Graphic Novels With a Personal Touch

Graphic novels aren't just containers for superhero sagas; plenty of cartoonists have used their talent with words and pictures to chronicle more personal stories about their everyday lives or the lives of others. This kind of cartooning always feels more intimate to me, as if I'm looking over the artist's shoulder as they doodle scenes into their diaries. Here are eight examples of creators whose stories remain true to life.

Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich -- A lightly fictionalized and unflinchingly honest tale of a Russian-born artist and single mother searching for true love in Brooklyn. The titular Lena exits her troubled marriage and brings two teen daughters with her as she searches for life-affirming passion through a series of blind dates. Ulinich wrestles fearlessly with the big questions of love and identity and flings everything on the page in a flurry of black, white and gray wash and copious hand-lettered word balloons. This book was nominated for Brooklyn Public Library's inaugural Literary Prize in 2015.

Minding the store: a big story about a small business by Julie Gaines, illustrated by Ben Lenovitz -- The story of quirky dishware retailer, Fishs Eddy, as told by the co-founder and illustrated by her son. Gaines and her husband opened their first store with no real plan, and continued in this fashion for some time, surviving numerous mistakes, poor ideas, and wrong turns. Gaines tells her unusual tale with a great deal of wit and wistfulness, which makes for an appealing read. One of the few graphic novels to focus on small-business concerns.

Tomboy: a graphic memoir by Liz Prince -- Prince identifies as a tomboy from age 4, when her favorite outfit is a blazer paired with a baseball cap. She is bewildered in adolescence when her peers begin faulting her for failing to act "girly". What I like most about Prince's story is that she never doubts her version of girlhood in the face of pressure from others. She keeps up the fight against gender stereotypes at an all-girls high school in this terrifically accessible cartoon autobiography.

A Fire Story by Brian Fies -- A cartoonist whose entire neighborhood burned to the ground in a California wildfire documents his community's halting efforts to recover. Fies's spare coloring captures the surreal reds and oranges of a hillside on fire, but it's his sharp observations that pierce deeply, as when he ruminates on all his family left behind. "Everything we owned now fit into the back half of a Prius," he says. "We didn't save the wrong stuff, like people who risk their lives for a jar of pickles. We just didn't save enough of it."

Fruit of Knowledge: The Vulva vs The Patriarchy by Liv Stromquist -- Stromquist, a Swedish cartoonist and activist, uses bold and visually striking arrangements of text and cartooning to reveal the medical profession's hilariously awful history of mistaken notions about women and their bodies. Her aim is to demolish the everyday taboos about female anatomy. While her subject is weighty, her chatty, acerbic style invites laughter and righteous outrage in equal measure.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen and Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley -- Two intimate memoirs by an accomplished cartoonist, about growing up the child of a gourmet chef and the journey to becoming a parent herself. Both books are packed with bonus material: Relish includes recipes (in comic-book form!) while Kid Gloves adds copious research about the intertwined history of pregnancy and medicine. Knisley's clear line and friendly coloring make these a pleasure to read, even when she turns to difficult matters.

California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & The Papas by Penelope Bagieu -- The pop success of California’s The Mamas and the Papas was the product of years of bohemian toil in the New York folk circuit, as this story of Mama Cass’s formative years reminds us. Bagieu takes a creative approach to her storytelling, narrating chapters in the voices of the singer's family and friends. Her cartooning individualizes each character through witty exaggeration. And she joyously scribbles all that gorgeous hippie hair.