The Past Is a Grotesque Animal

A rich collection/scrapbook of over two dozen short stories, plus diary entries, photos, and other images fueled by a propensity to understand the way we relate to each other, and told with a visual and lyrical beauty -- and raw emotion -- that collectively reaffirms the power of art.

Publisher Marketing: No cartoonist working today does interpersonal drama as authentically as Parrish.-- "Four-Color Apocalypse" Review Quotes : Parrish is great at making panels that you can both read and linger over.--Dash Shaw (Bottomless Belly Button) Review Quotes : Parrish has one of my favorite traits in a cartoonist: intense passion for the craft. They are rapidly evolving and experimenting wildly and it's joyful to watch.--Simon Hanselmann (Megahex) Review Quotes : This collection is like opening Tommi Parrish's drawers and finding ten years of work scattered across the table. From 2013 to 2023, everything that's obsessed them: fear, loneliness, identity, queer desire, the body as battleground. What emerges, right from the first few pages, is a confident artistic voice and a willingness to explore the human condition with an almost brutal honesty.-- "RetroFuturista" Review Quotes : Even the most obsessive of fans will not have tracked down most of these pieces from their original micro print runs, making the book an engrossing compendium of Parrish's career to date. Above all, it's wildly inspirational, exhibiting such a burning DIY ethos that any aspiring creators are likely to catch a spark.-- "Cinema Sentries" Publisher Marketing : Tommi Parrish is an Australian trans cartoonist and one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary comics and graphic novels. Balancing emotional honesty with a keen awareness of the human condition, Parrish navigates fear, loneliness, identity, body politics, queer desire, masculinity, fear, and the ever-fluid nature of all human relationships. The Past is a Grotesque Animal collects over two dozen short stories of varying lengths, interspersed with ephemera from Parrish's own life: diary entries, photographs, illustrations, paintings, and more.

Format: Hardcover | Pages: 220 | Publication Date: 2025-11-04