Overview

Summer vacation is here and Tammy Pierce is back with more sometimes ordinary, often humiliating, occasionally poignant and usually hilarious exploits! Her hopes, dreams, agonies and defeats are brought to vivid, comedic life by Watson's lovingly grotesque drawings, filled with all the '80s essentials - too much mascara, leg warmers with heels and huge hair, etc. - as well as timeless teen concerns like acne, dandruff, and the opposite sex (or same sex, in some cases). Unlovable addresses the mysteries of high school through Tammy's naivete; girls and women in particular will find much that resonates, but men will also relate to Unlovable's universal humor and loser cast of characters. Tammy's life isn't pretty, but it is endlessly endearing and funny.

Full Product Details

9781606997376

Table of Contents

Reviews

Esther's consistently original, hilarious and heartfelt work evokes the travails of puberty with painful accuracy. After perusing Unlovable Vol. 3 we immediately broke out in zits and had clumsy beginner sex. --Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman Tammy's enchanting smile and dazzling eyes are a gift of grace from Esther Watson. --Pendleton Ward [Tammy's] life is banal, poignant, and excruciatingly funny. ... Expanding on the details of the diary, [Watson] amplifies Tammy's naivete and absurdity, capturing the grotesqueness of adolescence, how teenagers live in their aspirations and ideals but also in an amplified shame. Watson's lines are exaggerated and energetic; her characters are sweaty and ugly, their imperfections magnified as if being scrutinized in a sixteen-year-old's mirror. You feel, vividly, the humiliation of bodies. --Meg Lemke Though Watson illustrates Tammy's life in excruciating, embarrassing detail to often-hilarious effect, her clear affection and empathy for her subject shines through. She universalizes Tammy's experiences, taking us back to relive our own tortured, giddy, deadly serious, horny, boring, and horribly self-conscious teenage years. ... Not so much recording Tammy as channeling her, Watson takes all the awkward, sweaty angst of Tammy's life and makes it sing. --Rob Kirby In the mode of Lynda Barry and Aline Kominsky, Esther Pearl Watson has gifted us with an adolescent heroine whose nightmare life is touching and alienating, sad and hilarious, naive and knowing. Think of the hypothetical 1980s high school days of the Onion s Jean Teasdale, and you might start to have a notion of what the life of Tammy Pierce is all about. ... Her lugubrious, hopeful incompetence is both excruciating to witness and impossible not to laugh at. --Paul DiFilippo Tammy shows us how much she seems to be unlovable, but after a romp through the story inside, just as when meeting real people, we see there is so much to pity, admire, love, and root for. The scratchy artwork perfectly displays the awkward teen years; nothing goes right. Everything and everyone is on edge. Through the narrative, you can quickly switch between cheering on, yelling at, and dissing the ever optimistic Tammy.--Angela Boyle

[Tammy's] life is banal, poignant, and excruciatingly funny. ... Expanding on the details of the diary, [Watson] amplifies Tammy's naivete and absurdity, capturing the grotesqueness of adolescence, how teenagers live in their aspirations and ideals but also in an amplified shame. Watson's lines are exaggerated and energetic; her characters are sweaty and ugly, their imperfections magnified as if being scrutinized in a sixteen-year-old's mirror. You feel, vividly, the humiliation of bodies. --Meg Lemke

Esther's consistently original, hilarious and heartfelt work evokes the travails of puberty with painful accuracy. After perusing Unlovable Vol. 3 we immediately broke out in zits and had clumsy beginner sex. --Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman

Tammy's enchanting smile and dazzling eyes are a gift of grace from Esther Watson. --Pendleton Ward Esther's consistently original, hilarious and heartfelt work evokes the travails of puberty with painful accuracy. After perusing Unlovable Vol. 3 we immediately broke out in zits and had clumsy beginner sex. --Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman [Tammy's] life is banal, poignant, and excruciatingly funny. ... Expanding on the details of the diary, [Watson] amplifies Tammy's naivete and absurdity, capturing the grotesqueness of adolescence, how teenagers live in their aspirations and ideals but also in an amplified shame. Watson's lines are exaggerated and energetic; her characters are sweaty and ugly, their imperfections magnified as if being scrutinized in a sixteen-year-old's mirror. You feel, vividly, the humiliation of bodies. --Meg Lemke Though Watson illustrates Tammy's life in excruciating, embarrassing detail to often-hilarious effect, her clear affection and empathy for her subject shines through. She universalizes Tammy's experiences, taking us back to relive our own tortured, giddy, deadly serious, horny, boring, and horribly self-conscious teenage years. ... Not so much recording Tammy as channeling her, Watson takes all the awkward, sweaty angst of Tammy's life and makes it sing. --Rob Kirby In the mode of Lynda Barry and Aline Kominsky, Esther Pearl Watson has gifted us with an adolescent heroine whose nightmare life is touching and alienating, sad and hilarious, naive and knowing. Think of the hypothetical 1980s high school days of the Onion s Jean Teasdale, and you might start to have a notion of what the life of Tammy Pierce is all about. ... Her lugubrious, hopeful incompetence is both excruciating to witness and impossible not to laugh at. --Paul DiFilippo Tammy shows us how much she seems to be unlovable, but after a romp through the story inside, just as when meeting real people, we see there is so much to pity, admire, love, and root for. The scratchy artwork perfectly displays the awkward teen years; nothing goes right. Everything and everyone is on edge. Through the narrative, you can quickly switch between cheering on, yelling at, and dissing the ever optimistic Tammy.--Angela Boyle

Though Watson illustrates Tammy's life in excruciating, embarrassing detail to often-hilarious effect, her clear affection and empathy for her subject shines through. She universalizes Tammy's experiences, taking us back to relive our own tortured, giddy, deadly serious, horny, boring, and horribly self-conscious teenage years. ... Not so much recording Tammy as channeling her, Watson takes all the awkward, sweaty angst of Tammy's life and makes it sing. --Rob Kirby

Author Information

Esther Pearl Watson lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband and fellow artist, Mark Todd. Together they authored the influential D.I.Y. tome, Whatcha Mean, What's A Zine?

Tab Content 6

Countries Available