I Never Liked You
Encyclopedia
I Never Liked You is an autobiographical
graphic novel
by Chester Brown
, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex.
It was originally published in issues #26-30 of Brown's comic book
, Yummy Fur
, between October 1991 and April 1993, and was published in book form by Drawn and Quarterly
in 1994. A "New Definitive Edition" was released in 2002, with the original black background of the pages changed to white, panels slightly rearranged on the page, and with two pages of notes appended.
story takes place during Brown
's adolescence, growing up in Châteauguay, Quebec
in Canada
. Notably absent in the story are "the normal staples of teen life," such as sex and drugs, due to Brown's life being shaped by his strictly religious parents.
Brown ("Chester" or "Chet" throughout the book) depicts his introversion and his difficulty talking to people. He has trouble talking with girls, even though he is interested in them, and they express their interest in him. He constantly, and inexplicably, turns them away.
Chet's mother takes a hard line with him with regards to swearing. As a result, he has a hard time bringing himself to use such language, a fact that is picked up by his classmates who tease
him for it and repeatedly try to trick him into swearing. This was the source for the original title of the story (Fuck) when first serialized.
He also has difficulty expressing affection for his mother (except in his imagination), who is suffering from schizophrenia
and has herself hospitalized towards the end of the narrative.
:Brown's depiction of himself as an awkward, introverted teenager; he is emotionally withdrawn and finds refuge in drawing;
Gordon Brown:Chet's younger and more well-adjusted brother.
Mrs. Brown:(1923–76) Chet and Gordon's mother, who is suffering from schizophrenia
and is eventually hospitalized and quickly ends up passing away. The story was originally called Fuck in reference to Brown's mother's hard stance against foul language.
The fact that his mother is schizophrenic is not made explicit in the book, but Brown talks about it in his cartoon essay My Mother was a Schizophrenic, in which he takes an anti-psychiatric
stance.
Sky: a buxom dark haired girl whom Chet falls in love with, but with whom he can't bring himself to admit he likes. She connects with Chet and tries to develop a relationship, but he is unable to deal with his feelings and turns her away.
Connie: a popular, pretty blond girl who lives across the street from Chet's house
Carrie:Connie's younger sister who transparently has a crush on Chet and "develops a possessive attitude toward him", but whom Chester repeatedly tries to put off.
Unlike Brown's previous graphic novel
, The Playboy
, he makes limited use of a narrator
or narrator's voice in I Never Liked You. The story is told almost entirely through its pictures and sparse dialogue
.
The artwork is drawn using a brush, and is amongst the simplest and sparsest in Brown's body of work. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of hatching
in the art. Brown had been paring down his style starting with the Playboy stories. He wasn't happy with his style, and was trying "to rebuild [his] style in a way that [he] would like," which he continued with I Never Liked You, where he was "trying to get even more pared down than The Playboy."
(issues #26-30) between October 1991 and April 1993. The panels were much more crowded on the page in Yummy Fur than in the eventual collected edition, in issue #30 continuing from the cover and onto the page page. When collected, Brown reformatted the panels on the pages, which resulted in a much higher page count, but the story was found to be more effective that way.
The story was the last of Brown's works from his much-acclaimed "autobio
" period that started with the story Helder in Yummy Fur
#19. Yummy Fur continued for two more issues before coming to an end as Brown started to publish Underwater
under its own title.
When the story was originally collected in 1994 the pages were black behind all the panels, but when the new edition was released in 2002, the pages were changed to white. Asked why in 2007, Brown said, "I like austerity. The white background looks more austere to me." A two-page appendix of notes was also included in this edition, a trend in Brown's work since My Mom was a Schizophrenic.
In contrast with his earlier works, especially the highly-improvised Ed the Happy Clown
, Brown says that in I Never Liked You "[t]he[re] was very little improvisation in I Never Liked You. It was quite planned out, even if I didn’t write a full script."
The book was dedicated
to media personality Sook-Yin Lee
, who was Brown's girlfriend from 1992 until 1996.
The book is admired by critics and many of Brown's fellow cartoonist
s. Gilbert Henandez, of Love and Rockets
fame, has said, "The Playboy
and I Never Liked You are probably the best graphic novel
s next to Maus
".
Norwegian
cartoonist Jason said, "[o]ne of my favorite autobiographical comics
is I Never Liked You."
Critic Charles Hatfield, author of Alternative Comics
: An Emerging Literature, calls the "hide with me" page of I Never Liked You "[one] of my favorite comics pages."
Autobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
by Chester Brown
Chester Brown
Chester William David Brown , is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative cartoonist and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto, Canada....
, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex.
It was originally published in issues #26-30 of Brown's comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
, Yummy Fur
Yummy Fur (comic)
Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994...
, between October 1991 and April 1993, and was published in book form by Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly
Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
in 1994. A "New Definitive Edition" was released in 2002, with the original black background of the pages changed to white, panels slightly rearranged on the page, and with two pages of notes appended.
Overview
The autobiographicalAutobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
story takes place during Brown
Chester Brown
Chester William David Brown , is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative cartoonist and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto, Canada....
's adolescence, growing up in Châteauguay, Quebec
Châteauguay, Quebec
Châteauguay is an off-island suburb of Montreal, in southwestern Quebec, located both on the Chateauguay River and Lac St-Louis, which is a section of the St. Lawrence River...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Notably absent in the story are "the normal staples of teen life," such as sex and drugs, due to Brown's life being shaped by his strictly religious parents.
Brown ("Chester" or "Chet" throughout the book) depicts his introversion and his difficulty talking to people. He has trouble talking with girls, even though he is interested in them, and they express their interest in him. He constantly, and inexplicably, turns them away.
Chet's mother takes a hard line with him with regards to swearing. As a result, he has a hard time bringing himself to use such language, a fact that is picked up by his classmates who tease
Teasing
Teasing is a word with many meanings. In human interactions, teasing comes in two major forms, playful and hurtful. When teasing is playful and friendly, and especially when it is reciprocal, teasing can be regarded as flirting. People may be teased on such matters as their appearance, weight,...
him for it and repeatedly try to trick him into swearing. This was the source for the original title of the story (Fuck) when first serialized.
He also has difficulty expressing affection for his mother (except in his imagination), who is suffering from schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
and has herself hospitalized towards the end of the narrative.
Main Characters
Chester "Chet" BrownChester Brown
Chester William David Brown , is an award-winning, best-selling Canadian alternative cartoonist and, since 2008, the Libertarian Party of Canada's candidate for the riding of Trinity-Spadina in Toronto, Canada....
:Brown's depiction of himself as an awkward, introverted teenager; he is emotionally withdrawn and finds refuge in drawing;
Gordon Brown:Chet's younger and more well-adjusted brother.
Mrs. Brown:(1923–76) Chet and Gordon's mother, who is suffering from schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
and is eventually hospitalized and quickly ends up passing away. The story was originally called Fuck in reference to Brown's mother's hard stance against foul language.
The fact that his mother is schizophrenic is not made explicit in the book, but Brown talks about it in his cartoon essay My Mother was a Schizophrenic, in which he takes an anti-psychiatric
Anti-psychiatry
Anti-psychiatry is a configuration of groups and theoretical constructs that emerged in the 1960s, and questioned the fundamental assumptions and practices of psychiatry, such as its claim that it achieves universal, scientific objectivity. Its igniting influences were Michel Foucault, R.D. Laing,...
stance.
Sky: a buxom dark haired girl whom Chet falls in love with, but with whom he can't bring himself to admit he likes. She connects with Chet and tries to develop a relationship, but he is unable to deal with his feelings and turns her away.
Connie: a popular, pretty blond girl who lives across the street from Chet's house
Carrie:Connie's younger sister who transparently has a crush on Chet and "develops a possessive attitude toward him", but whom Chester repeatedly tries to put off.
Style
The book is told in "scenes...[that pop] out of nowhere as a dreamlike series of pulses". Little setup or context is given to each scene in the book. "The effect is sometimes eerie, as here, despite the grounding of the story in mundane everyday stuff."Unlike Brown's previous graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
, The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
, he makes limited use of a narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
or narrator's voice in I Never Liked You. The story is told almost entirely through its pictures and sparse dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
.
The artwork is drawn using a brush, and is amongst the simplest and sparsest in Brown's body of work. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of hatching
Hatching
Hatching is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing closely spaced parallel lines...
in the art. Brown had been paring down his style starting with the Playboy stories. He wasn't happy with his style, and was trying "to rebuild [his] style in a way that [he] would like," which he continued with I Never Liked You, where he was "trying to get even more pared down than The Playboy."
Publishing History
The story was originally serialized as Fuck in Brown's Yummy FurYummy Fur (comic)
Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994...
(issues #26-30) between October 1991 and April 1993. The panels were much more crowded on the page in Yummy Fur than in the eventual collected edition, in issue #30 continuing from the cover and onto the page page. When collected, Brown reformatted the panels on the pages, which resulted in a much higher page count, but the story was found to be more effective that way.
The story was the last of Brown's works from his much-acclaimed "autobio
Autobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
" period that started with the story Helder in Yummy Fur
Yummy Fur (comic)
Yummy Fur was an award-winning and highly influential alternative minicomic and comic book series written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown from 1983 until 1994...
#19. Yummy Fur continued for two more issues before coming to an end as Brown started to publish Underwater
Underwater (comics)
Underwater was an alternative comic book by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown that was published from 1994 until 1997, when the ambitious project was abandoned unfinished by its creator....
under its own title.
When the story was originally collected in 1994 the pages were black behind all the panels, but when the new edition was released in 2002, the pages were changed to white. Asked why in 2007, Brown said, "I like austerity. The white background looks more austere to me." A two-page appendix of notes was also included in this edition, a trend in Brown's work since My Mom was a Schizophrenic.
In contrast with his earlier works, especially the highly-improvised Ed the Happy Clown
Ed the Happy Clown
Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of an award-winning and influential comic book story by the Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. It is dark and surreal, and largely improvised, having started from a series of unrelated short comic stories that Brown soon went on to tie together...
, Brown says that in I Never Liked You "[t]he[re] was very little improvisation in I Never Liked You. It was quite planned out, even if I didn’t write a full script."
The book was dedicated
Dedication (publishing)
A Dedication is the expression of friendly connection or thank by the author towards another person...
to media personality Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee
Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
, who was Brown's girlfriend from 1992 until 1996.
Reception
As one of "The autobiographical comics from Yummy Fur", I Never Liked You placed #38 on the prestigious Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century.The book is admired by critics and many of Brown's fellow cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
s. Gilbert Henandez, of Love and Rockets
Love and Rockets (comics)
Love and Rockets is a black and white comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez, sometimes cited jointly as Los Bros Hernandez. Their brother Mario Hernandez is an occasional contributor...
fame, has said, "The Playboy
The Playboy: A Comic Book
The Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
and I Never Liked You are probably the best graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s next to Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...
".
Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
cartoonist Jason said, "[o]ne of my favorite autobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics
Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
is I Never Liked You."
Critic Charles Hatfield, author of Alternative Comics
Alternative Comics
Alternative Comics may refer to:* Alternative Comics , a U.S. comic book publisher* alternative comics, a label for a range of comics, when written with extraneous caps...
: An Emerging Literature, calls the "hide with me" page of I Never Liked You "[one] of my favorite comics pages."
Foreign editions
| Translations | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Title | Publisher | Date | Translator | ISBN |
| Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
Non Mi Sei Mai Piaciutto | Black Velvet Editrice | 1999 | Omar Martini | |
| French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... |
Je ne t'ai jamais aimé | éditions Les 400 coups | 2001 | ||
| éditions Delcourt Delcourt (publisher) Delcourt is a French publishing house that specializes in comics and manga.It was founded in 1986 through the fusion of the magazines Charlie Mensuel and Pilote... |
2010 | Vincent Bernière | |||
| Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
Nunca me has gustado | Astiberri Ediciones | 2007 | ||
| German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... |
Fuck | Reprodukt | 2008 | Torsten Alisch and Dirk Baranek hand-letter Letterer A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and... ed by Dirk Rehm |
|
| Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... |
ΠΟΤΕ ΔΕΝ ΣΕ ΣΥΜΠΑΘΗΣΑ | Inkpress/Kormoranos | 2010 | Χάρης Λαγκούσης | |
| Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing... |
너 좋아한 적 없어 | Sai Comics | 2004-11-30 |
See also
- Autobiographical comicsAutobiographical comicsAutobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...
- Alternative comicsAlternative comicsAlternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
- Chester Brown's autobiographical comicsChester Brown's autobiographical comicsCanadian cartoonist Chester Brown attracted a lot of attention from critics and his peers in the early 1990s alternative comics world when he began writing autobiographical comics in his comic book series Yummy Fur....
- The Little ManThe Little Man (comics)The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 is a collection of short works by award-winning Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published by Drawn and Quarterly in 1998...
- The Playboy: A Comic BookThe Playboy: A Comic BookThe Playboy is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, dealing with the author's obsession with Playboy Playmates, his desire to keep his collection hidden, and how it affected his ability to relate to women into adulthood....
External links
- preview at Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
's website