South Beloit Journal

By John Porcellino. Published by Uncivilized Books.

Softcover, 36 pages, B&W, 2017. 

"Over the winter of 2010-2011 I found myself at the lowest point of my life: Twice divorced, heartbroken, mentally insane, and living in poverty and isolation in a cold, grey cinderblock apartment in a small, gritty town in Northern Illinois… South Beloit. One of my projects at the time was illustrating a book about suicide, The Next Day, for the Canadian publisher Pop Sandbox. As I trimmed the pages to size, I found myself with ninety-one 2” x 6” scraps of Bristol board. They looked perfect for a comic strip, so I began drawing upon them one little diary comic per day. I tried not to censor myself (though sometimes I still did), but to just let the ink spill without preconception or prejudice. What follows are those comics. I hope you enjoy them more than I enjoyed making them!" — John Porcellino

John Porcellino is the author of the celebrated, autobiographical comics-zine King-Cat, which he’s self-published since 1989, and two graphic novels, Thoreau at Walden (CCS/Hyperion, 2008) and The Hospital Suite(Drawn & Quarterly, 2014).

Guess what?!? He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin with S., two dogs, two cats, and seven caterpillars.