She's not afraid to be clear." - Françoise Mouly "I challenge anyone not to want to live in the world Eleanor creates. "Imaginative and funny and fanciful, but it's also very thoroughly worked out. Happy shows the full range of Davis's graphic skills - sketchy drawing, polished pen-and-ink line work, and meticulously designed full-color painted panels - which are always in the service of a narrative that builds to a quietly devastating climax. Davis achieves a rare, subtle poignancy in her narratives that are at once compelling and elusive, pregnant with mystery and a deeply satisfying emotional resonance.
Happy represents the best stories she's drawn for such connoisseurial venues as Mome, Nobrow, and Lucky Peach, as well as her own self-publishing and web efforts.
How to Be Happy is Eleanor Davis's first collection of graphic/literary short stories. (Aug.Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Mythology, Romance, Slice of Life A powerful collection that resonates with all the ills, real and imagined, of our modern life. In many stories, happiness is projected on outside forces, a new baby, a lover, yoga, but the answers are rarely that simple and usually backfire horribly, as in "No Tears, No Sorrow," where a woman's emotional breakthrough proves all too complete. In the futuristic "Nita Goes Home," the juxtapositions are more complex, as a woman who lives in an artificial dome where plants still grow has to return to Earth%E2%80%94 a toxic, polluted megacity%E2%80%94when her father is dying. Happy represents the best stories she's drawn for such curatorial venues as Mome and No-Brow, as well as her own self-publishing and web efforts. In "In Our Eden," a bunch of back to nature enthusiasts rebel against a delusional ex-bass pro shop manager who spouts trendy bromides about the paleo diet while fashioning himself as the new Adam. Davis is one of the finest cartoonists of her generation, and has been producing comics since the mid-2000s.
Some of Davis's art styles are reminiscent of her children's books (Secret Science Alliance, Stinky)%E2%80%94simple supple black and white line drawings%E2%80%94others resemble Little Golden Books, bright blocks of colors and button nosed characters, but only as if written by Raymond Carver. The excellence and variety of the art in this short comics story collection is matched only by the painful incisiveness of the stories, most circling around attempts both foolish and sincere to find happiness.
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