We Saw Scenery: The Early Diaries of Merrill Markoe

"Merrill Markoe got all the talent. In addition to being an Emmy-award winning comedy writer, she's also a top-notch artist. We Saw Scenery is revealing, sad, funny, and, above all, relatable. Merrill captures the experience of a young woman finding — and holding onto — her own voice. And we're all lucky she did." —Nell Scovell, author of Just the Funny Parts

In her first ever graphic memoir, four-time Emmy-winning comedy writer Merrill Markoe unearths her treasured diaries, long kept under lock and key, to illustrate the hilarious story of her preteen and teen years and how she came to realize that her secret power was her humor. Wielding her layered and comically absurd style, Markoe takes readers back through her time as a Girl Scout, where she learned that "scouting" was really more about learning housewifery skills, to her earliest crushes on uniquely awful boys and her growing obsession with television.

Much has changed in our world since Markoe wrote in her diaries, or has it? Climate change wasn't yet a rallying call, but the growing hole in the ozone preoccupied Markoe's young mind. No one was flocking to the desert for Burning Man, but Markoe readily partook in the Ken Kesey Acid Test. As she charts the divide between her adolescence and adulthood, Markoe questions and berates her younger self, revealing how much is opaque to us in those young years.

Perfect for fans of Roz Chast, Allie Brosh, and Lynda Barry, We Saw Scenery is a laugh-out-loud story of a girl growing up, told from the perspective of the woman she became, and it will speak to all who wanted to understand themselves in the midst of their own maturing.

"Merrill Markoe got all the talent. In addition to being an Emmy-award winning comedy writer, she's also a top-notch artist. We Saw Scenery is revealing, sad, funny, and, above all, relatable. Merrill captures the experience of a young woman finding — and holding onto — her own voice. And we're all lucky she did." Nell Scovell, author of Just the Funny Parts

"Everything Merrill Markoe writes is a must-read, but We Saw Scenery is particularly essential, because besides being a hilarious, poignant and perceptive portrait of a comedy writer as a young woman, it showcases an overlooked facet of one of our most important artistic voices. Markoe has always been singularly gifted at finding oddball, deadpan humor in the idiosyncrasies of language, but what's less well known is her background as an artist. This delightful graphic memoir, rooted in her early diaries, pairs whimsical, evocative drawings with her razor sharp prose. It's an absolutely delightful marriage." Jason Zinoman, author of Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night

"In We Saw Scenery, you'll learn that you weren't the only one who would learn, painfully, that sarcasm — via Mad Magazine — was not the best tool for seduction. You'll find out you weren't the only person who'd buy tickets for a hip event--and then want to leave early. It's gratifying to see teenage Merrill grow her armor--a subversive attitude — that will see her through, despite everything, and you just want to cheer her on. Merrill Markoe's visual and written analyses of her childhood diaries are acute, devastating, and hilarious. You should buy this book!" Mimi Pond, author of The Customer is Always Wrong

Merrill Markoe was the head writer for the original The David Letterman Show; the live NBC morning show was recognized with a Daytime Emmy Award. She shared in three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for her work on Late Night with David Letterman. She engineered most of the original concepts and architecture for the ground-breaking late-night talk show and created the segment "Stupid Pet Tricks", as well as "Stupid Human Tricks" and "Viewer Mail." Many of the ideas behind the remote segments outside the studio came from Markoe, who also won a Writer's Guild award for her writing/performing work on HBO's Not Necessarily the News. She has also written for television shows such as Newhart, Sex and the City, and Moonlighting. Markoe has had a number of columns and written for many periodicals including Rolling Stone, Time, New York Woman, New Woman, US News and World Report, US, People, Esquire, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. She is the author of four books of essays and four novels. Most recently, her cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker.