The Little Man: Short Strips, 1980-1995 (Paperback)

by Chester Brown (Author) "I'M TAPING THIS MESSAGE IN THE HOPE THAT SOME FUTURE CIVILIZATION MAY FIND IT AND LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKE..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A note of pure genius." —Rain Taxi Review of Books

"It might seem jarring for a book to begin with 'The Toilet Paper Revolt' . . . and end with 'My Mom Was a Schizophrenic' . . . , but Brown pulls it off by mixing equal parts surrealism, violence, and contemplation. As a whole, this book tells another story: the maturing of an artist." —Details

"Outrageous, surreal, hushed, mystical, and, often, funny as hell." —Metro Times (Detroit)

"They universally exhibit Brown's inimitable mix of intimate and surreal." —Now

Product Description

"One of the medium's brilliant mavericks." —Time.com

The Little Man: Short Strips, 1980–1995 is a collection of short-story works by the celebrated and bestselling Louis Riel cartoonist Chester Brown. From his early experimental comedic surrealism to his later autobiographical and essay strips, we see not a major talent in development but a fully realized storytelling virtuoso. Included are his early autobiographical stories “Helder” (a story about a young man’s tentativeness when pursuing a woman), “Showing Helder” (a blow-by-blow account of the construction of the previous story), and “Danny” (a strangely compelling moment-by-moment account of Brown waking up and trying to avoid contact with a fellow rooming-house tenant). Other standouts are Brown’s controversial essay on schizophrenia (specifically his own mother’s) and various medical views on this baffling disease, and the title story, “The Little Man,” a Freudian classroom romp fantasy by a adolescent Brown that ties into the schizophrenia essay in a surprising way. The acclaimed compendium, culled mostly from his groundbreaking comic book series Yummy Fur, provides a fascinating insight into Brown’s psyche; he rounds out the collection with exacting notes on each story.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1896597130
• ISBN-13: 978-1896597133
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #700,151 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Comic, May 7, 1999

By	willy ([e-mail]) (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

Chester Brown is one of the greatest comics artist ever and in this book you'll see why. This book collects various stories from Brown's acclaimed comic Yummy Fur and some stories done for now defunct anthology titles, including some of his earliest works. The stories range from sci-fi to horror to religous to autobiographical. Almost all of the stories are superb. But the real value of the book is in the way it shows Chester Brown's growth and development into a master of his artform.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Acquired Taste For the Bizarre, November 10, 2001

By	"wdavid1149" (Odessa, Tx) - See all my reviews

Chester Brown is an eclectic, yet diverse innovator. Upon first glance his drawings & artwork look crude & unfamilar, but upon further inspection one becomes engrossed in his unusual storytelling. His stories range from the bizarre and surreal as in his Yummy Fur stories, to the autobiographical, which deals with the growing pains of adolescence to even Biblical and historical, yet they take on a mixture of emotions from endearing, to humorous, to heartbreak and shocking. Chester is a true originator.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like eating rusty staples. One...by one...by one..., August 3, 1999

By A Customer

He never fails to confound, delight, shock, nauseate, charm and confound again with his way of somehow keeping one gnarled claw rooted in the sacred and the other hoof equally grounded in the scatological. Now if only he'd reprint ED THE HAPPY CLOWN, but with its complete final Yummy Fur disgressions into the inner workings of the First Family. Anyway, "The Little Man" is priceless.