Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

Alison Bechdel

“It’s by writing… by stepping back a bit from the real thing to look at it, that we are most present.”

There aren’t enough words, nor adequate words, to articulate just how many levels of brilliant Alison Bechdel’s memoir about her mother is — a wealth of insight into writing, therapy, self-doubt, and how the messiness of life foments the creative conscience. Dive in:

Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts

Chip Kidd

Charles Schulz, civil rights, and the never-before-seen art of Peanuts:

A Graphic Cosmogony

Some of today’s most exciting illustrators and graphic artists imagine the origin of the universe and how our world came to be:

Bohemians: A Graphic History

Some of today’s most exciting comic artists tell the graphic stories of some of history’s boldest creative mavericks – Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Josephine Baker, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, Thelonious Monk, and more:

Freud

Corrine Maier

Freud’s life and legacy, in a comic:

The Art of Rube Goldberg: (A) Inventive (B) Cartoon © Genius

Jennifer George

The art of Rube Goldberg (yes, THE Rube Goldberg), plus a fun animated GIF to boot

The Big Feminist BUT

Shannon O’Leary

“There’s both liberation and possibility in pointing out that you’re not a sellout or a coward for refusing to adopt a label that doesn’t quite name your experience.”

Artists and writers tackle gender politics in comics

Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe

Tim Leong

The comic book universe, distilled in infographics – from the trifecta of superhero tropes (apparently, underwear worn on the outside is a make-or-break factor) to the genealogy of Scrooge McDuck’s kin (none of whom, coincidentally, wear underwear) to the Multiverse (or, at least, multi-Earth universe) that emerges from the entire line of DC comics to the daily schedule of the average manga artist:

The Graphic Canon, Vol. 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest

Russ Kick

Some of today’s most exciting visual artists take on the literary canon’s classics: Ulysses in six panels, Colette in pen and ink, Yeats in watercolor, and other literary springboards for art. Delicious images at the link:

Action Philosophers!

Fred Van Lente

Two millennia of philosophy in comic book form – from the pre-Socratics to Jacques Derrida, by way of Rene Descartes, John Stuart Mill, and Carl Jung.

The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2: From “Kubla Khan” to the Brontë Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Russ Kick

Some of today’s most exciting graphic artists adapt a remarkable spectrum of literature since 1800, spanning everything from “the bad boys of Romanticism” — Keats, Byron, and Shelley — to cornerstones of science and philosophy like Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel

Richard H. Minear & Dr. Seuss

A collection of Dr. Seuss’s little-known wartime propaganda cartoons.

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb

Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

Writer and illustrator Jonathan Fetter-Vorm suggests that the story of the atomic bomb is perhaps something told best not through thousands of government documents, but instead drawn on a chalkboard. The result is a concise and beautiful grasp on one of the most complex and essential events of the twentieth century — and a fine testament to the power of graphic storytelling in serious nonfiction.

Gonzo: A Graphic Biography of Hunter S. Thompson

Will Bingley

Fear and loathing in six panels.