That being said, it also feels like a high wire act bound by an almost overwhelming restraint, with so many emotions bubbling below the surface, without much of a climax or release for the reader. But I never found myself much caring about what happened to anyone - and I particularly didn't care for the higher concepts Luke Healy seemed determined to introduce. Finding himself unable to disentangle himself from his friend's complicated life, has Frank become Giorgio's unwitting accomplice?

It is as if he knows deep in his heart that this is not his forte (he ducks out of the Edinburgh Comedy Festival on no good excuse), but he continues to slog away at his craft before strangers, a ritual of half-hearted immolation. Frank only wanted three things this year— to perform stand-up comedy, go to therapy, and to keep his house plants alive. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.The many characters sitting within the comics that this critic has read and reviewed over the past year, have not evoked the same sense of revilement that Giorgio did by the conclusion of the story.

It isn’t hard at all to imagine such frenemies as the stars of some future film or TV series, though personally I would be quite content if Healy would only give them another outing between hard covers. Healy's strikingly simple black/white/grey line-drawn panels belie a complex examination of the eponymous con artists, clouded by self-delusion, enabled by social media. The central question that animates ‘The Con Artists’ is: what does it mean to watch someone struggle? The Con Artists by Luke Healy is my favourite graphic novel of the year so far, and to be honest, it might just be among my favourite comics ever.Pretty brutal Goodreads average here for what I deem well done comics, sort of minimal, with barely tolerable main characters who are essentially conning each other in different ways. This is a much quieter, introspective story than a lot of Healy’s previous work, but it definitely has emotional layers that encourage further reflection after reading.

Frank is willfully antisocial yet lonely, a paradox that haunts the millennial generation, well reflected in The Con Artists. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.The most enjoyable aspect of this book for me were Healy's illustrations, which were really charming. I enjoyed Luke Healy's Americana, a memoir of Luke taking his Irish self to the West Coast of the US to complete an arduous hike. It’s almost sinister, the way he insists that Frank washes his hair or cuts up his dinner – and there’s something else, too. I enjoyed the way the author interspersed snippets from standup comedy routines and therapy sessions throughout the chapters. There's something very real about The Con Artists that makes it feel nuanced while also being a bit unsatisfyng in places.