Books by Chester Brown
Paying for It
A CONTEMPORARY DEFENSE OF THE WORLD'S OLDEST PROFESSION
Chester Brown has never shied away from tackling controversial subjects in his work. In his 1992 book, The Playboy, he explored his personal history with pornography. His bestselling 2003 graphic novel, Louis Riel, was a biographical examination of an extreme political figure. The book won wide acclaim and cemented Brown's reputation as a true innovator.
Paying for It is a natural progression for Brown as it combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work with the polemical drive of Louis Riel. Brown calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in but a vocal proponent of one of the world's most hot-button topics―prostitution. While this may appear overly sensational and just plain implausible to some, Brown's story stands for itself. Paying for It offers an entirely contemporary exploration of sex work―from the timid john who rides his bike to his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice, to the modern-day transactions complete with online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of clichéd street corners, drugs, or pimps.
Complete with a surprise ending, Paying for It provides endless debate and conversation about sex work and will be the most talkedabout graphic novel of 2011.
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Paying for It
The critically lauded memoir about being a john, available in paperback for the first time!
Paying for It was easily the most talked-about and controversial graphic novel of 2011, a critical success so innovative and complex that it received two rave reviews in The New York Times and sold out of its first print run in just six months. Chester Brown's eloquent, spare artwork stands out in this paperback edition.
Paying for It combines the personal and sexual aspects of Brown's autobiographical work (I Never Liked You, The Playboy) with the polemical drive of Louis Riel. He calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in but also a vocal proponent of one of the world's most hot-button topics―prostitution. While this may appear overly sensational and just plain implausible to some, Brown's story stands for itself. Paying for It offers an entirely contemporary exploration of sex work―from the timid john who rides his bike to his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice, to the modern-day transactions complete with online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of clichéd street corners, drugs, or pimps.
Complete with a surprise ending, Paying for It continues to provide endless debate and conversation about sex work.
Copies
No copies available.
Paying for It
The critically lauded memoir about being a john is now a major motion picture!
Paying for It was the most talked-about and controversial graphic novel of 2011, a critical success so innovative and complex that it received two rave reviews in The New York Times. Chester Brown's eloquent, spare artwork stands out in this new paperback edition, tied to the release of the film adaptation co-written and directed by Sook-Yin Lee, Brown’s longtime friend and the director of Year of the Carnivore and Octavio is Dead!
Paying for It offers an entirely unvarnished exploration of sex work through Brown’s own life story, showing him as a timid john who rides his bike to his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice. The book demystifies an experience that is so often sensationalized, revealing a world of online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of clichéd street corners, drugs, or pimps. In it, Brown combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work (I Never Liked You, The Playboy) with the polemical drive of Louis Riel, as he explores one of the most hotly debated issues in the world and advocates for the importance of legalizing sex work.
Now with an introduction by Lee, expanded notes discussing the film adaptation, movie stills and behind the scenes shots, as well as a new cover by Brown and artwork that he created for the production, Paying for It: The Film Edition is an unmissable edition for fans of Brown and film-making alike.
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Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
A limited-edition reprint of Brown's celebrated biography of the Canadian rebel
Louis Riel tells the story of the charismatic, and perhaps mad, nineteenth-century Metis leader whose struggle to win rights for his people led to violent rebellion on the nations western frontier. When the collected book appeared in 2003, Brown won widespread critical and industry acclaim for Louis Riel, including two Harvey Awards and inclusion on countless best-of lists. Beyond that, it single-handedly revitalized the biography genre of comics, paving the way for a new generation of artists.
This special tenth anniversary edition features rare supplementary material, including early cover art from the original serialization, pencil studies and draft scripts, poster and catalogue art, and a new essay by critic Sean Rogers.
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Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography
Martyr or Madman? The Passionate Rebel History Can't Close The Book On.
Is this the future of comics? Respectably penning the dowdy pages of history? Don't be fooled. This is one of the hippest comics going and will be a controversial must-have in 2003. Legendary cartoonist Chester Brown reveals in the dusty closet of Canadian history there are some skeletons that won't stop rattling. To some Louis Riel was one of the founding fathers of a nation but to others he was a murderer who nearly tore a country apart. A man so charismatic he was elected to government twice while in exile with a prize on his head--but so impassioned his dramatic behavior cast serious doubts on his sanity. Riel took on the army, the government, the Queen, and even the Church in the name of freedom. Will Riel's visionary democracy ever be enough to defend him from the verdict of history?
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The Playboy
by Carly Phillips, Chester Brown
There isn't a woman in town who's immune to the legendary Chandler charm. Yet so far single cop Rick Chandler has managed to fend off the marriage-minded advances of Yorkshire Falls' entire female population. A past mistake has taught him never to put his heart on the line . . . until he answers the SOS of a real-life runaway bride. In spite of her pearly gown and tiara, Kendall Sutton vows to never wed -- which makes her the ideal pretend lover who can ward off Rick's legion of admirers. When their passionate charade flames into the real thing, Rick is suddenly thinking about two words that spell forever after. But will Kendall ever say "I do?" Can a woman who's had it with weddings tie the knot with the town's most popular playboy?
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The Playboy
by Carly Phillips, Chester Brown
A memoir of shocking honesty by the graphic novelist behind 2011's acclaimed comic Paying for It
As with every Chester Brown book, The Playboy―originally published in 1992―was ahead of its time, illustrating the fearlessness and prescience of the iconoclastic cartoonist. A memoir about Brown's adolescent sexuality and shame, The Playboy chronicles his teenage obsession with the magazine of the same name, but it's also a work that explores the physical form of comics to their fullest storytelling capacity. In it, a fifteen-year-old Chester is visited by a time-traveling adult Chester, and the latter narrates the former's compulsion to purchase each issue of Playboy as it appears on newsstands. Even more fascinating than his obsession with the magazine is his need to keep his habit secret and the resulting lengths to which he goes to avoid detection by his family and, later, his girlfriends.
The comics that became The Playboy first appeared in issues of Brown's controversial, groundbreaking comic Yummy Fur more than twenty years ago, and yet the frankness of the work makes it seem avant-garde even now. As in every work by this master cartoonist, The Playboy uses no extra words, no extra panels, no extra lines, conveying environment and emotion through perfectly chosen moments. Fans of his acclaimed and controversial memoir Paying for It are sure to be drawn in by this early autobiographical portrait of blazing honesty. The expanded reissue includes all-new appendixes and notes from the author.
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Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus
The idiosyncratic master Chester Brown continues his thoughts on sex work
“The Bible is Chester Brown’s holy harlot. He plumbs the mysteries of her depths while she schools him in the ways of love. Like all of Chester’s work, Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus is confounding, yet addictive, instantly re-readable, and expands with revelations in his hundred pages of notes. A work of passion, research, and elegant clarity. My new favourite.”―Craig Thompson, author of Blankets and Habibi
“Chester Brown is both God’s and the devil’s gift to the world.”―David Henry Sterry, author of Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys
“Chester’s work never fails to surprise and delight me. Since I always enjoy mythic and legendary tales of harlots, I knew I would like Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus, but I was pleased and impressed by the way he used all these stories to illustrate a larger theme about humanity’s relationship to Divinity and the role my profession plays in that relationship. Chester shows that spirituality and sexuality, which are so often depicted in our culture as opposed to one another, are actually deeply intertwined.”―Maggie McNeill, author of The Honest Courtesan
The iconoclastic and bestselling cartoonist of Paying for It: A comic-strip memoir about being a john and Louis Riel returns and with a polemical interpretation of the Bible that will be one of the most controversial and talked-about graphic novels of 2016. Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus is the retelling in comics form of nine biblical stories that present Chester Brown's fascinating and startling thesis about biblical representations of prostitution. Brown weaves a connecting line between Bathsheba, Ruth, Rahab, Tamar, Mary of Bethany, and the Virgin Mother. He reassesses the Christian moral code by examining the cultural implications of the Bible's representations of sex work.
Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus is a fitting follow-up to Brown's sui generis graphic memoir Paying for It, which was reviewed twice in The New York Times and hailed by sex workers for Brown's advocacy for the decriminalization and normalization of prostitution. Brown approaches the Bible as he did the life of Louis Riel, making these stories compellingly readable and utterly pertinent to a modern audience. In classic Chester Brown fashion, he provides extensive handwritten endnotes that delve into the biblical lore that informs Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus.
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