These comics are a gift. Casual, but precise, Davis has an emotional and intellectual range that creeps up on you with a warmth and a sensibility to the page that feels revelatory. Spaniel Rage is a brave, deeply felt work.
Sammy Harkham, Kramers Ergot
$19.95 CAD/$16.95 USD
“I love [Davis’s] free-form drawing… she just has a funny, truthful voice.”—Audrey Niffenegger
Vanessa Davis's autobiographical comics delighted readers ten years ago when she first began telling stories about her life in New York as a young single Jewish woman. More observational than confessional, Spaniel Rage is filled with frank and immediate pencil drawn accounts of dating woes, misunderstandings between her and her mother, and conversations with friends.
Her keen observation of careless words spoken casually is refreshingly honest, yet never condemning. Unabashedly, Davis offers up gently self-deprecating anecdotes about her anxieties and wry truths about the contradictions of life in the big city. These comics are sexy, funny, lonely, beautiful, spare, and very smart—the finest work from a natural storyteller.
Praise for Spaniel Rage
Loose, perfect cartooning. Vanessa Davis is one of the very best.
Michael DeForge, Big Kids, Ant Colony, and Lose
Vanessa's comics feel like a phone call with your best, warm, funny friend. I've kept this book close at hand for the last decade, re-reading it over lunches, in baths, and curled up in bed at night.
Lisa Hanawalt, Bojack Horseman, Hot Dog Taste Test
I spent my 20s reading and re-reading this book. I'm still looking for clues in its warm, perfect drawings and clear, quiet voice—a grateful ghost in the white spaces, standing by Vanessa's side.
Eleanor Davis, How To Be Happy
