Books in 2009, #19
#19. Radiator Days by Lucy Knisley
Named for the fact that all of the comics within its pages were drawn listening to the deep humming of an apartment heat exchanger, Radiator Days is a collection of autobiographical and fictional comic stories. Some deal with Knisley's uncertainty about the future, her true loves of The X-Files and food, her addiction to sex, and just the meanderings that minds often go through. Her artwork varies, with her 24-hour comic being very loose and stream-of-conscious and her short story of a used bookshop closing more akin to the work of Hope Larson, with excellent pacing and thick, bold lines. There's also a boat's fill of sketches and doodles, which are amusing but easily skipped. Most of the comics from the book are actually posted at her website here--so go take a gander, and then check out the comics she's posting now about her recent travel to Paris and see just how much she's grown as an artist, a storyteller, a girl with no focus but all the drive in the world.
Named for the fact that all of the comics within its pages were drawn listening to the deep humming of an apartment heat exchanger, Radiator Days is a collection of autobiographical and fictional comic stories. Some deal with Knisley's uncertainty about the future, her true loves of The X-Files and food, her addiction to sex, and just the meanderings that minds often go through. Her artwork varies, with her 24-hour comic being very loose and stream-of-conscious and her short story of a used bookshop closing more akin to the work of Hope Larson, with excellent pacing and thick, bold lines. There's also a boat's fill of sketches and doodles, which are amusing but easily skipped. Most of the comics from the book are actually posted at her website here--so go take a gander, and then check out the comics she's posting now about her recent travel to Paris and see just how much she's grown as an artist, a storyteller, a girl with no focus but all the drive in the world.