All throughout April, we’re crowdsourcing a coronavirus quarantine comics reading list. Each weekday for a month, we’ll post a new recommendation from someone in the comics industry to help folks get through the isolation. This includes writers, artists, letterers, editors, comics journalists, publicists, and more…all paired with a local shop that’s currently selling the books via mail order.

Today’s pick comes from comics historian Jennifer DeRoss…enjoy!

Of all the comics I could recommend right now, Tales of Woodsman Pete (With Full Particulars), by contemporary artist, cartoonist, and filmmaker Lilli Carré, might hold the most potential during a quarantine. It features a collection of introspective, folkloric vignettes that feel more relatable than ever. In addition to humorous stories featuring the old man’s conversations with a bird outside his window, the stories portray important matters that many are currently grappling with such as the loss of a loved one, how we preserve memory, and how we perceive the passing of time. The incorporation of a similarly lonely Paul Bunyan provides a contrast between the seemingly fantastical and the mundane inviting us to look at the world around us in a new light where the stuff of folklore really does surround us. It is a peaceful, albeit melancholic, short read with an emotional resonance that lasts long after you put it down. Perfect for sitting in the sunlight wondering what it all means to be in the moment we find ourselves in. -Jennifer DeRoss

Jennifer DeRoss is the author of Forgotten All-Star: A Biography of Gardner Fox, and a contributor to and co-founder of Sirens of Sequentials.

Tales of Woodsman Pete (With Full Particulars)
Writer/Artist: Lilli Carré
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
From Lilli Carre, one of the bright new faces in the indy comix scene -- Tales of Woodsman Pete is a collection of vignettes and stories about a solitary albeit gregarious woodsman with a loose grasp on his own personal history and that of the outside world. He forms relationships with his inanimate surroundings and muses to a dead audience, specifically his bear rug, Philippe. His own tales eventually become entangled with that of the legendary Paul Bunyan, and the two become indirectly intertwined, illuminating the discrepancy between the character of the storyteller and the character within his stories. The lives of both Paul and Pete encounter such things as the questionable origin of an ocean and the desire for preservation of everything from a fallen bird to an overused expression that has strayed a stone's throw from its original meaning.

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Get it from a local comic shop with this directory from the Comics Industry Collective of stores open and doing mail order!

Click here for the full coronavirus reading list!