This is an excerpt from Stone Fruit by Lee Lai, out with Fantagraphics.
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Lee Lai is is a cartoonist and graphic novelist from Melbourne, Australia, currently living in Montreal, Canada. In 2021, she was chosen as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 for her debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit.
More about the author →
‘I’ve loved experiencing the page as a map, as something to be wandered across.’
Lee Lai on the function of page and panel in comics.
‘I can’t believe it’s been two years since we’ve been able to get together and we’re still just arguing about which of us incurs more shit from the aunties.’
A graphic short story by Lee Lai.
Nick Drnaso on the making of his new graphic novel Acting Class, in this exclusive mini-documentary.
‘Laurence’s busy pre-mourning himself and his lover; he knows their thing’s got an end date, it’s not far off now.’
A story by Kevin Lambert, translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman.
‘When I was a kid, my family doctor, right through high school, was this wonderful, funny guy with a little Boston Blackie moustache who looked a lot like Burgess Meredith.’
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