Funny Misshapen Body: A Memoir

In the latest installment of his graphic autobiography, Brown focuses on his lifelong desire to become an artist, depicting the road that led him to his successful comics career: his discovery of comics as a youngster drawn to superheroes; his rediscovery of them when exposed to alternative comix in high school (“These are like . . . real stories”); his rudimentary high-school art instruction; his college job painting windmills and tulips on wooden shoes; the discouragement and disillusionment he experienced in art school; and his breakthrough discovery that he could make art “that wasn’t so caught up in ‘fine art’ ideas” by drawing and self-publishing autobiographical stories. Altogether, it’s of a piece with Brown’s prior efforts. His scratchy drawing style, slightly more assured after eight books, retains its casual charm, as does his myopic view of his rather mundane life. Obsession with his troubled love life has finally been set aside, although his account of his artistic progress is sometimes nearly as embarrassing as those of his forlorn attempts to establish romantic relationships.