread around the world. To publicize and bear witness to this major uprising, Satrapi has gathered stories, cartoons, and essays from more than 20 artists, activists, journalists, and academics. The author has two aims: “to explain what’s going on in Iran, to decipher events in all their complexity and nuance for a non-Iranian readership, and to help you understand them as fully as possible”; and “to remind Iranians that they are not alone.” Setting the movement in context, Iranian American historian Abbas Milani offers an overview of the political upheavals and revolutions that have led to the current misogynist, repressive regime and the “resolute defiance” that has emerged in protest. As each contributor attests, life under a wrathful dictatorship is consistently frightening and dangerous: “The Islamic Republic ensures its own survival by murdering people. During the successive demonstrations” over Amini’s murder, “several hundred people were killed in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of protesters. Young people were forced to confess under torture.” Women are especially vulnerable. Since November 2022, young students in schools across Iran have been poisoned by toxic gas as part of an attempt to force girls’ schools to close. Protecting the regime falls to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organization that answers directly to Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, and for the past four decades has carried out a reign of terror. This collection pays homage to victims and celebrates the dreams of Iran’s determined activists. Other contributors include Joanne Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Paco Roca, and Mana Neyestani.
An impassioned message of rage and hope.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781644214053
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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