Liana Finck

A visually arresting graphic memoir about a young artist struggling against what's expected of her as a woman, and learning to accept her true self, from an acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Guardian, New York, Refinery29, Kirkus Reviews In this stunning graphic memoir, Liana Finck goes in search of a thing she has lost--her shadow, as she calls the "strangeness" that has defined her since birth, the part of her that has always made her feel as though she is living in exile from the world. In Passing for Human, Finck is on a quest for self-understanding and self-acceptance, and along the way she seeks to answer some eternal questions: What makes us whole? What parts of ourselves do we hide, ignore, or chase away because they're embarrassing, or inconvenient, or just plain weird--and at what cost? Passing for Human is what Finck calls "a neurological coming-of-age story"--one in which human connection proved elusive and her most enduring relationships throughout childhood were with plants and rocks and imaginary friends; in which her mother's creative life had been snuffed out by an unhappy first marriage and a deeply sexist society; in which her father, a doctor, secretly struggled with the guilt of having passed his own form of otherness on to his daughter; and in which, as an adult, Finck finally finds her shadow again--and, with it, her true self. Part magical odyssey, part feminist creation myth, Passing for Human is an extraordinary, moving meditation on what it means to be an artist and a woman grappling with the desire to pass for human.

A new edition of Saul Steinberg's memoir-in-drawing of his escape from fascist Europe, staying briefly in the Dominican Republic and then travelling up into America, capturing absurdities, delights, and the grim realities of war along the way. To escape fascist Europe, the artist Saul Steinberg drew his way to America. He made it to New York in 1942 already in contract with The New Yorker, but was soon called up to serve in World War II. This book, All In Line, is a memoir-via-drawing of this key time in Steinberg's life, when he began to find his line and his way in America. In his cartoons and illustrations for The New Yorker and others, Steinberg depicted delightful absurdities and quiet moments: a painter saws a long canvas into smaller, sellable portions; a child draws a gigantic face on the sidewalk to the confusion of passersby; a woman alone in her room bends metal hangers into the shapes of faces. But Steinberg didn't shy away from facing the grim realities of his era. There are withering anti-fascist cartoons, as well as glimpses of war: skies crowded with bombers, families on the run, army convoys, broken-down jeeps, and smoldering battlefields. This new edition of All In Line includes an introduction by the cartoonist Liana Finck and an afterword by the writer Iain Topliss on Steinberg's creation of the book. This new edition of All In Line will resonate with lifelong fans of Steinberg, as well as artists just beginning to find their own way.

A wryly personal and deeply relatable graphic memoir skewering the "traditional" parenting book to chronicle the absurdities, frustrations, and soaring joys of new parenthood--from the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and authorA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR How do you know if you're ready to have a baby? How do you know if you might be pregnant? And how do you deal with peeing all the time and being hungry all the time and fielding well-meaning but kind of insulting advice and finding a doula and being dropped by your old friends and learning why it's called mom brain and not dad brain and the tyranny of the milestones you're not meeting and negotiating boundaries with in-laws and realizing that your heart now exists outside of your chest and in the body of this tiny little being whose entire existence depends on the quality of your care? To tackle these questions and many others, award-winning cartoonist and memoirist Liana Finck began illustrating her early years of motherhood, giving images and language to her insecurities, frustrations, and wild joy. In How to Baby, Liana takes her witty and lacerating cartoons ("Hobbies for Pregnant Women: Waiting on Hold with the Insurance Company") and weaves them together with comic essays ("You Married a Brute. Worse. You're a Nag: Go Ahead and Argue with Each Other"), handy lists ("Nesting. The Comprehensive List of What to Buy and Why Getting Things Used Is Dangerous and Unamerican"), and profound observations. Together, these brilliant pieces form an immersive and comprehensive narrative whole--a baby book, a resource, and an emotional balm--for our time.

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE - An "irreverent yet profound" (Publishers Weekly) retelling of the Book of Genesis, starring a female God, from the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and author of Passing for Human WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker In this ambitious and transcendent graphic novel, Liana Finck turns her keen eye to none other than the Old Testament, reimagining the story of Genesis with God as a woman, Abraham as a resident of New York City, and Rebekah as a robot, among many other delightful twists. In Finck's retelling, the millennia-old stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau haunt the pages like familiar but partially forgotten nursery rhymes―transmuted by time but still deeply resonant. With her trademark insightfulness, wry humor, and supple, moving visual style, Finck accentuates the latent sweetness and timeless wisdom of the original text, infusing it with wit and whimsy while retaining every ounce of its spiritual heft. Let There Be Light is proof that old stories can live forever, whether as ancient scripture or as a series of profound and enchanting cartoons. The Book of Genesis is about some of the most fundamental, eternally pertinent questions that we can ask: What does it mean to be human? What is the purpose of our lives? And how should we treat one another? The stories that attempt to answer these questions are an immediate link with the people who first told them. Unable to fathom the holiness and preciousness of that notion, or put it into words, Finck set out to depict it. The result is a true story of creation, rendered by one of our most innovative creators. LONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION

With her trademark, scratchy style and keen eye for the absurd, Liana Finck has amassed a large, devoted following who love the deeply insightful, delightfully odd way she describes how we all experience the World.Excuse Me assembles more than 500 of her most loved cartoons from Instagram and The New Yorker over the past few years, in such distinctive chapters as: Love & Dating; Gender & Other Politics; Animals; Art & Myth-Making; Humanity; Time, Space, and How to Navigate Them; Strangeness, Shyness, Sadness; and Notes to Self.Melancholy and hilarious, relatable and surreal, intensely personal yet surprisingly universal, Excuse Me brings together the best work so far by one of the most talented young comics artists working today.

**LONGLISTED FOR THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE 2020**Melancholy and funny, personal and surreal, Passing for Human is a neurological coming-of-age story in which Liana Finck goes in search of that thing she has lost â?? her shadow, that part of her that has always felt as though she is living in exile from the world.

In an illustrative style that is a thrilling mash-up of Art Spiegelman's deft emotionality, Roz Chast's hilarious neuroses, and the magical spirit of Marc Chagall, A Bintel Brief is Liana Finck's evocative, elegiac love letter to the turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants who transformed New York City and America itself.A Bintel Brief "A Bundle of Letters"--was the enormously popular advice column of The Forward, the widely read Yiddish language newspaper begun in 1906 New York. Written by a diverse community of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, these letters spoke to the daily heartbreaks and comedies of their new lives, capturing the hope, isolation, and confusion of assimilation.Drawn from these letters--selected and adapted by Liana Finck and brought to life in her appealing two-color illustrations--A Bintel Brief is a tour of Lower East Side New York, and includes an imaginative conversation with the Yiddish "Dear Abby," Abraham Cahan, The Forward's legendary editor and creator of the Bintel Brief column.From premarital sex to family politics to struggles with jobs and money, A Bintel Brief is an enlightening look at a segment of America's rich cultural past that offers fresh insights for our own lives as well.