While the world has become a very unpredictable place, it’s only natural that we look to things that make us laugh. Whether it’s your favorite sitcom, podcast or book, being able to lose yourself in something funny for a little while is a great way to keep your mind off of the hustle and bustle of pandemic life. What you may not know is that both Hoopla and Overdrive offer a variety of comics and graphic novels that can make you smile, both through writing and illustrations. Below is a list of different titles that I have enjoyed in quarantine that have made me laugh out loud while tackling everything from the existence of the average housecat to humorous reflections on depression and anxiety. These are all approachable, realistic, and most of all, relatable. Enjoy!
Adulthood Is A Myth: A Sarah’s Scribbles Collection by Sarah Anderson
These casually drawn, perfectly on-point comics by the hugely popular young Brooklyn-based artist Sarah Andersen are for the rest of us. They document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, and dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas. In other words, the horrors and awkwardness of young modern life.
Part of the Adulthood is a Myth series
Super Chill: A Year Of Living Anxiously by Adam Ellis
Adam’s comics deal with weightier topics like seasonal affective disorder and struggles with self-esteem, while also touching on the silly and absurd-like his brief, but intense obsession with crystals. With a bright, positive outlook and a sense of humor, Super Chill tells a story that is both highly relatable and intensely personal.
Part of the Super Chill series
Book Love by Debbie Tung
Book Love is a gift book of comics tailor-made for tea-sipping, spine-sniffing, book-hoarding bibliophiles. Debbie Tung’s comics are humorous and instantly recognizable-making readers laugh while precisely conveying the thoughts and habits of book nerds. Book Love is the ideal gift to let a book lover know they’re understood and appreciated.
Part of the Book Love series
The Worrier’s Guide to Life by Gemma Correll
In her hugely popular comic drawings, Gemma Correll dispenses dubious advice and unreliable information on life as she sees it, including The Dystopian Zodiac, Reward Stickers for Grown-Ups, Palm Reading for Millennials, and a Map of the Introvert’s Heart. For all you fellow agonizers, fretters, and nervous wrecks, this book is for you. Read it and weep…with laughter.
Breaking Cat News: Cats Reporting On The News That Matters To Cats by Georgia Dunn
Cats reporting on the news that matters to cats with stories such as The Vacuum Cleaner Is Back!, The Woman Is Cooking Bacon!, and The Ceiling Cats Are Everywhere Tonight! Cynical, no nonsense Elvis and shy, sweet, sensitive Puck are the reporter kitties in the field, while the adventurous jokester Lupin serves as anchor cat. Together they break headlines on the food bowl, new plants, mysterious red dots, strange cats in the yard, and all the daily happenings in their home.
Part of the Breaking Cat News series
Shirtless Bear-Fighter! by Pablo Raimondi, Klaus Janson
After being betrayed by the bears that raised him, the legendary SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER wanders the forest he’s sworn to protect, fist-fighting bears, eating flapjacks, and being the angriest man the world has ever known! When wild-eyed, super-strong bears attack the citizens of Major City, Shirtless ventures into the human world to do what he does best…PUNCH THOSE BEARS IN THE FACE!
Part of the Shirtless Bear-Fighter! Series
Megahex by Simon Hanselmann
Megg is a depressed, drug-addicted witch. Mogg is her black cat. Their friend, Owl, is an anthropomorphized owl. They hang out a lot with Werewolf Jones. This may sound like a pure stoner comedy, but it transcends the genre: these characters struggle unsuccessfully to come to grips with their depression, drug use, sexuality, poverty, lack of work, lack of ambition, and their complex feelings about each other in ways that have made Megg and Mogg sensations on Hanselmann’s Girl Mountain Tumblr.
Part of the Megahex series
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh
This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to.
-Katie Neylan, Head of Adult Services & Acquisitions