How To Be Happy

Edition excerpt from How To Be Happy (2014): The first collection of literary short comics stories by an award-winning cartoonist. 2015 Ignatz Award WINNER Outstanding Anthology or Collection Named one of The Washington Post's, NPR's and Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2014 Shortlist, Slate's 2014 Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year Eleanor Davis is one of the finest cartoonists of her generation and has been producing comics since the mid-2000s. How to Be Happy represents the best stories she's drawn for comics anthologies as well as her own self-publishing and web efforts. Davis achieves a rare, subtle poignancy in her narratives that are at once compelling and elusive, pregnant with mystery and a deeply satisfying emotional resonance. This collection shows the full range of Davis's graphic skills — sketchy drawing, polished pen and ink line work, and meticulously designed full color painted panels— which are always in the service of a narrative that builds to a quietly devastating climax.