Twenty-five years into his prolific career, Lemire (Minor Arcana, 2025, etc.) humbly reflects on his expansive bibliography and guides readers through his progression from producing his own self-published zines to inking production deals with Netflix. Each chapter primarily focuses on one book\u2019s genesis and is packed with character studies, sketches, and archival photos. Lemire worked constantly, committed himself to his craft, and held on to stories and ideas for years before finding the bandwidth to develop them. Starting in the mid-\u201990s, he recounts self-publishing and distributing his own comics while living in Toronto. (His first zine, Ashtray #1, is reprinted in full in the book\u2019s appendix.) He won a Xeric Grant in 2005 for his book Lost Dogs, which garnered the attention of small publishing houses. While working on his Essex County books in 2007-2008, DC Comics showed interest and opened a door that led to multiyear runs of mainstream comics like Trillium, Animal Man, and Sweet Tooth (now a Netflix series). After leaving DC for a disappointing stint at Marvel, Lemire now prioritizes his creator-owned serials. His memoir is written not as a comic but as a straightforward text, and frequent clich\u00e9s suggest that, compared to the taut action of his comics, this format might require more words than Lemire is accustomed to working with. His early years were \u201ca roller coaster of exciting things\u201d; writing volume 2 of Essex County was \u201cjust\u2026incredible.\u201d While at DC, \u201clearning how to write mainstream comics was only half the battle,\u201d and a pitch meeting was \u201cjust throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what stuck.\u201d On his initial breakthrough with DC\/Vertigo, he says, \u201cTalk about being at the right place at the right time.\u201d Despite some clunky prose, the book\u2019s lavish trove of behind-the-scenes lore and Lemire\u2019s unbridled energy are capable of inspiring budding cartoonists.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twenty-five years into his prolific career, Lemire (Minor Arcana, 2025, etc.) humbly reflects on his expansive bibliography and guides readers through his progression from producing his own self-published zines to inking production deals with Netflix. Each chapter primarily focuses on one book\u2019s genesis and is packed with character studies, sketches, and archival photos. Lemire worked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}