Synopses & Reviews
Back in 1984, a rebellious,17-year-old, punked-out Ulli Lust set out for a wild hitchhiking trip across Italy, from Naples through Verona and Rome and ending up in Sicily. Twenty-five years later, this talented Austrian cartoonist has looked back at that tumultuous summer and delivered a long, dense, sensitive,and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece.
Miraculously combining a perfect memory for both emotional and physical detail with the sometimes painful lucidity two and half decades’ distance have brought to her understanding of the events, Lust meticulously shows the who, where, when, and how (specifically, how an often penniless young girl can survive for months on the road) of a sometimes dangerous and sometimes exhilarating journey. Particularly haunting is her portrait of her fellow traveler, the gangly, promiscuous devil-may-care Edi who veers from being her spunky, funny best friend in the world to an out-of-control lunatic with no consideration for anything but her own whims and desires.
Universally considered one of the very finest examples of the new breed of graphic novels coming from Europe, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life won the 2011 Angoulême “Revelation” prize, and Fantagraphics is proud to bring it to English speaking readers.
Review
"A youthful-looking 40-something now living in Berlin, Ulli Lust claims to have learned 'more on the streets than in the books'... varying the rhythm and framing of her panels, populating them with her subtly stylized characters, she provides an unvarnished vision of male-female relations in which violence, drugs and sex perform a diabolical dance. And even though there are flashes of humor, this relentless story remains focused on the frustration of men and the pain of women." Douglas Wolk The New York Times
Review
"Told with great confidence and uncomfortable frankness across a sprawling 450 pages, it is a coming-of-age narrative that inevitably places itself in the tradition of German travel literature, perhaps unwittingly joining the company of such august figures as Goethe and Hesse." Kevin Huizenga (Ganges, Gloriana)
Review
"Lust's recollections willfully expose the dark side of an anarchic lifestyle, yet are void of any didactic embellishment, and instead form a genuine and nonjudgmental look at aimless youth and rebellion. And what's truer to punk than that?" Publishers Weekly
Review
"Lust takes readers inside her experiences, letting them feel how high hopes can devolve into raw survival." Noel Murray
Review
"Lust's desire to experience real life and to learn things beyond books is by turns uplifting and painful, funny and frightening...The result is a modern coming-of-age story that addresses the thrills and consequences of being young, idealistic, and more than a little lucky." The A.V. Club
Review
"...[A] sprawling, meditative graphic novel... [that] ripples with exuberance: [Lust] convincingly evokes her teenage feelings of fury and joy, and the small details of the way she experienced unfamiliar places for the first time." The A.V. Club
Review
"There is a rejection of the organization of the world, from organized faith to organized crime. It is about the pursuit of nihilism as a route to integrity. Ulli Lust has the intelligence to look at her life and make a book of it." Le Monde
Review
"Great cartooning." Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Alec)
Synopsis
A powerful debut graphic memoir.
About the Author
Ulli Lust was born in 1967 in Vienna, Austria. Her cartooning work has mainly comprised comics reportages; Today Is the Last Day... is her first graphic novel, and her first work to be translated into English. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany.Kim Thompson was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1956 and joined Fantagraphics in 1977. He lives in Seattle with his wife, his dog, and his thousands of comics.