Not only have I been a comic book editor for sixteen years and obsessed with indie comics for much longer, I’m also an avid camper who co-created and co-wrote a comic book series that exalts in the unique feeling of sleeping under the stars. As such, excellent comics about outdoor adventures have a particularly tender spot in my heart.
I love the way Lisa Hanawalt draws nearly anything, but I especially love the way that Lisa draws animals, the desert, and the West. If you’re a Bojack Horseman fan, you’ve already fallen in love with her innovative cartooning style (she was a Bojack producer and its production designer). Her work here is all absurd movement, perfect timing, hilarious expressions, and, oh, yeah, a main character that’s a horseback-riding half-coyote, half-dog, full of messy humanity—a visceral, subversive Western, as delicious and satisfying as sleeping under a starry sky.
Coyote is a dreamer and a drama queen, brazen and brave, faithful yet fiercely independent. She beats her own drum and sews her own crop tops. A gifted equestrian, she s half dog, half coyote, and all power. With the help of her trusty steed, Red, there s not much that s too big for her to bite off, chew up, and spit out right into your face, if you deserve it. But when Coyote and Red find themselves on the run from a trio of vengeful bad dogs, get clobbered by arrows, and are tragically separated, our protagonist is…
The immediacy of Whit Taylor’s work and its accessible, urgent symbology is especially poignant in this diary of her Montana road trip with her husband.
Diary comics are one of my favorite genres of graphic storytelling for reasons exemplified here: you are engaging with Whit’s experience with this sprawling, beautiful land and its brutal history alongside her. Big sky, to her pen, to your eyes. It’s an intimate experience, one that comics do best.
2021 Ignatz Award Nominee for Outstanding Minicomic 2021 PW Graphic Novel Critics Poll – Honorable Mention
Cartoonist Whit Taylor (The Nib, Fizzle) documents her road trip across Montana in this diary mini-comic, combining millennial humor with resonant observations about the state’s complicated history.
As she and her husband travel through semi-arid flatlands and sub-alpine mountains, Taylor reflects both on Montana’s breathtaking beauty and the enduring toll of Manifest Destiny on its land and people.
Balancing funny road trip anecdotes with thoughts on melting glaciers and the worrying prevalence of white nationalists, Montana Diary tells a slice of America’s story, knowing…
The iyashikei (literally ‘healing’) genre of manga and anime concerns itself mainly with deeply character-driven narratives where nothing much happens. Except, of course, the simple living of life is beautiful, often the sweet spot where everything happens, and the creators behind this work know it.
This book is a pinnacle of that genre, a gorgeously illustrated meditation on the beauty of camping, campfire cooking, and the landscapes of Japan, as seen through the eyes of a thoughtful, funny group of high school girls.
Rin enjoys camping by the lakeshore, Mt. Fuji in view. Nadeshiko rides her bike to see Mt. Fuji, too. As the two eat cup noodles together, what scenery will they behold? This series will make readers fall in love with camping!
Eleanor Davis’s line is one of my favorites anywhere in comics. She gets so much movement and flow in the width and depth of her inkwork. That movement is at some of its finest here, chronicling her glorious, arduous bike ride from Arizona to Georgia.
You are arrested by her work immediately, rooting for her and the folks she encounters throughout the journey, all rendered with a nib’s organic caress, giving them and the entire book a rooted, organic, alive feel. The road laid out before you, shimmering with possibility.
A two-wheeled journey across the landscape of America, and through the heart and mind of an artist.
Eleanor Davis’s bike tour from Tucson, Arizona to Athens, Georgia is a quest of epic proportions ― not just geographically, which it surely is, but inwardly as well. While facing off formidable headwinds, drivers with reckless abandon, and screaming knee pain, the author confronts an even greater challenge ― her own mind. Life on two wheels teaches her many lessons, and she narrates them with keen observation and self-deprecating candor through a series of funny, touching vignettes. Companionship from fellow travelers and the…
Luke Healey’s highly graphic, wonderfully expressive cartooning style is especially powerful in this memoir of his time hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. Through-hiking the PCH is an obvious physical feat in any circumstance, but it’s a deeply taxing mental one, and Luke’s reflection on his trip compels you forward.
You are next to him on the trail, begging the question repeatedly: how can we bear moving forward? How can we do this, day after day? You feel right there as Luke laces up his boots, takes a breath, and walks on.
The Pacific Crest Trail runs 2660 miles, from California's border with Mexico to Washington's border with Canada. To walk it is to undertake a grueling test of body and spirit... challenge accepted.
This intimate, engaging autobiographical work recounts the author's own attempt to walk the length of the USA's west coast. Healy's life-changing journey weaves in and out of reflections on his experiences in America and his development as an artist, navigating both the trail itself and the unique culture of the people who attempt to complete it.
Things are not what they seem at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together… they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way!
This multiple Eisner Award-winning New York Times-bestselling series celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2024. Now is a great time for the Lumberjane inside you to check out this timeless graphic novel series.
I have been to, and loved, North, Central, and especially East Africa for over fifty years. Only six times have I been to Africa on holiday; more often, perhaps twenty or more times, as a television producer. Working in Africa gains a perspective of reality that the glories of vacation do not. Each has its place, each its pitfalls like stalled plane rides with emergency landings in the bush or attacks by wildlife. But, in the end, the magic of the “otherness,” what an old friend called “primitava” captures one’s soul and changes your life.
Keen to rekindle their love of East African wildlife adventures after years of filming, extreme dangers, and rescues, producer Pero Baltazar, safari guide Mbuno Waliangulu, and Nancy Breiton, camerawoman, undertake a filming walking adventure north of Lake Rudolf, crossing from Kenya into Ethiopia along the Omo River, following a herd of elephant making their annual migration.
Stumbling onto an elephant poaching, the team become embroiled in true financing of terrorism for al Shabaab –ivory sales–and are determined to stop the slaughter at any cost. Ivory trade financing terrorism involves UN refugee camps with two hundred thousand displaced Somali persons, powerful…
A documentary team hiking through East Africa collides with a gang of deadly poachers, in this gripping adventure by the author of Kidnapped on Safari.
Years of filming, extreme dangers, and daring rescues have taken their toll on documentary producer Pero Baltazar and his team. To relax and reconnect with the East African wildlife they love, Pero organizes a walking safari for him, his camerawoman Nancy Breiton, and their elite guide Mbuno Waliangulu. Still, Pero has trouble truly disconnecting from work. When the team comes across a herd of elephants making their annual migration north of Lake Rudolf, Pero decides…
