The Con Artists: Luke Healey

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It’s definitely an interesting exploration of fraught interpersonal relationships complicated by anxiety. Luke Healy is a master at creating genuine characters with stories that never fail to pull me in and keep me there. This was an interesting concept and the simple art style was nice, but it just didn’t quite do it for me. The Con Artists seems to be trying to tell a story that makes the reader question what is real and what is imagined (a story about stories!

The most enjoyable aspect of this book for me were Healy's illustrations, which were really charming. It almost reads like a parable, just the exploration of a friend helping another friend and uncovering things he didn't know about them. I think this was a really great portrayal of mental illness, and hard or toxic relationships, but that’s about it. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Frank only wanted three things this year- to perform stand-up comedy, go to therapy, and to keep his house plants alive.The con here goes both ways, one rather obvious to whomever is not the main character, and one much subtler, revealed awkwardly in one panel. Frank (the standup comedian who is the book’s narrator) and Giorgio were friends as children, and on paper they’re very similar: both Irish in London, both gay and both single. The spare art style suited the story well, and while this wasn't as hilarious as I was expecting, it was a good character study with some pretty funny moments. A frank depiction of being anxiously alive with deeply human threads and occasional 4th wall breaks. The front cover and the back cover feature endorsements which suggests that T he Con Artists has some comedic or at least jokey orientation to it.

We think instead Mr Healy has crafted a predatory character camouflaged in an otherwise wistful urban landscape.

A mordantly funny cautionary tale, and an incisive look at the boundaries of self-presentation and self-preservation.

Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall).A Guardian Best Book of 2022 —'A beautifully observed masterpiece… one of my favourite graphic novels I’ve ever read. The art style works well for the story being told, and Healy's pacing moves things along without making things feel rushed. But it’s a tender, intimate story, too, one in which long-repressed love and competitiveness bubble up as if from nowhere.