"You've always got to laugh at tragedy. That's why I laugh about my
ailment. Ailments. About being a sexual spastic. About my perennial,
cowardly, tantalizing desire to die. You can laugh about anything.
Almost." Spoken by his self-depiction, these bitter words set the tone
for Gipi's pitch-black humor in this unvarnished and uncompromising
autobiographical tale. A young adult adrift in the world, Gipi's
stand-in grapples with sexuality, insecurity, deception, depression,
drug use, fading friendships, and the capricious cruelties of the world
as he struggles to determine whether his life is worth living.
Drawn in Gipi's signature elegantly scribbled ink style and punctuated
by vivid watercolor splashes, My Badly Drawn Life weaves through the
past and present, through narratives both real and imagined, to create
an impressionistic account of his complex inner life. In this
kaleidoscopic journey into the depths of his psyche, Gipi processes the
shadowy traumas of his upbringing; in doing so, he produces a gripping
work of utter cartooning mastery.