The biggest, richest and most delightful collection of Tyler's work to date. Tales of loss, difficult relatives and questionable relationships are infused with Tyler's rueful humor, pitiless wit and deep empathy. Carol Tyler has been a professional (and highly acclaimed) cartoonist for over 20 years, appearing in such venues as Robert Crumb's Weirdo, Wimmen's Comix , and Drawn & Quarterly magazine. But over the years her status as a working mother has drastically curtailed her ability to set aside time for her cartooning. Thus each rare new story from her pen has been greeted with hurrahsas well they should be, because she's one of the most skillful, caustic, and emphatic cartoon storytellers of her generation. This new book presents the biggest, richest and most delightful collection of Tyler's work to date featuring many new and previously unpublished works. In "Migrant Mother" Tyler tells the grueling story of a cross-country trip with the flu and her terrible twos toddler using her trademark combination of rueful humor and emphathy. The full-color "Just A Bad Seed" is a meditation on a problem child who might not be such a problem after all, while "The Return of Mrs. Kite" chronicles a family crisishow her widowed grandmother fell in with a beau of questionable character. "Gone" (also in full color) is a stirring meditation on all kinds of loss, and "Why I'm A-gin' Southern Men" is a classic rant that dissects that particular breed of maleor at least a certain subspecies of "ex"eswith pitiless wit. Other stories include "Sweet Miss Lee" (a reminiscence of an immigrant roommate and her fate), "There's Something Wrong with a Perfect Lawn" (a tale of suburban obsessiveness), "Little Crosshatch Mind" (where artistic impulses come from), and "Uncovered Property" (discovering the power of sexuality at an early age). Tyler works equally well in delicately crisp black-and-white penstrokes and lushly watercolored paintings (this book will feature 60 pages of her stunning full-color work). All told, the three-dozen stories here will cement Tyler's reputation as a cartoonist to be reckoned with. 136 pages, 60 pages in color. Tyler has created mostly autobiographical comics since the 1980s, and in her fans' opinion, too few of them. The stories of this collection explain her low productivity. She's been a working mom, juggling substitute teaching and other jobs with raising a daughter. While parenthood provides fodder for some of her best stories, such as the one about a hellish airline trip with an ear infection, a toddler, and no diapers, it has constricted her artistry. In "Anatomy of a New Mom," she carries a bucket labeled "Relics from the Pre-baby Days" that contains "creativity, solitude, focus, spontaneity," and other lost pleasures. She finds grist in other areas of her life, from her small-town youth to her dismal experiences with southern men; but her domestic travails strike closest to home, as it were. Her charmingly simple drawing style is seen to best effect in the most recent, full-color pieces, in which delicate watercolors enhance its wistfulness. Tyler's daughter is now nearly grown. May that mean we'll see more from Tyler in the coming years. Gordon Flagg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Carol Tyler is a crucial voice for the medium. She's lived so many roles -- bohemian, artist, mother, teacher, Midwestern housewife, family historian -- and imbues her work with all the wisdom of her experience. Poetic, her work is ornamented with detail, yet not flowery. Carol is neither sensationalistic or sentimental, yet she documents all the clumsiness of human existence with incredible grace." ― Craig Thompson, (Blankets, Habibi) "This book is a revelation for me; I'd only seen a few examples of Carol Tyler's cartooning before, but the verdant richness and humanity of her whole body of work has raised her in my mind to one of the handful of true greats of the original 'underground' generation. Unpretentious and inviting, it recerates the comfortable, reassuring feeling of a favorite relative telling you stories at the kitchen table -- despite its painful subject matter and revealing details. Buy this book! It will inspire and move you." ― Chris Ware, (Building Stories) "Carol Tyler's work stands out for its thoughtfulness, energy and bite. She is a great storyteller with an ethereally expressive drawing style that enables her to convey emotion and personality with aching resonance, and she understands people with an acuity that is tender, wise and devastating." ― Jim Woodring, (The Frank Book, Congress of the Animals) "Poignant, understated family dramas." ― Artforum "She's a great artist." ― R. Crumb "Carol Tyler’s work is very important. There are few out there who can successfully make such affecting work, and there is no one out there who can do it as singularly. These comics are brimming with life and pain and wisdom and charm. I high