I picked up "Chicago," by Glenn Head, on impulse from the library because I live in Chicago and it's about Chicago. I stupidly assumed the author was roughly my age (mid to late 30s to early 40s) and thus his experience leaving his wealthy suburban family and playing poor person pan handling in Chicago was set in the 90s and he was begging around the intersection of Clark and Lake. Instead he was doing his panhandling on the South Side of Chicago before I was born. Also he's a bigger asshole the...

I sincerely thank my friend Amy Regutti for gifting me this handsome volume, which I had wanted to read after she posted about it, but I ran into trouble in just the first few pages. I liked Mr. Heads artwork pretty well, but I found him to be most thoroughly unlikeable. I dunno if this was a deliberate choice on his part, but he came across as more toxic than biological warfare. You would think if you were taking the trouble to do and autobiography you would put some effort into making yourself...

Cool, another outdated post modern piece of work. I don't know how much more of these pompous, self absorbed comic artist assholes can exist. How many shitty autobiographies does one have to read of artists living "authentically" by being bums, whining about women, and living the true lifestyle of being unemployed and maudlin alcoholics that live off their rich parents. It is getting old. In Glenn's case, the true authentic lifestyle consisted of starving in the streets and being solicited by st...

Suburban kid ditches art school to suffer for his art on the South Side for six weeks in the 1970s. Seriously? What was the point of this? Thanks for your tourism.

Gorgeously drawn, absorbing coming-of-age tale from a key post-Underground Comix figure. My longer review is now live on The Comics Journal: http://www.tcj.com/reviews/chicago/

Disappointing. Art is fairly redeeming but the narrative is insufferable.

Very well drawn and engagingly written. Some criticism of the work stems from the unlikable narrator or the fact that not a ton happens. Both of these are misguided in my view. It is an excellent work.

A boy grows up, the hard wayGreat tale of Glenn Head, finding that being an underground artist comes with it's prices. Moving to Chicago with no plan has its costs. Finding your own way has its costs.But he came out the other end, and now we get this memoir.I highly recommend it - just great!

Glenn is a very talented comic artist and storyteller. I would describe him as an illustrator/writer. I think this is his first graphic novel, and he masterfully takes the reader into his world through amazingly detailed drawings and narrative. Some of the drawings I've looked at again and again and seen things I hadn't noticed before.One of the underground greats, R. Crumb, said “Glenn [has] found his voice, found the way to tell his own truth, and has produced a very fine graphic novel, strang...

Not bad. Head is obviously heavily influenced by the classic underground comics artists, and this book reads like something that could have run in Rip Off Comix or Weirdo or something. The protagonist's name is "Glen"--perhaps Head needed to drop a letter to distance himself from the material?--and the book is autobiographical, telling of his dropping out of art school and running away to Chicago during his teen years. There's a segment at the end of the book set in the present with the grown-up...

Feeling suffocated by life in 1977 suburban New Jersey, Glenn decides to step out of the mainstream and into the world of underground comics in this comic memoir. After feeling stifled by the monotony of art school in Cleveland, he hitchhikes to Chicago with nothing more than the clothes on his back believing his own drive will help him find a niche in the city’s underground art world. Instead, all he finds is that life is difficult without real direction and financial support. Glenn panhandles

Another crappy, pointless memoir about a struggling cartoonist.Half the book, he spends his time naked while eating ice cream and wishing for his family (who were portrayed as good folks, by the way) to simply die. What a douche!!!Whiny from start to finish.

I kept wondering if it was true, but this was an engaging read either way. I did not appreciate him shooting up his parents' attic. While his dad was a bit clueless, he wasn't a bad guy and I dunno why Glen didn't appreciate him more. It'd be interesting to compare this with Griffiths' Invisible Ink.

The artwork makes this book. The storyline is engaging enough, but the laugh out loud bits for me were in the great drawings. The struggle of the artist as a young man is candidly told in some often hilariously psychedelic fashion. I had hoped for more Chicago in Chicago but overall I enjoyed this amusing and well-drawn memoir.

Described as a comix memoir, this book starts in New Jersey in 1977 with a suburban teenager who wants to rebel but has no idea against what. He eats only ice cream and is delusional. When on a whim he quits his expensive art school and flees to Chicago he must rely on the kindness of strangers. Underprivileged people (ie, “poor people”) help this rich kid rebel against the “system” — the kindness of these people does not seem to have been repaid. Then he grows up, is known for his detailed comi...

The drawings are great, but the plot has some problems, especially the jump in time that skips over a number of key developments, rendering the ending unaccounted for and ultimately dissatisfying. I’ve read reviews of people complaining that the protagonist is privileged, spoiled, and unlikeable (all of which are true), as if that observation alone constitutes a critique of the book. Yes, dude is from a ruling class family whose largesse he lives off, wastes, and exploits in his pathetic attempt...

Glen Head (less one of the author's "n" for his supposed doppelgänger in this memoir/graphic novel) is an almost completely unlikeable guy in this coming of age story of his move from his rich Wall Street Mommy and Daddy's home in Jersey to dropping out of Art school after one semester to head to Chicago for several months and then (whew) home again to Mom and Dad's huge house in the burbs. He's a trust fund baby, completely spoiled, a jerk who also has aspirations of a comics career, who hitche...

This comix memoir might serve as a warning to young women comix artists, about the misogynist worlds of art school and "underground comix." It feels true. Compelling. Twisted in the ways that humans are twisted, so that capital always helps capitalists survive. Again, it just looks and feels true. It's a one hour read, with vibrant, meaningful cartooning. It is adult material, not because of sexual content (of which there is plenty), but because it's designed to make the reader think about the s...

I've known Glenn Head's work for years, his shorter-form stories he's contributed to Weirdo, Zero Zero, and his own edited anthologies Snake Eyes and (especially) Hotwire Comics. This is very different in that this is a book-length memoir, his first sustained narrative of this sort. Head had written autobiographic comics in the past -- a few shorter pieces where his persona was called Chester -- but this is more substantive. We recently interviewed Glenn for the podcast, and it was a lot of fun:...

Glenn dares the reader to hate him, and it's an easy dare to take. He definitely likes to play on the tightrope of complete self-loathing on one side and entertainment on the other. He never quite tips his hand to let the reader know that his teenage self was bratty and entitled with few redeeming qualities--and this is what keeps a good bit of the tension going in the book. Will he trash his childhood self and share life's lessons or will be present all of his privilege as the background to his...