Cannonball

by Kelsey Wroten

Overview

Kelsey Wroten’s Cannonball fires the reader straight into the messy life of Caroline Bertram: aspiring writer, queer, art school graduate, near alcoholic, and self proclaimed tortured genius. Wroten tells the story of an artist struggling with the arrival of adulthood and the Sisyphean task of artistic fulfillment. Stunningly drawn in a classic style, with big truths and biting wit, Wroten’s debut graphic novel is Art School Confidential for the Tumblr generation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941250334
Publisher:	Uncivilized Books
Publication date:	04/30/2019
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	672,566
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	15 Years

About the Author

Kelsey Wroten is a Brooklyn based freelance illustrator and comics artist. She earned a BFA in Illustration from The Kansas City Art Institute in 2015. Kelsey has worked with clients including The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, Lucky Peach, Vice, Slack, and many others. She has multiple Society of Illustrators awards and has been featured in It’s Nice That, Vice, Made in the Middle, Illustration Age, and more. She lives with her partner Allyson, their cat Maggie, and her Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series DVD box set.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/18/2019

Wroten (Crimes) skillfully explores youth, ego, and the doomed pursuit of artistic purity in her ambitious first full-length graphic novel. After graduating from college and moving out of her emotionally abusive parents’ house, Caroline Bertram is going nowhere fast: her hopes of being a professional fiction writer have stalled, her binge drinking is getting out of hand, and, despite flings and unrequited crushes, she’s still not over the girl who broke her heart in high school. Caroline’s self-destructive tendencies worsen as she retreats into herself and becomes fixated on a pro wrestler named Cannonball—a heroic female character hailed for her strength and ability. As Caroline feverishly completes her young adult fantasy novel, Wroten stylistically blends ethereal dream sequences starring Cannonball with scenes from Caroline’s novel, culminating in a final confrontation that’s as unexpected as it is heartbreaking. Each page’s vivid pastels and expressive cartooning lend emotional vibrancy to the characters’ intellectual banter. Wroten’s playful yet brutal meditation on the meaning of success, millennial anxiety about linking artistic profits to self-worth, and the vagaries of a creative spirit is bound to cement her place as a rising comics talent to watch. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Each page’s vivid pastels and expressive cartooning lend emotional vibrancy to the characters’ intellectual banter. Wroten’s playful yet brutal meditation on the meaning of success, millennial anxiety about linking artistic profits to self-worth, and the vagaries of a creative spirit is bound to cement her place as a rising comics talent to watch.” — Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“Wroten goes far beyond simply identifying the labor conditions that threaten the much-needed work queer artists do to produce new narratives and viable mythologies to sustain LGBTQ+ people. This is also a more universal story of exploring the complexities of human psychology: in line with Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother and Ellen Forney’s Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me, Wroten’s story is about a person trying to control extremes of feeling and understand their source. […] In all of its grimness, Cannonball is a strikingly fun and funny read. Fans of Roz Chast or Maggie Thrash will find a similar combination of humor and a commitment to not shying away from the unresolvable.” — Lambda Literary

“Kelsey Wroten’s work in these pages is formidable and timely. Cannonball gets people with real nuance to come across, and the things that they struggle with (bills, art, boredom, passion) are in our lives. Wroten gets her say on what’s wrong with us with an understated wisdom one could call sly.” ― Doom Rocket

“Kelsey Wroten puts an unexpected spin on fantasy and pulp scenes, drawing a gun-toting space queen who looks like she could wipe the floor with John Carter, a monster who fears what he might find on the other side of a door, a lady who runs with wolves and isn't afraid to sink her teeth into a little human flesh.” ― Comics Alliance

“[ Kelsey Wroten ] displays a strong talent for rendering performance and setting, as well as a masterful use of color.” ― Broken Frontier

From the Publisher

06/01/2019

DEBUT Author/illustrator Wroten's first graphic novel focuses on recent college graduate Caroline Bertram, a queer, alcoholic, aspiring fiction writer prone to swinging wildly between delusions of grandeur and crippling anxiety. Opening as Caroline moves into her first apartment postcollege, the plot largely revolves around our protagonist's growing fascination with a female professional wrestler named Cannonball and an attempt at writing a YA novel that will prove her genius to her friends and family. But it's Caroline's misadventures—various flings, bad parties, awkward social encounters—that fascinate, as Wroten develops an incisive character study of a young woman who can't quite bring herself to accept that a sense of self-worth doesn't necessarily follow financial, creative, or romantic success. Is Caroline as talented as she insists she is? Will she sell out or somehow remain artistically pure? Is it even possible to avoid selling out? Is a consuming interest in such questions a sign of extreme immaturity? VERDICT Wroten's knack for character development and legitimately witty banter, combined with her expressive cartooning and exquisite use of pastel color, result in a highly engaging story about an occasionally abrasive but ultimately sympathetic character.

Library Journal