Pantheon Graphic Library
2 total works
What if you wrote and drew a comic strip that honestly depicted every sexual experience you ever had, from junior school (don't ask) to last week (ditto)? It would force you to re-examine your life in ways that would make your shrink blush. In 2004 that's exactly what David Heatley did, and called it (what else) 'My Sexual History'. It originally appeared in an obscure comics anthology called Kramer's Ergot, which was nevertheless given a starred review by Publisher's Weekly, which singled out the strip and remarked that it was 'page after page of tiny, crudely rendered but wincingly remembered incidents'.
And what else to follow that up with than 'Black History', which chronicles every African-American he ever encountered, whether it was Lennie from daycare who taught him the N-word, or the artist's impressions of Michael Jackson's Thriller. All of it rendered in, um, black and white.
So make no mistake -- David Heatley is anything but withholding. Quite the opposite. But the great surprise is that he's not simply playing for shock effect either. He's just trying to tell you what happened as succinctly and colourfully as he can, whether it was in a dream or at a game of group Strip Pig in his friend's basement. Which ended in a sort of awkward, slow-motion orgy. These things happen.
My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (which gleans its title from the refrain of a song by the Ramones, FYI) marks the start of a brilliant cartooning career.
“Say what you mean, but don’t say it mean.” —12-Step aphorism
David Heatley had an unquestionably troubled and eccentric childhood: father a sexually repressed alcoholic, mother an overworked compulsive overeater. Then David's parents enter the world of 12-step programs and find a sense of support and community. It seems to help. David, meanwhile, grows up struggling with his own troublesome sexual urges and seeking some way to make sense of it all. Eventually he starts attending meetings too. Alcoholics Anonymous. Overeaters Anonymous. Debtors Anonymous. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. More and more meetings. Meetings for issues he doesn't have.
With stark, sharply drawn art and unflinching honesty, David Heatley explores the strange and touching relationships he develops, and the truths about himself and his family he is forced to confront, while "working" an ever-increasing number of programs. The result is a complicated, unsettling, and hilarious journey—of far more than 12 steps.