From Lone Mountain

by John Porcellino

Overview

A view of America—as seen in small towns, rural roads, and its overlooked in-between places

John Porcellino makes his love of home and of nature the anchors in an increasingly turbulent world. He slows down and visits the forests, fields, streams, and overgrown abandoned lots that surround every city. He studies the flora and fauna around us. He looks at the overlooked. Porcellino also digs deep into a quintessential American endeavour—the road trip. Uprooting his comfortable life several times in From Lone Mountain, John drives through the country weaving from small town to small town, experiencing America in slow motion, avoiding the sameness of airports and overwhelming hustle of major cities.

From Lone Mountain collects stories from Porcellino’s influential zine King-Cat—John enters a new phase of his life, as he remarries and decides to leave his beloved second home Colorado for San Francisco. Grand themes of King-Cat are visited and stated more eloquently than ever before: serendipity, memory, and the quest for meaning in the everyday.

Over the past three decades, Porcellino’s beloved King-Cat has offered solace to his readers: his gentle observational stories take the pulse of everyday life and reveal beauty in the struggle to keep going.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770462953
Publisher:	Drawn & Quarterly
Publication date:	03/20/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	971,790
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

John Porcellino was born in Chicago in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. His celebrated self-published series King-Cat Comics, begun in 1989 and still running, has inspired a generation of cartoonists. He lives in Illinois.

Editorial Reviews

…Porcellino has a clean, stripped-down style, his black line art a minimalist take on bodies and scenery…His comics unfold in neat, regular panels, small boxes containing wonderment in the everyday…From Lone Mountain [is] earnest and sweet…

The New York Times Book Review - Hillary L. Chute

★ 06/12/2017
Porcellino’s minicomic King-Cat, launched in 1989, is the most quietly vital of modern comics, evolving over the years from punk zine to minimalist meditation. This volume, which collects issues 62–68, mixes autobio strips, illustrated memories (“Barbers I Have Known”), confessions, Zen riddles, Top 40 lists, and letters from readers, many of whom have been following King-Cat long enough that for them reading this collection is like checking in with an old, wise friend. Big things happen in these issues—Porcellino gets married and moves from Colorado to San Francisco—but they mostly happen around the edges. Instead, Porcellino focuses on moments such as watching an anthill, talking to his wife on a long drive, or vividly remembering long-past evenings at home. Both art and text are pared to the bone, Porcellino’s sparse line work providing the perfect complement to simple, haiku-like captions: “Sunlight slips through cracks in the buildings/ you can’t take a single thing with you.” “Please Read Slowly,” asks one page, and each installment of King-Cat rewards a slowly savored read. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

These comics unfold in neat, regular panels, small boxes containing wonderment in the everyday. [From Lone Mountain] revolves around the power of place, as Porcellino bounces from various Midwestern locales to Denver and San Francisco and back; wherever he is, he finds tranquillity in open space, in the silence and grandeur of nature.”—Hillary Chute, New York Times Book Review

“Porcellino finds startling beauty in simple occasions…He is a visionary of autobiographical minimalism.”—Nathan Scott McNamara, LA Review of Books

“Porcellino is capable of imbuing a simple tale with real poignancy.”—Library Journal

“[From Lone Mountain’s] simplicity makes the work into an emotional Trojan horse, moving past your defenses so it can pierce your heart with its tender insights.”—Abraham Riesman, Vulture’s Best Comics of 2018 So Far

From the Publisher

04/01/2018
The typical story collected here goes something like this: a man walks down the street, thinking about nothing in particular. He notices something slightly irregular. Maybe it's the way the sunlight reflects off a windowpane in the distance. He pauses, lost in reverie. The end. This, by the way, is a positive review, because Porcellino (Map of My Heart) is capable of imbuing a simple tale with real poignancy. Pared-down illustrations combine with koan-like text panels that narrate many of these pieces, adding to the growing sense, as the collection progresses, that Porcellino himself is afflicted with great tension and anxiety and desperately in need of the tranquil moments his work depicts. Gathering stories originally published in the series King Cat Comics and Stories (2003–07), this volume includes a mix of autobiographical tales covering childhood memories, reflections on marriage, and the death of Porcellino's father, alongside illustrated poems, prose pieces, and more. VERDICT While this exquisite volume might not be the one that finally launches Porcellino into the pantheon beside Chris Ware and Lynda Barry, that he flies just a little under the radar is part of his charm.—TB

Library Journal