"One of the medium's brilliant mavericks." -- Time.com
"The Little Man: Short Strips, 1980- 1995 "is a collection of short-story works by the celebrated and bestselling "Louis Riel" cartoonist Chester Brown. From his early experimental comedic surrealism to his later autobiographical and essay strips, we see not a major talent in development but a fully realized storytelling virtuoso. Included are his early autobiographical stories " Helder" (a story about a young man' s tentativeness when pursuing a woman), " Showing Helder" (a blow-by-blow account of the construction of the previous story), and " Danny" (a strangely compelling moment-by-moment account of Brown waking up and trying to avoid contact with a fellow rooming-house tenant). Other standouts are Brown' s controversial essay on schizophrenia (specifically his own mother' s) and various medical views on this baffling disease, and the title story, " The Little Man, " a Freudian classroom romp fantasy by a adolescent Brown that ties into the schizophrenia essay in a surprising way. The acclaimed compendium, culled mostly from his groundbreaking comic book series Yummy Fur, provides a fascinating insight into Brown' s psyche; he rounds out the collection with exacting notes on each story.