Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman - Softcover

Brown, Brian "Box"

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1626723168 ISBN 13: 9781626723160

Publisher: First Second, 2018

Synopsis

2019 Eisner Award Winner for Best Reality-Based Work

Comedian and performer Andy Kaufman’s resume was impressive―a popular role on the beloved sitcom Taxi, a high-profile stand-up career, and a surprisingly successful stint in professional wrestling. Although he was by all accounts a sensitive and thoughtful person, he’s ironically best remembered for his various contemptible personas, which were so committed and so convincing that all but his closest family and friends were completely taken in.

Why would someone so gentle-natured and sensitive build an entire career seeking the hatred of his audience? What drives a performer to solicit that reaction? With the same nuance and sympathy with which he approached Andre the Giant in his 2014 biography, graphic novelist Box Brown's Is This Guy For Real? takes on the complex and often hilarious life of Andy Kaufman.

About this title

About the Author:

Box Brown is an Ignatz Award―winning cartoonist, illustrator, and comic publisher from Philadelphia. His books include the New York Times―bestselling Andre the Giant: Life and Legend and Tetris. Box Brown's independent comics publishing house, Retrofit Comics, was launched in 2011.

Review:

"Cartoonist Box Brown has a talent for crafting nonfiction comics that use visuals to illuminate and energize real-world events... [Is This Guy For Real?] is a thorough character study that doesn’t shy away from macro topics, giving readers a comprehensive look at Kaufman’s rise to fame." ―The AV Club, from their "10 Most Anticipated Comics of 2018"

"[Is This Guy For Real?] is a well-researched, enjoyable yarn written by the one author working in the comics medium who fans would want to tell Kaufman’s story." ―Publishers Weekly

"Box Brown exercises his trademark commitment to dogged research, elegant story construction, and compellingly cartoony artwork in this story about Kaufman’s lifelong connection to the squared circle."―Vulture, from their "The Best Comics to Read This February"

"[Kaufman's] fascinating, complicated persona is brought to gorgeous life in Brown's book, as are several fascinating tidbits."―Entertainment Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: First Second
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1626723168
• ISBN 13: 9781626723160
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272