Sunday in the Park with Boys - Softcover

Mai, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0987963058 ISBN 13: 9780987963055

Publisher: Koyama Press, 2012

Synopsis

Jane Mai will give you advice if you ask for it. With Sunday in the Park with Boys she has given us a poetic account of self-discovery and self-loathing. In this comic as emotional cartography, persona and person collide as Mai contends with loneliness, heartache and herself.

About this title

About the Author:

Jane Mai is a freelance illustrator and comic artist from Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and self-published zines. Sunday in the Park with Boys is her first published book of autobiographical fiction comics.

Review:

"Tackling anxieties in her twenties, I read this while dealing with some anxiety of my own in my twenties." - Ardo Omer, Book Riot

"Jane Mai is an artist specializing in food, eye patches, and bugs. Her work stands at the intersection of cute and disturbing." - Ivan Hernandez, Boing Boing

"A expectation-defying meditation that turns a gloomy, self-pitying confessional into ... well, a gloomy, self-pitying confessional, but one that presents depression as a failure of self that can be turned around...It's both darkly evocative and strangely cute, and it's on this that the book's success balances, and does so admirably." - John Seven, Reverse Direction

"Mai's art is singular and original, yet carries echoes of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, with its dreamy contrast of darkness, surrealism, and childlike whimsy." - Terell Paris, IndieReader

"Rather than attempt some sort of overall, heavily detailed account of her dark days, she opts instead to focus on individual moments, giving the comic a poetic, impressionistic lilt I appreciated. Yeah, it's a 'sad' comic, but it's far from a depressing read." - Chris Mautner, Comic Book Resources

Sunday in the Park with Boys is one of the winners of the inaugural, 2013 MoCCA (The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) Awards of Excellence as chosen by by judges Karen Berger, Gary Groth, Nora Krug, David Mazzucchelli, and Paul Pope.

"This book is a great find for anyone that has dealt with some of the issues addressed in this book, and even those who haven't. The quiet resignation throughout most of the story lends itself to being a very real account of how these dark emotions manifested themselves for the author. Nothing is contrived or trite, just an honest portrayal of a real girl with real feelings." - Lindsey Morris, Girls Gone Geek

"This is a harrowing, unsparing account of one young woman's experience with anxiety, depression and sheer existential terror [...] The book ends on a hopeful note that is as much self-suggestion as it is an honest conclusion for this stunning piece of someone trying to get better in public through art." - Rob Clough, High-Low

"Sunday in the Park with Boys conveys feelings that are hard to pinpoint when you're under deep depression, but it never feels like it's forcing you into pitying the author in any way. I believe Mai just wants you to understand." - Kevin Cortez, Drawn Words

"It's [Sunday in the Park with Boys] by no means an easy read, often harrowing, but Mai is a strong cartoonist, pinpointing the way in which her demon has taken over her: the dread of these episodes, the waiting, the compliance, and the quiet, desperate, frustration of the situation." - Zainab Akhtar, Forbidden Planet International Blog

"Sunday in the Park with Boys is about what depression feels like from the inside, although it never explicitly says so. Instead, Mai represents what David Foster Wallace called "the bad thing" as a centipede-like creature, growing and devouring, slithering and embracing her protagonist. It's almost unbearable to read and yet the book's minimalism and Mai's smart sense of pacing (some pages have many panels, some only one or two) contributes to the effectiveness of her story." - Hillary Brown, Paste Magazine

"The first time I read the comic, I found it depressing; on rereading I began to see how the character comes to grips with what is going on in her mind to transcend it and that the story expresses a sort of universality of lonesome youth." - James Romberger, has drawn graphic novels for Vertigo/DC, including Seven Miles a Second, with David Wojnarowicz and Marguerite Van Cook

"Mai's black and white illustrations do a great job accompanying the vibe of the story. The dialogue, while a bit hard to digest at times, also holds strong in Sunday in the Park with Boys, leaving behind an impressive memoir and solid read, especially for the comic book medium." - Kevin Cortez, Drawn Words

“Ever want to see what depression looks like? This is it.” ― Ashley Holstrom, Book Riot

About this edition

• Publisher: Koyama Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0987963058
• ISBN 13: 9780987963055
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 52