Perfect Example

A YALSA Great Graphic Novel for Teens

 

Perfect example is collected from John Porcellino's self-published mini-comic King-Cat Comics and Stories, which has won over thousands of readers with its honesty, empathy and sincerity.

In Perfect Example, Porcellino tackles the adolescent quagmire of the need to belong with the need to be one's self; balancing the pain, depression and uncertainty of the pivotal summer before college with hopefulness and wide-eyed wonder. This sad and beautiful story is drawn in Porcellino's sincere, minimalist style, documenting a suburban Chicago youth of haircuts, skateboarding, punk rock music, and girlfriends.

Praise

"Lately, whenever I think of John Porcellino's comics, I think of a simple picture he recently drew of himself looking out his bathroom window in the morning at some passing clouds, inspired by the day's possibility, an it always prompts a memory I've had of myself feeling the same thing just for a second, and I feel good, for a second. All of his comics work this way, adding up to an experience that is quiet, sanguine, reassuring, beautiful, and without pretension, regardless of subject; it's odd that his retelling of his life would make me feel happy to be alive for the time that I'm reading it, but it always does."—Chris Ware, author of Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth

"What I immediately like 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, author of Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography

About the Author(s)

John Porcellino

John Porcellino was born in 1968 in Chicago, Illinois and started creating comics on the late seventies. His life's work, the seminal self-published mini-comic series King-Cat Comics and Stories, began in 1989. To date, over 60 issues have been released. The series has been nominated for the Ignatz Award three times and has received the Utne Independent Press Association Award for General Excellence. Porcellino currently lives in San Francisco with his wife.