A melancholic memoir of saying goodbye to the familiar Road trips, drunken concerts, and late-night make-out sessions all swirl together in this coming-of-age graphic novel by King Cat cartoonist John Porcellino. Tackling the pain and uncertainty of the pivotal summer before college, Porcellino's sad and beautiful story is drawn in his sincere, minimalist style. Deceptively and charmingly simple, Perfect Example is a collection of Porcellino's self-published King Cat comics, which have won over thousands of readers with their honesty, empathy, and sincerity.

Perfect Example

Comics & Graphic Novels

Porcellino, John

Graphic Novels

Highwater Books

(Graphic Novel/YAdult) This graphic novella is made up of intimate interviews with survivors of near-fatal suicide attempts. Four seemingly ordinary people each offer haunting personal insight into life, the decision to end it and what comes after.

The Next Day: A Graphic Novella

Children's Books

Gilmore, Jason

Jansen, Alex

Poplak, Richard

Peterson, Paul

Pop Sandbox

"I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely." So said Henry David Thoreau in 1845 when he began his famous experiment of living by Walden Pond. In this graphic masterpiece, John Porcellino uses only the words of Thoreau himself to tell the story of those two years off the beaten track. The pared-down text focuses on Thoreau's most profound ideas, and Porcellino's fresh, simple pictures bring the philosopher's sojourn at Walden to cinematic life. For readers who know Walden intimately, this graphic treatment will provide a vivid new interpretation of Thoreau's story. For those who have never read (or never completed!) the original, it presents a contemporary look at a few brave words to live by.

Thoreau at Walden (The Center for Cartoon Studies Presents)

Biographies

Little, Brown Ink

“I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.” So said Henry David Thoreau in 1845 when he began his famous experiment in living on Walden Pond. In this graphic masterpiece, John Porcellino uses only the words of Thoreau himself to tell the story of those two years off the beaten track. The pared-down text focuses on Thoreau’s most profound ideas, and Porcellino’s fresh, simple pictures bring the philosopher’s sojourn at Walden to cinematic life. For readers who know Walden intimately, this graphic treatment will provide a vivid new interpretation of Thoreau’s story. For those who have never read (or never completed!) the original, it presents a contemporary look at a few brave words to live by.

Thoreau at Walden (The Center for Cartoon Studies Graphic N)

Teen & Young Adult

Literature & Fiction

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Thoreau at Walden

Hyperion Book CH

Poetic musings on illness and the art of getting by from a mini-comics master
The Hospital Suite is a landmark work by the celebrated cartoonist and small-press legend John Porcellino―an autobiographical collection detailing his struggles with illness in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1997, John began to have severe stomach pain. He soon found out he needed emergency surgery to remove a benign tumor from his small intestine. In the wake of the surgery, he had numerous health complications that led to a flare-up of his preexisting tendencies toward anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The Hospital Suite is Porcellino's response to these experiences―simply told stories drawn in the honest, heart-wrenching style of his much-loved King-Cat mini-comics. His gift for spare yet eloquent candor makes The Hospital Suite an intimate portrayal of one person's experiences that is also intensely relatable. Porcellino's work is lauded for its universality and quiet, clear-eyed contemplation of everyday life. The Hospital Suite is a testimony to this subtle strength, making his struggles with the medical system and its consequences for his mental health accessible and engaging.

The Hospital Suite

Drawn and Quarterly

A view of America―as seen in small towns, rural roads, and its overlooked in-between places
John Porcellino makes his love of home and of nature the anchors in an increasingly turbulent world. He slows down and visits the forests, fields, streams, and overgrown abandoned lots that surround every city. He studies the flora and fauna around us. He looks at the overlooked. Porcellino also digs deep into a quintessential American endeavour―the road trip. Uprooting his comfortable life several times in From Lone Mountain, John drives through the country weaving from small town to small town, experiencing America in slow motion, avoiding the sameness of airports and overwhelming hustle of major cities.
From Lone Mountain collects stories from Porcellino’s influential zine King-Cat―John enters a new phase of his life, as he remarries and decides to leave his beloved second home Colorado for San Francisco. Grand themes of King-Cat are visited and stated more eloquently than ever before: serendipity, memory, and the quest for meaning in the everyday.
Over the past three decades, Porcellino’s beloved King-Cat has offered solace to his readers: his gentle observational stories take the pulse of everyday life and reveal beauty in the struggle to keep going.

From Lone Mountain

“Unvarnished. Punk.”–The New York Times\nKing-Cat Classix collects material from the first fifty issues of John Porcellino’s King-Cat Comics as they appeared in self-published, handmade zines throughout the 1990s. These strips span Porcellino’s dynamic evolution from saturated, punk drawings to his characteristic refined minimalism, revealing his work as nothing short of a catalyst that has inspired artists like Chris Ware in the emerging literary comics scene. In the inky drawings featuring beloved pets, awkward teenage one-night-stands, and everyday blunders, we see a nascent style steeped in truth and transparency―one that continues to ring true today.\nPorcellino’s mind is spread out on the page, with an uninhibited id running wildly about dreams and sexual fantasies, not unlike the gritty, stabbing pen strokes of Julie Doucet. He sketches fragmented moments and glimpses of interaction that seem to reflect the very manner in which we process memory: we are made up of a stream of consciousness, captured in fleeting mental images, and Porcellino externalizes that messy internal reality. Follow along the path of Porcellino’s dynamic evolution and relish in the inspirational power of this groundbreaking collection.

King-Cat Classix

Product Description 
A melancholic memoir of saying goodbye to the familiarBrimming with empathy and a charming, self-aware wit, Perfect Example is King-Cat zinester John Porcellino’s coming-of-age memoir about the momentous, but seemingly never-ending year between the end of high school and the start of university. His year spans awkward house parties, first kisses, guitar practice, and the cultivation of new friendships. Yet, even though he has a new girlfriend, and goes on spontaneous road trips to sneak in to 21+ concerts, Porcellino is plagued by incessant sadness, seeking him to contemplate suicide. As he traverses the 1980s Chicago suburbs on his skateboard, Porcellino seeks to engage with society all the while struggling to keep his own sadness at bay. When he fails to remedy his depression, he turns inward, offering illuminating graphic depictions of psychological distress.Pocellino’s minimalism proves uniquely evocative in this novel, revealing the universality of his narrative. His auto-biographical renderings frame difficult experiences within the context of empathetic reflection, offering up a new way for us to read our own pasts, and be kind to our younger selves. In his transparency and attention to the minute details of human interaction, Porcellino’s inventive storytelling is as affecting now as it was upon its original distribution in mini comics. 
 Review 
“John Porcellino creates some of the most thoughtful, intelligent, sympathetic and, yes, beautiful comix in America.”―Time.com“John Porcellino's comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the feeling of simply being alive.”―Chris Ware“What I immediately liked about Perfect Example was the spareness of the way it was drawn. After reading it, I was pleased to find out there's much more to it than beautiful artwork. It's sublime and profound and one of my favorite graphic novels.”―Chester Brown"The spare and elegant artwork (and John’s puffy forelock) really recalled Charlie Brown for me, and the author echoes Schulz’s visual simplicity as he clears the stage for a deep plunge into existentialism and a critical look at life in the suburbs."―Youth Services Book Review"[John Porcellino's] work illuminates the greatness of all humanity, for in his own existence, he finds beauty in his surroundings, in nature, his pets, in encounters with strangers."–New City"Porcellino immortalizes the places that most people would drive by without a second glance... It's the kind of drawing that makes you want to go outside and pay attention to the world."–The Chicago Reader"Porcellino... is a master of the form. His genius comes from the deceptively unpretentious nature of his work. The black and white drawings, the irregular squares of his panels, and his deep, often painful subject matter all coalesce to display singular comics craftsmanship of the highest order."–Comics Beat"What began as an experiment in tune with the punk aesthetic of the time has evolved, over all these years, into a vision and body of work that continues to push the boundaries of artistic expression."–Broken Frontier

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Porcellino, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Porcellino, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Porcellino, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Perfect Example

The Next Day: A Graphic Novella

Thoreau at Walden (The Center for Cartoon Studies Presents)

Thoreau at Walden (The Center for Cartoon Studies Presents)

Thoreau at Walden (The Center for Cartoon Studies Graphic N)

Thoreau at Walden

The Hospital Suite

From Lone Mountain

King-Cat Classix

Perfect Example