SOURCE: "Adventures in Adult Comics Land," in Utne Reader, No. 59, September-October, 1993, pp. 111-12, 114.

In the following essay, Sutton surveys autobiographical comic books for adults.

Masturbation, nose picking, stupid jobs, and unsatisfying sex—the subject matter of most autobiographical adult comic books is so pathetically routine that it's past parodying. This strain of alternative comics was born the day Robert Crumb's nebbish alter ego first drooled over a big booty in a tight dress. At their worst, such self-referential stories are the graphic equivalent of getting stuck next to a nonstop talker on a five-hour flight from L.A. to New York. At their best, though, they flash a real-life informality like a lure, and then hook you with the barbed ends of good storytelling.

The past few years have seen a resurgence of autobiographical work by a New Wave of young cartoonists influenced by Crumb, Harvey Pekar (who...