Gain insight into different experiences by exploring the graphic memoir genre. These autobiographical comics allow authors to bring their experiences to life with simple, engaging text and vivid illustrations. Here is a list of a few of the graphic memoirs in our collection to get you started:
Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir by Stan Lee and Peter David, illustrated by Colleen Doran, tells Lee’s story, from his impoverished childhood in New York City to his rise as the creator of numerous comics in the Marvel Universe.
- Arab in America by Toufic El Rassi draws on his experiences with prejudice and discrimination as Muslim and Arab in post-9/11 America.
The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984) and The Arab of the Future 2: A Childhood in the Middle East (1984-1985), two graphic memoirs by Riad Sattouf, recount his childhood in rural France, Libya, and Syria, moving between countries with his Syrian father and French mother.
- Calling Dr. Laura is Nicole J. Georges’ story of her search for identity after discovering family secrets regarding her biological father.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel is a coming-of-age story complicated by Alison’s relationship with her father and their family-owned funeral home business.
- Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me follows Ellen Forney’s diagnosis with bipolar disorder and her struggle to keep balance between mental stability and creativity.
- I Remember Beirut highlights Zeina Abirached’s childhood in war-torn Lebanon in the 1980s.
March presents John Lewis’ account of the civil rights movement. In Book One, Lewis writes about his childhood in rural Alabama and the beginning of his involvement with the Nashville Student Movement to end segregation through non-violent protests.
- Persepolis and Persepolis 2 tell Marjane Satrapi’s story of life in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and afterwards, in the dictatorship that followed.
- Stitches by David Small is about a troubled childhood after Small unknowingly underwent an operation removing his vocal cord to prevent cancer.