Black Cohosh

In Brosi’s unsparing yet mirthful debut, a teenager with a speech impediment navigates the peculiar indignities of commune life and public school. Eagle is teased at school for his unusual name, his long ponytail, and especially his acute speech impediment (represented in speech bubbles as gnarled, indecipherable runes). Teachers regard him with open hostility, and a beating at the hands of two classmates triggers a seizure that lands him in the hospital. Home offers little refuge. His family resides in a hippie commune that zealously polices its back-to-the-land ethos. His mother’s contentious use of bone meal in the vegetable garden precipitates a “consensus meeting” where scandal erupts over the discovery of a fast-food wrapper. While his bushy-bearded father obsesses over the young women at the college where he teaches, Eagle’s softhearted mother imparts wisdom through lessons on native plants but sometimes lapses into unwieldy metaphors (“When you grow up, you might become attracted to some hot young green bean. But it won’t take care of you like a big, ugly bean will”). Over a loosely structured narrative, Brosi’s sparse, knobbly pen-and-ink illustrations, which recall 1970s pamphlets and Shel Silverstein, mine blunt humor from the self-absorbed adults surrounding Eagle. Brosi’s thorny coming-of-age story hoes a tough row between tragedy and comedy, to disarming effect. It feels like a discovery that comics fans will be talking about for years to come. (June)