The Mythical Life of an Artist

Fart School by Mel Stringer (she/her)
Mel is excited about moving to Brisbane and starting art school! She imagines collaborating with other artists in a vibrant community, honing her craft, and becoming an accomplished artist. But it turns out that art school isn’t quite the same in real life. Can Mel finish college with her love of art still intact?

Based on the author’s experience attending art school in the early 2000s, this funny, heartfelt graphic novel will resonate with anyone who had a youthful dream–or a DeviantArt account.

Jackie Ormes Draws the Future by Liz Montague (she/her)
Zelda Jackson–or Jackie–was born in Pittsburgh on August 1, 1911, and discovered early on that she could draw any adventure. A field she could run through as far as her hand could draw. An ocean she could color as blue as she liked. As she grew, Jackie put her artistic talents to use, doodling and chronicling daily life for her high school yearbook. But she was already dreaming of bigger things. Jackie would go on to create bold and witty cartoon characters–Torchy Brown, Candy, Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger–who entertained readers of African American newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender. She tackled racism, pollution, and social justice–and made the world listen. Jackie was the first Black female American cartoonist, but she would not be the last.

Author Liz Montague, one of the first Black cartoonists at the New Yorker, carries Jackie’s indelible legacy forward while telling her story through vibrant text and evocative cartoons.

Artist by Yeong-Shin Ma (he/him)
A novelist, single, forty-four years old. A painter, divorced, forty-six years old. A musician, single, forty-two years old. On the outer limits of relevancy in an arts culture that celebrates youth, these three men make up the artist group Arcade. Caught in circular arguments about what makes real art and concerned about the vapid interests of their younger contemporaries, none of them are reaping the benefits of success. But there’s always another chance to make it. When it comes time, out of the three, who will emerge as an acclaimed artist? More importantly, when one artist’s star rises, will he leave the rest behind?

With absurdist style and off-beat humor, Artist simultaneously caricatures and complicates the figure of the artist. The friendships between the three are impassioned and mercurial, resulting in conflicts about fashion choices, squabbles with foreign children, and changes in one another’s artistic fortunes for better and worse. As the story progresses we see the ways that recognition–or lack thereof–molds each character’s outlook, whether they will be changed by the scene or end up changing it to fit their ideals.

It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood (she/her)
Cartoonist Zoe Thorogood records six months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. This comic is an intimate and metanarrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival. A poignant and original depiction of a young woman’s struggle with mental health–through the ups and downs of anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome–as she forges a promising career in sequential art and finds herself along the way.

Cannonball by K. Wroten (they/them)
Cannonball fires the reader straight into the messy life of Caroline Bertram: aspiring writer, queer, art school graduate, near alcoholic, and self proclaimed tortured genius. Wroten tells the story of an artist struggling with the arrival of adulthood and the Sisyphean task of artistic fulfillment. Stunningly drawn in a classic style, with big truths and biting wit, Wroten’s debut graphic novel is Art School Confidential for the Tumblr generation.