Brunetti, Ivan 1967-

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Brunetti, Ivan 1967-

PERSONAL:

Born October 3, 1967, in Mondavio, Italy; immigrated to the United States; married second wife, Laura Mizicko. Education: University of Chicago, A.B., 1989.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Chicago, IL.

CAREER:

Writer, cartoonist, illustrator, designer, and educator. Columbia College, Chicago, IL, Web designer; has taught classes on editorial illustration and comics at Columbia College and the University of Chicago. Previously worked at the University of California Press in production and copy editing. Curator of The Cartoonist's Eye, an exhibit of seventy-five artists' work, 2005.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic of the Year, 2006, for Schizo 4.

WRITINGS:

(Illustrator) David Wilton, Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor) An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2006.

Misery Loves Comedy (first three issues of Schizo comics), Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2007.

Also author and illustrator of the comics Haw!, 2001, Hee!, 2005, Schizo 1, 1994, Schizo 2, 1996, Schizo 3, 1998, and Schizo 4, 2006, all Fantagraphics Books. Contributor of comics to The Best American Comics 2006, edited by Harvey Pekar and Anne Elizabeth Moore, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006. Contributor of comics, comic strips, and illustrations to periodicals, including the Chicago Reader, New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, Mother Jones, Fast Company, Baffler, e Comics Journal, In These Times, and McSweeney's. Comics have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Czech, Dutch, and Swedish.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ivan Brunetti is a comic book writer and illustrator who first gained notice for his "Schizo" series of comics that focuses on his own life. A Thrasher contributor noted that for Brunetti "nothing is sacred."

Brunetti is also editor of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories. The book is a history of the art-comics movement. That is, the "personal, deeply intimate, idiosyncratic and sometimes wild comics published for the most part by independent presses," as noted by David Hajdu in the New York Times Book Review. The book includes such artists as R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and Gary Panter. In his review of the anthology, Hajdu noted: "The book is a manifesto of comics' coming of age." Other reviewers also praised An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories. Gordon Flagg, writing in Booklist, commented that the author's "iconoclasm makes the book livelier and less predictable than such anthologies are wont to be." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the author has "got a fabulous eye for an artist's signature work."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 2006, Gordon Flagg, review of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, p. 68.

Creative Review, November 6, 2006, review of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, p. 82.

Entertainment Weekly, October 20, 2006, Hannah Tucker, review of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, p. 87.

Fast Company, October 1, 2001, profile of author, p. 22; November 1, 2001, profile of author, p. 22.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2006, review of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, p. 753.

New York Times Book Review, December 3, 2006, David Hajdu, review of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, p. 42.

Newsweek, October 30, 2006, "A Canon of Comics? It's No Joke," p. 60.

Publishers Weekly, August 14, 2006, review of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, p. 186; December 18, 2006, Calvin Reid, "Give a Comic Book for Christmas," p. 34.

Thrasher, February 1, 2002, review of Haw!, p. 46.