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Book Cover for: Cartoonshow, Derek M. Ballard

Cartoonshow

Derek M. Ballard

Finalist:L.A. Times Book Prize -Graphic Novel (2023)
A L.A. Times Book Prize Graphic Novel Finalist

A New York Public Library Top 5 Comic Strip Collection

For Better or For Worse meets the satirical humor of contemporary American life in Cartoonshow, where single dading, money troubles, and political turmoil take the stage.

Cartoonist and animator Derek M. Ballard makes modern American family comics. It's not his fault that being a single parent in America is kind of a nightmare.

Derek is a solo parent raising three kids in the American South, while trying to make art. Told in a series of free-flowing and often hilarious comic essays, Cartoonshow gets to the heart of the struggle to be a creative person in a society that doesn't value anything other than how much it can grind out of you. Covid, poverty, the failing social safety net, predatory lenders, and literal acts of God can't stop our hero!

Book Details

  • Publisher: Oni Press
  • Publish Date: Aug 1st, 2023
  • Pages: 144
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 6.00in - 8.00in - 0.39in - 0.64lb
  • EAN: 9781637152188
  • Categories: HumorousParenting - Single ParentNonfiction - Biography & Memoir

About the Author

Ballard, Derek M.: - Derek M Ballard is, first and foremost, a single parent of three kids in Gainesville, Florida. Sometimes after he takes the kids to school and cooks dinner, he's lucky enough to get work on cartoons for Cartoon Network, Netflix, or HBO. Most recently, he was the lead background designer on Mystery Cuddlers for Adult Swim. His book Cartoonshow from Oni Press was selected by the LA Times as one of their top five graphic novels of 2023. But mostly he's just a plain old dad, tbh.

Praise for this book

"I laughed and cried, y'all these are the real $@#% journal comics. Drawings that could slay a dragon. Every punchline a funny knife in your eye."--- Pendleton Ward
"Being a single parent is no joke, but Derek M Ballard's hilarious graphic novel memoir, Cartoonshow, gets plenty of laughs in anyway. ...Even though he's barely treading water, Ballard is still able to deliver a cathartic and hopeful experience to readers through his keen sense of humor and defiant tenacity, all on full chaotic display in Ballard's signature frenzied illustration style, vividly bringing to life this tumultuous story."--New York Public Library, Top 5 Comic Strip Collections of 2023