My Badly Drawn Life

Gipi, Translator: Jamie Richards

Fantagraphics

This coming-of-age graphic memoir is a relentless and exhilarating journey to the depths of the human condition, rendered with precision and verve by one of the world's greatest living cartoonists.

"You've always got to laugh at tragedy. That's why I laugh about my ailment. Ailments. About being a sexual spastic. About my perennial, cowardly, tantalizing desire to die. You can laugh about anything. Almost." Spoken by his self-depiction, these bitter words set the tone for Gipi's pitch-black humor in this unvarnished and uncompromising autobiographical tale. A young adult adrift in the world, Gipi's stand-in grapples with sexuality, insecurity, deception, depression, drug use, fading friendships, and the capricious cruelties of the world as he struggles to determine whether his life is worth living.

Drawn in Gipi's signature elegantly scribbled ink style and punctuated by vivid watercolor splashes, My Badly Drawn Life weaves through the past and present, through narratives both real and imagined, to create an impressionistic account of his complex inner life. In this kaleidoscopic journey into the depths of his psyche, Gipi processes the shadowy traumas of his upbringing; in doing so, he produces a gripping work of utter cartooning mastery.