Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of The King-Cat Zine Map of My Heart celebrates the twentieth anniversary of John Porcellino's seminal and influential comics zine, King-Cat Comics and Stories, which he started self-publishing in 1989. In this collection, while Porcellino is living in isolation and experiencing the pain of divorce, he crafts a melancholic, tender graphic-ballad of heartbreak and reflection. Known for his sad, quiet honesty, rendered in his signature deceptively minimalist style, Porcellino has a command of graphic storytelling as sophisticated as the medium's more visually intricate masters. Few other artists are able to so expertly contemplate the sadness, beauty, and wonder of life in so few lines.
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, has inspired a generation of cartoonists. Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man, a collection of King-Cat stories about Porcellino’s experiences as a pest control worker, won an Ignatz Award in 2005, and Perfect Example, first published in 2000, chronicles his struggles with depression as a teenager. Thoreau at Walden is a poetic expression of the great philosopher’s experience and ideals, and King-Cat Classix and Map of My Heart, published by Drawn and Quarterly, comprise the first two volumes of a comprehensive King-Cat history. According to cartoonist Chris Ware, "John Porcellino's comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the feeling of simply being alive."
