The Voyeurs

by Gabrielle Bell, 156 pages

This is an autobiographical look into the life of a comics artist living in New York, attending conventions, hanging out with colleagues and family and friends and boyfriends and exes in apartments and hotel rooms and the French countryside, always with a journal in tow and a natural, obsessive observer's unsparing awareness and insecure examination.

Bell comes off as both surprisingly honest and curiously circumspect about her personal and professional life and relationships.  She's not exactly humble, but neither does she seem especially arrogant in her self-absorption.  She just is what she is.  Since this appears to be drawn from her journals, names of friends and colleagues are dropped as though the reader should know who they are; but not being particularly familiar with the indie scene in comics or film, I felt a little out of the loop.  Nevertheless, this is an interesting peek into the everyday existence of an artistic mind driven to look at everything going on around her, record it, and create something out of it.

The Alcoholic

by Jonathan Ames (story) and Dean Haspiel (art), 136 pages

Smart, clever, likeable Jonathan A. has his first drink in high school, and though he certainly looks back often, he can't leave the stuff alone for long.  As years pass, he survives and even succeeds despite his wide range of ill-advised habits and choices, which only makes him hate himself more.  Sex, drugs, life, death, love, loneliness, and always the booze confuse, sabotage, and buoy him and take him for physical and emotional highs and lows no rollercoaster could match, however much he tells himself he should and will get off.

You're not sure how much of Jonathan A. there is in Jonathan Ames, but you can't help but connect the two and read this as elaborated-upon reality, making the emotional turmoil and stubborn vulnerability of the protagonist believable and affecting, however ridiculous and unlikely some of the messes he gets into may be.  It feels unsparingly honest even if it's all made up.  The lack of willpower, the rationalizing, the self-awareness paired with the inability to do anything about it are all too familiar to anyone who's ever done something stupid more than once, regardless of scale.  And Haspiel's clean, simple art is as self-deprecating and relatable as the story it conveys.

How to Publish A Kindle Book

by Cynthia Reeser, 288 pages

The title on this one is self-explanatory. I bought this title after checking it out from the library. While this isn't recreational reading, it does give you detailed instructions about e-publishing with Amazon. Worth considering if you're dying to get your writing out there without going the traditional route.