An intricate and complex autobiographical comic by one of the most talented and innovative young cartoonists today.

The story begins with a story inside the story: the cartoon character Paul Hornschemeier is trying to finish a story called "Paul and the Magic Pencil." Paul has been granted a magical implement, a pencil, and is trying to figure out what exactly it can do. He isn't coming up with much, but then we zoom out of this story to the creator, Paul, whose father is about to go on a walk to turn off the lights in his law office in the center of the small town. Abandoning the comic strip temporarily, Paul leaves with his camera, in order to fulfill a promise to his girlfriend that he would take pictures of the places that affected him as a child.

As the walk with his father begins, and Paul starts to record the places of his childhood, the story leaps forward and backward through time, revolving around the events leading (and subsequent) to a beating near a funeral home in fifth grade. Amid these temporal bounces, we are taken from the law office to a convenience store to a debilitating car accident to the time of Zeno and the pre-Socratic philosophers, where we abruptly dissect Zeno and Parmenides' relationship and their refutation of the existence of change. Really. And with each step, Paul is trying to figure out how he will end his story, which he will finish when they return to the house of his youth.

Each "chapter" of the story is drawn in a completely different style, with strikingly unique production and color themes, and yet, somehow, despite (or perhaps because of) this non-linear progression, it all comes together as one story: a story questioning change, progress, and worth within the author's life.

"In Hornschemeier's third major work, the clearly inked panels of a framing story show the main character, a comics artist named Paul, on a walk with his father. The touchingly honest conversation between father and son is intercut with stories that include childhood memories and Zeno's presentation of his three paradoxes to a group of Athenian philosophers. The book's funniest moment comes when Socrates, upon hearing the paradoxes, interrupts to say, 'Man, no offense, but are you guys retarded?' and then goes on to berate Zeno for his insistence on the impossibility of change. A young luminary of experimental comics, Hornschemeier offers a brilliant narrative demonstration of the paradoxes in this graphic personal essay, in which the protagonist simultaneously connects with his past, mulls over his present and anticipates the future. The book is formally brilliant as well, with a dust jacket that peels back to reveal preparatory sketches on the hard cover of the book and stories that are each told in a different, fully realized style. Childhood memories are shown in newsprint comic color-dot style while Zeno's story is presented as pages torn from old comics, their frayed edges laid out on the white pages of the book." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"'In Hornschemeier's third major work, the clearly inked panels of a framing story show the main character, a comics artist named Paul, on a walk with his father. The touchingly honest conversation between father and son is intercut with stories that include childhood memories and Zeno's presentation of his three paradoxes to a group of Athenian philosophers. The book's funniest moment comes when Socrates, upon hearing the paradoxes, interrupts to say, 'Man, no offense, but are you guys retarded?' and then goes on to berate Zeno for his insistence on the impossibility of change. A young luminary of experimental comics, Hornschemeier offers a brilliant narrative demonstration of the paradoxes in this graphic personal essay, in which the protagonist simultaneously connects with his past, mulls over his present and anticipates the future. The book is formally brilliant as well, with a dust jacket that peels back to reveal preparatory sketches on the hard cover of the book and stories that are each told in a different, fully realized style. Childhood memories are shown in newsprint comic color-dot style while Zeno's story is presented as pages torn from old comics, their frayed edges laid out on the white pages of the book. (July)' Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"In The Three Paradoxes, Hornschemeier doesn't resolve the tension between the ironic and confessional poles in his work, he exploits it. Beautifully. The result hums with brilliance." Jonathan Lethem

"Hornschemeier wields that rare gift of layered subtlety. Be it an almost imperceptible change in facial expressions or the slow death of a flower, he says significant, moving things in a few panels that would take pages to convey in a novel." School Library Journal

This is Hornschemeier's first book for Fantagraphics, and the follow-up to Mother, Come Home, Hornschemeier's first graphic novel, which sold out in two months and was nominated for all three major comic industry awards.

Paul Hornschemeier has been nominated for five Eisner Awards in the past two years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.