Posthumous releases, particularly for universally exalted authors, are not rare. But collections of their work in other forms is more unusual, so we have to admit that we’re pretty excited for Flannery O’Connor: The Cartoons, which will be released by Fantagraphics in December of this year. The book compiles all of the existing cartoons that O’Connor created for her high school and college publications in the 1940’s, when she was an avid cartoonist as well as a writer. Her style is distinctive — the charmingly brusque drawings are cut from linoleum and then essentially stamped when she applied ink to the ridges, and while the content is largely related to her experience as a student, you can still feel the slightly skewed, individualistic perspective that appears in O’Connor’s short stories. In fact, she had seriously considered a career as a cartoonist. Lovers of her work will doubtless find joy and meaning in her cartoons, and other people will probably like them too. Click through to see a few samples of O’Connor’s cartoons, and if you’re inspired, you can pre-order the book.
“Do you have any books the faculty doesn’t particularly recommend?” [via]
“I don’t enjoy looking at these old pictures either, but it doesn’t hurt my reputation for people to think I’m a lover of fine arts.”
“You don’t mind if I get comfortable, do you?”
“I think it’s perfectly idiotic of the Navy not to let you WAVES dress sensibly like us college girls.”
“Do you think teachers are necessary?”
“Isn’t it fortunate that Genevieve has completely escaped that boy crazy stage?”
“I understand it’s a form of physic [sic] maladjustment created by a marked dissatisfaction with a change in environment wherein the family unit is disrupted — called homesickness.”
“It breaks my heart to leave for a whole summer.”
“Are you glad to be back?”
“Wake me up in time to clap!”
[Cartoons via I.T.C.H]