Footpath Flowers

Text: Jon Arno Lawson

Illustrations: Sydney Smith

Publisher: Walker Books Ltd

This is a gorgeous little comic that you will find in the picture book section of your library or bookshop. It’s about 30 pages, all art no words, and about a little girl out for a walk with her Dad.  She picks wildflowers that are growing in the pavement and gives them to people she thinks needs them. That’s the whole story, there’s no twist. It’s simple and it’s lovely. The little girl clearly has a very generous spirit and an innocence about her and she’s kind. I got this out of my library and I will be purchasing a copy for my son for when he’s a little bit older.

Stuck Rubber Baby

Writer and Artist: Howard Cruse

Publisher: Vertigo Comics

Stuck Rubber Baby is a fiction that reads like an autobiography. Toland is a young closeted man growing up in the 1960s American South. He makes friends with a group of liberal folk and finds himself socialising in the black and LGBT clubs of his town. He is drawn into the local civil rights movement and is forced to confront the truth of his sexuality, whilst racist and homophobic attacks are regular occurrences.

The Arrival

Artist and writer: Shaun Tan
Publisher: Lothian Books

A comic without words, The Arrival's art is further towards the fine art end of the spectrum than the cartooning end and it makes a beguiling story.

A man packs his suitcase, says goodbye to his family, and sails away to a new country. The alphabet is strange, the wildlife is creepy, and the everyday systems are near incomprehensible. Our man has to find lodgings, a job and friends.