Books published by Drawn and Quarterly

A celebration of Tove Jansson's legacy, 100 years after her birth.

Twenty years in the making, this sweeping masterpiece charts Berlin through the rise of Nazism.

The idiosyncratic curriculum from the Professor of Interdisciplinary Creativity will teach you how to draw and write your story

In the second volume of Tove Jansson's humorous yet melancholic Moomin comic strip, we get four new stories about jealousy, competition, child rearing, and self-reinvention.

A race for the Art of the Covenant finds an exploration into the ethics and world of the international antiquity trade

An uncanny and eye-opening journey into a mysterious building, adapted from a short story by Jeff VanderMeer

A lavish celebration of Moominvalley, complete with hundreds of pages of comics, writing, and ephemera - on the strip s 60th anniversary

And the award for worst dad ever still goes to

A memoir of shocking honesty by the graphic novelist behind 2011's acclaimed comic Paying for ItAs with every Chester Brown book, The Playboy-originally published in 1992-was ahead of its time, illustrating the fearlessness and prescience of the iconoclastic cartoonist. A memoir about Brown's adolescent sexuality and shame, The Playboy chronicles his teenage obsession with the magazine of the same name, but it's also a work that explores the physical form of comics to their fullest storytelling capacity. In it, a fifteen-year-old Chester is visited by a time-traveling adult Chester, and the latter narrates the former's compulsion to purchase each issue of Playboy as it appears on newsstands. Even more fascinating than his obsession with the magazine is his need to keep his habit secret and the resulting lengths to which he goes to avoid detection by his family and, later, his girlfriends. The comics that became The Playboy first appeared in issues of Brown's controversial, groundbreaking comic Yummy Fur more than twenty years ago, and yet the frankness of the work makes it seem avant-garde even now. As in every work by this master cartoonist, The Playboy uses no extra words, no extra panels, no extra lines, conveying environment and emotion through perfectly chosen moments. Fans of his acclaimed and controversial memoir Paying for It are sure to be drawn in by this early autobiographical portrait of blazing honesty. The expanded reissue includes all-new appendixes and notes from the author.

Moomin has been swiftly making its way into the hearts of North Americans ever since Drawn & Quarterly began collecting the strip in 2006. It debuted in the London Evening News in 1954 and has become the fastest-selling D+Q series to date. Fifty years ago, Tove Jansson''s observations of everyday life-whimsical but with biting undertones-easily caught the attention of an international audience and still resonate today. This third volume returns to Moominvalley, where its beloved inhabitants get tangled up in five new stories. Moomin falls in love with a damsel in distress, an unseasonably warm spell turns the valley into a tropical rain forest, and a flying saucer crashes into Moominmamma''s garden. Moominpappa decides to live out his dream of occupying a lighthouse and writing a great seaside novel, only to discover that he hates the sea so close up and has no interest in writing about it, and a variety of curious clubs spring up in the valley. Moomin and Moominmamma do their level best to avoid the whole mess but, of course, get drawn into the muddle.

The essential early work by the modern master of Japanese literary comicsYoshiharu Tsuge is one of the most influential and acclaimed practitioners of literary comics in Japan. The Swamp collects work from his early years, showing a major talent coming into his own. Bucking the tradition of mystery and adventure stories, Tsuge's fiction focused on the lives of the citizens of Japan. These mesmerizing comics, like those of his contemporary Yoshihiro Tatsumi, reveal a gritty, at times desperate postwar Japan, while displaying Tsuge's unique sense of humor and point of view."Chirpy" is a simple domestic drama about expectations, fidelity, and escape. A couple purchase a beautiful white bird with a red beak. It is said that the bird will grow attached to its owners and never fly away. While the girlfriend is working as a hostess, flirting with men for money, the boyfriend decides to draw a portrait of the new family member, and disaster strikes.In "The Swamp," a simple rural encounter is charged with sexual tension that is alluring but also fraught with danger. When a young woman happens upon a wing-shot goose, she tries to calm it then suddenly snaps its neck. Later, she befriends a young hunter and offers him shelter, but her motivations remain unclear, especially when the hunter notices a snake in the room where they'll both be sleeping.The Swamp is a landmark in English manga-publishing history and the first in a series of Tsuge books Drawn & Quarterly will be publishing.

"Based on an original idea by Marie Pommepuy."

The idiosyncratic master Chester Brown continues his thoughts on sex workΓÇ£The Bible is Chester BrownΓÇÖs holy harlot. He plumbs the mysteries of her depths while she schools him in the ways of love. Like all of ChesterΓÇÖs work, Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus is confounding, yet addictive, instantly re-readable, and expands with revelations in his hundred pages of notes. A work of passion, research, and elegant clarity. My new favourite.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöCraig Thompson, author of Blankets and HabibiΓÇ£Chester Brown is both GodΓÇÖs and the devilΓÇÖs gift to the world.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöDavid Henry Sterry, author of Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent BoysΓÇ£ChesterΓÇÖs work never fails to surprise and delight me. Since I always enjoy mythic and legendary tales of harlots, I knew I would like Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, but I was pleased and impressed by the way he used all these stories to illustrate a larger theme about humanityΓÇÖs relationship to Divinity and the role my profession plays in that relationship. Chester shows that spirituality and sexuality, which are so often depicted in our culture as opposed to one another, are actually deeply intertwined.ΓÇ¥ΓÇöMaggie McNeill, author of The Honest CourtesanThe iconoclastic and bestselling cartoonist of Paying for It: A comic-strip memoir about being a john and Louis Riel returns and with a polemical interpretation of the Bible that will be one of the most controversial and talked-about graphic novels of 2016. Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus is the retelling in comics form of nine biblical stories that present Chester Brown''s fascinating and startling thesis about biblical representations of prostitution. Brown weaves a connecting line between Bathsheba, Ruth, Rahab, Tamar, Mary of Bethany, and the Virgin Mother. He reassesses the Christian moral code by examining the cultural implications of the Bible''s representations of sex work. Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus is a fitting follow-up to Brown''s sui generis graphic memoir Paying for It, which was reviewed twice in The New York Times and hailed by sex workers for Brown''s advocacy for the decriminalization and normalization of prostitution. Brown approaches the Bible as he did the life of Louis Riel, making these stories compellingly readable and utterly pertinent to a modern audience. In classic Chester Brown fashion, he provides extensive handwritten endnotes that delve into the biblical lore that informs Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus.

Eerie and perfectly paced, Michael DeForge's Big Kids muses on the complicated, and often contradictory, feelings people struggle with in adolescence, the choices we make to fit in, and the ways we survive times of change.

Drnaso's bleak social satire in Beverly reveals a brilliant command of the social milieu of twenty-first century existence, echoing the black comic work of Todd Solondz, Sam Lipsyte, and Daniel Clowes.

Laugh-out-loud anecdotes from the front lines of parenting.

Writing exercises and creativity advice from Lynda Barry's pioneering, life-changing workshop.

A queer coming-of-age story, complete with secret cigarettes, gross gym teachers, and a lot of church.

A masterful work about a failing family business and the ensuing erosion of sibling relations and one s sanity

The influential cartoonist hits his stride as he celebrates the charms and oddities of rural postwar cultureYoshiharu Tsuge leaves early genre trappings behind, taking a light, humorous approach in these stories based on his own travels. Red Flowers ranges from deep character studies to personal reflections to ensemble comedies set in the hotels and bathhouses of rural Japan. There are irascible old men, drunken gangsters, reflective psychiatric-hospital escapees, and mysterious dogs. Tsuge's stories are mischievous and tender even as they explore complex relationships and heartache. It's a world of extreme poverty, tradition, secret fishing holes, and top-dollar koi farming.The title story highlights the nuance and empathy that made Tsuge's work stand out from that of his peers. A nameless traveler comes across a young girl running an inn. While showing the traveler where the best fishing hole is, a bratty schoolmate reveals the girl must run the business because her alcoholic father is incapable. At the story's end, the traveler witnesses an unusual act of kindness from the boy as the girl suffers her first menstrual cramps - and a simple travelogue takes on unexpected depth.Red Flowers affirms why Tsuge went on to become one of the most important cartoonists in Japan. These vital comics inspired a wealth of fictionalized memoir from his peers and a desire within the postwar generation to document and understand the diversity of their country's culture.

This hilarious and helpful primer on feminism teaches young readers what it is and why it matters.

The existential dread of making (or not making) art takes centre stage in this trenchant satire of MFA culture

The joy of food and tradition unites a family faltering in the face of illness and lossMadang is an artist and new father who moves to a quiet home in the countryside with his wife and young baby, excited to build a new life full of hope and joy, complete with a garden and even snow. But soon reality sets in and his attention is divided between his growing happy family and his impoverished parents back in Seoul in a dingy basement apartment. With an ailing mother in and out of the hospital and an alcoholic father, Madang struggles to overcome the exhaustion and frustration of trying to be everything all at once: a good son, devoted father, and loving husband.To cope, he finds himself reminiscing about their family meals together, particularly his mother's kimchi, a traditional dish that is prepared by the family and requires months of fermentation. Memories of his mother's glorious cooking-so good it would prompt a young Madang and his brother into song-soothe the family. With her impending death, Madang races to learn her recipes and bring together the three generations at the family table while it's still possible. This is a beautiful and thoughtful meditation on how the kitchen and communal cooking-in the past, present, and future-bind a family together amidst the inevitable.