I Never Liked You: A Comic Book (Paperback)

by Chester Brown (Author) "CONNIE LIVED ACROSS THE STREET..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
If you ever doubted that a comic book could wrench your heart, I urge you to read I Never Liked You. Chester Brown looks back on his adolescent attempts at relationships--with his friends, his mother, the girl who always loved him--with such maturity and understatement that the result is an unspoken testament to the reality of life. The feeling you're left with after reading this comic is due in part to the skilled, reserved hand of Brown the artist: his comics flow so smoothly through time that once begun, this book is almost impossible to put down. The panels--often a tiny single frame on a page of pure black--convey such a sense of loneliness that in any other medium this story wouldn't be half as good.

From Publishers Weekly
Brown's latest autobiographical work is a study in adolescent socialization and the peculiar combination of budding sexuality, self-obsessed dreaminess and downright mean-spiritedness that epitomize the teenage years. Like The Playboy, his previous book, I Never Liked You chronicles the Harvey Award-winner's suburban, Canadian childhood and his affectless relations with his family, the idiosyncrasies of his mother and his strained encounters with both admiring and hostile schoolmates. But unlike the previous book (which focused on his onanistic obsession with Playboy magazine), this one captures Brown's weirdly detached relations with almost everyone and his awkward, almost pathological passivity and inability to "fit in." But girls do like him, which can be both a dream come true and his worst nightmare. Chester isn't sure (actually hasn't got a clue) what to do after he tells a friend he loves her. Brown is a wan, but intensely focused, episodic storyteller who can transform the usual memories of teenage yearning into distinctive passages of muted comedy or adolescent emotional desperation. He scatters his panels asymetrically across black pages, isolating their beauty and carefully pacing the narrative forward. His drawing is exceptional both for its economy and for the attenuated sensuality of his lines and figures. A strange and engrossing teen memoir by one of the most talented artists working in alternative comics today.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly Pubns; First Edition first Printing edition (November 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0969670168
• ISBN-13: 978-0969670162
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,759,226 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If a Zen poem could be a comic book, this would be it, April 22, 2000

By	Jennifer (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This is probably the best comic book I've ever read. In I Never Liked You, Chester Brown recounts his own adolescence. He doesn't rely on quirks, self-pity, overanalysis, or an edgy drawing style. His work is simple and understated, one incident flowing into another in an apparent anecdotal fashion which, by the end, reveals a large picture of Brown's seemingly hidden feelings. It is his relationship with his mentally unstable mother that fuels this book; Brown thoughtlessly antagonizes her (as teenagers do) and struggles with his inability to say "I love you"--at least to the right people at the right time. In his youth, Brown was best able to express himself through symbolic drawings which he infused with meanings he would later claim weren't there ("I never use symbolism.") This grown-up effort seems an extension of that, as a bittersweet memoir and perhaps explanation/closure for his emotional distance.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very sparce but emotionally rich story of a young boy., August 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: I Never Liked You: A Graphic Novel (Paperback)

In this age of post-modern, ironic, dconstructionist storytelling, it's refreshing to see someone such as Canadian writer\artist Chester Brown honestly recount his early life. 'I Never Liked You', graphic novel, is an excellent and enticing introduction to both Brown and the comics medium. The story and art mesh together effortlesly and all the sentimental cliches are carefully avoided. It's a quick read, which may dissapoint you at first, but, as you find yourself needing to reread it, you'll realize that it's a virtue. 'I Never Liked You' is poetic- flowing and graceful, yet meaty enough for you to dissect any line or image and learn more about what has shaped Chester Brown to make him the great artist he is today. Highly Recommended.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars more than i was expecting, February 24, 2005

By	C. Hopf "parlorus" (austin, tx) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: I Never Liked You: The New Definitive Edition (Paperback)

I love reading graphic novels, especially from the publishing company of I Never Liked You (Drawn & Quarterly). I've read maybe a dozen or so that they've put out. But for some reason, this one surprised me.

It might be because many of the things that occur in the story I can relate to, or they resemble what I was like in high school. Though, as most cartoonists are outcasts and that is often shown in their work, this doesn't make a graphic novel that special. Other aspects of the book...his mother, how he dealt with other people, etc....were what really struck me as sad. Yes I've read lots of sad stories in comics, but this one just seem to ring a little truer or deeper. It may be his minimalist approach; this lets you interpret many actions for yourself in that there is not often any definite reason or meaning behind the things that happen. Nor do you really know what's always going on in the speaker's head. These things, for me, made the book much more personal, because I was interpreting the events from my point of view, not necessarily seeing exactly how the speaker was interpreting them.