The Con Artists: Luke Healey

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But it’s a tender, intimate story, too, one in which long-repressed love and competitiveness bubble up as if from nowhere. The Con Artists is a graphic novel exploring themes relating to mental illness, strained relationships, and artists using stories from their lives as part of their art.

My favourite graphic novel of the year so far, and to be honest, it might just be among my favourite comics ever . Luke Healy's declaration in the beginning and the interruption later are thought-provoking and funny. Frank is willfully antisocial yet lonely, a paradox that haunts the millennial generation, well reflected in The Con Artists. It seeemed to say if you take one test/survey and you score "low" then it is immediately decided that you do not have nor ever had any mental illness and inexplicably after being told your results, you feel perfectly fine and apologize for wasting the therapists time!You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Frank (the standup comedian who is the book’s narrator) and Giorgio were friends as children, and on paper they’re very similar: both Irish in London, both gay and both single. Luke Healy’s playful, hilarious third graphic novel uses crisp lines and physical comedy to portray an uneasy friendship between two young men on the cusp of adulting. When it comes to the portrayl of mental illness you can tell it's something the author has experience with, though I didn't love the somewhat dissmissive epilogue.

We appreciate that comedians, at least in our experience, often use comedy to master and anxieties, as a way of venting or exploring the things that trouble them in their personal lives.

That part was a little confusing because a lot of this graphic novel is Frankie talking about his mental illness. The story is about Frank, who is trying (and failing) to make it as a stand-up comedian, a friend of Giorgio, who early on gets hit by a bus and needs support. Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.

I greatly disliked the character of Giorgio and wished there was more closure for the reader on their relationship. And ultimately, there is something to be said about the juxtaposition of the (more blatant) ways others deceive us and the (more subtle) ways we deceive ourselves. It’s a nice, short read and I appreciate the layers Healey is trying to peel back and deconstruct but I don’t feel like I would be reading it over either as an autobiographical work or as a portrayal of mental health.This is a much quieter, introspective story than a lot of Healy’s previous work, but it definitely has emotional layers that encourage further reflection after reading. A mordantly funny cautionary tale, and an incisive look at the boundaries of self-presentation and self-preservation.

Frank only wanted three things this year- to perform stand-up comedy, go to therapy, and to keep his house plants alive. We wondered whether given Frank’s considerable anxieties of Giorgio’s state of mind and living arrangements Giorgio might have once been an object of Frank’s affections, but there is no other suggestion of this within the comic. I just could not care why the dweeb kept hanging around with the asshole or what they'd get up to next. It’s almost sinister, the way he insists that Frank washes his hair or cuts up his dinner – and there’s something else, too.One of the funniest books you will ever read…’ -Irish Times ‘A quietly brilliant story of old friends and secret lives. But perhaps that is more accurate to a certain experience of life, where one is saying one thing and feeling so, so much of another thing.