THE CONTRADICTIONS by Sophie Yanow (Drawn & Quarterly, September 2020)
Sophie is young and queer and into feminist theory.
She decides to study abroad, choosing Paris for no firm reason beyond liking French comics. Feeling a bit lonely and out of place, she’s desperate for community and a sense of belonging. She stumbles into what/who she’s looking for when she meets Zena.
An anarchist student-activist committed to veganism and shoplifting, Zena offers Sophie a whole new political ideology that feels electric. Enamored―of Zena, of the idea of living more righteously―Sophie finds herself swept up in a whirlwind friendship that blows her even further from her rural California roots as they embark on a disastrous hitchhiking trip to Amsterdam and Berlin, full of couch surfing, drug tripping, and radical book fairs.
Select praise for THE CONTRADICTIONS:
2019 Eisner Award winner for best webcomic
Publishers Weekly starred review: “Appealing both to indie comics fans on the cusp of coming-of-age to those looking back decades to their own youthful follies, this assured, smart chronicle is a winner.”
"The Contradictions is a masterpiece. Sophie Yanow’s tale of hitchhiking around Europe under the spell of a sulky, fixie-riding anarchist is a pitch-perfect portrait of youthful disillusionment and self-discovery. Yanow’s impeccable ligne claire drawing seems to mathematically cancel out everything nonessential in her panels, and the effect is surprisingly, even transcendently, emotional." - Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home