The Year of Loving Dangerously - Hardcover

Ted Rall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1561635650 ISBN 13: 9781561635658

Publisher: NBM/ComicsLit, 2009

Synopsis

Here’s a new turn for the controversial cartoonist and commentator Ted Rall. Not only is this autobiographical but he has paired up with the acclaimed artist of Bluesman and The Castaways for fully painted art. It’s the eighties and Ted is in college in New York City and slipping. His pranks, lack of focus and restlessness get him kicked out of school. Unable to find a job, rejected by his parents, he’s on the verge of suicide. Instead he finds comfort in the arms of many women he meets casually and puts up a front for. Hey, better than being homeless and begging, but then... is it? It may sound like an ideal grift but the toll is much higher than one may imagine. Between acidly funny and disturbingly real, Rall, a cartoonist whose work has alienated half the world, pours out his guts on a hard turning point in his life. Callejo adopts a new fully painted color style for this work, showing his versatility.

About this title

From the Author:

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: What made you decide to work with another artist instead of doing the art yourself?

TED RALL: I'd never collaborated before, and this is my fifteenth book. My editor suggested it and I was actually a little insulted at first, but then I thought that it would give me the chance to really massage the dialogue and captions and make them sparkle and not have to worry about the art. I'd seen Pablo's work in Bluesman and I thought we'd be lucky to get him. I needed an artist who was going to establish a great tone. Pablo was able to channel the way things really felt at the time. When I show the book to people who were in the city then they go, oh, God, that's exactly right. PWCW: In her introduction, Xaviera Hollander focuses on the idea of sex as an economic transaction, and in the book you talk about "the intersection between sex and expediency." Were you at all worried about putting yourself out there as having used sex in that way?

TR: A place to stay is always a financial transaction so in that sense you can never fully separate sex from money. Just the other day, though, I got an email from an old girlfriend that had the word "User" as its title. She'd read the book and she felt like she'd been used. I knew some people would react like that but I think there's something a little churlish about calling people to task for revelations that they make themselves. It's like when Obama wrote about doing drugs and people said, "Aha, you did drugs!" and it's like, well, yeah, he just said he did. So anyone who's like aha your heart was not pure, all I can say is, yeah, I told you my heart wasn't pure. PWCW: Did your need to see relationships from an economic point of view change your ideas about romance?

TR: I think the impermanence of romantic relationships is what I came away with. As a parallel to economic insecurity in the book, there's romantic insecurity. I realized then that any relationship can come to a crashing halt at any time. At any moment, someone can meet someone else, get tired of you, decide they don't like the cut of your jib anymore, and they'll just be gone and you'll never know why. So ever since then I've probably held a little bit back. I don't share myself except with a few people. I think this is something that happens to everyone as they grow up. It's the same with economic insecurity. Most people have been laid off so everyone should be able to understand what that's like. This isn't meant to be a political book. I wanted to write a story that everyone could relate to. PWCW: You set up a lot of expectations in the book, especially with your friend, Chris, who seems headed for destruction. Are we going to see more of this story?

TR: I'm glad you asked because, yes, it's going to be a trilogy. I call it the sex, drugs, and rock'n roll trilogy. The next book will be the year of Chris. It's a wild, crazy roommate book. I tried to assume a just-the-facts tone for this book, but the next one is going to be far more rollicking.

From the Back Cover:

When love ends, expedience begins. Long before he will become one of the nation's best-known political cartoonists, a young Ted Rall merges sex and self-interest in a last-ditch struggle to survive. Expelled from college, dumped, jobless, homeless and broke, Ted hits a bar with eight dollars in his pocket. His plan: one beer, then spend the night sleeping on a bench in Riverside Park. Then he notices the girl...

THE YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY is a sensuous and honest coming-of-age story set in the wild and weird New York of the 1980s.

About this edition

• Publisher: NBM/ComicsLit
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1561635650
• ISBN 13: 9781561635658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128
• Illustrator: Pablo G. Callejo