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Perfect Example
A melancholic memoir of saying goodbye to the familiar Road trips, drunken concerts, and late-night make-out sessions all swirl together in this coming-of-age graphic novel by King Cat cartoonist John Porcellino. Tackling the pain and uncertainty of the pivotal summer before college, Porcellino's sad and beautiful story is drawn in his sincere, minimalist style. Deceptively and charmingly simple, Perfect Example is a collection of Porcellino's self-published King Cat comics, which have won over thousands of readers with their honesty, empathy, and sincerity.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
3 people are currently reading
435 people want to read
About the author
John Porcellino
54 books208 followersJOHN PORCELLINO was born in Chicago, in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. His celebrated self-published series
King-Cat Comics
, begun in 1989, has inspired a generation of cartoonists.
Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man
, a collection of King-Cat stories about Porcellino’s experiences as a pest control worker, won an Ignatz Award in 2005, and
Perfect Example
, first published in 2000, chronicles his struggles with depression as a teenager.
Thoreau at Walden
is a poetic expression of the great philosopher’s experience and ideals, and
King-Cat Classix
and
Map of My Heart
, published by Drawn and Quarterly, comprise the first two volumes of a comprehensive King-Cat history.
According to cartoonist Chris Ware, "John Porcellino's comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the feeling of simply being alive."
According to cartoonist Chris Ware, "John Porcellino's comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the feeling of simply being alive."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
November 17, 2024
Whimsical, touching graphic novel of a boy's last weeks of high school and the following summer hanging out with his friends, trying to figure out girls, and dealing with his depression. Captures well the feeling of being a teenager, with all its joys, angst, and questions.
The drawings are very simplistic and comic strip-ish.
Fun to see Chicago and some of its suburbs depicted, including Palatine, where I live :)
The drawings are very simplistic and comic strip-ish.
Fun to see Chicago and some of its suburbs depicted, including Palatine, where I live :)
August 7, 2015
The simple lines and journal-like feel work together really well and create tension, too, between restraint and intensity. I really like the form of graphic memoir because it allows for the subtle relationship dynamics to come through without explanation, and Porcellino chooses and draws dynamic-descriptive moments well. They become an important part of the landscape and they do a lot of work toward building drama, which means he doesn't have to go with a conventional narrative in order to create movement.
In "Perfect Example" the crises are often understated and intermittent, but the emotional pain is there. Porcellino's deep and unique and yet classically teenagery emotional struggles come through with grace and at times humor, but also with reverence for what a struggle growing up is. I appreciate the pacing and the address of ongoing existential frustration. Porcellino's memoirish self struggles for self-understanding, but he cannot pause life in order to grasp it. He's always reaching for it and rarely catching hold. A lot to consider in here about friendship, masculinity, intimacy, love and trust.
He doesn't explore his mood struggles as deeply in here as he does in "The Hospital Suite", but he does address them. These struggles are not a choice, and their physical and emotional manifestations often make no sense to him. "I've always been this way...But I don't know why...I'm just sad...All the time." The words, the close-up frames and closed-in feeling, the pain in his (close, closed) eyes are (I don't know how to close this sentence.) Beautifully awkward and graceful all at once.
In "Perfect Example" the crises are often understated and intermittent, but the emotional pain is there. Porcellino's deep and unique and yet classically teenagery emotional struggles come through with grace and at times humor, but also with reverence for what a struggle growing up is. I appreciate the pacing and the address of ongoing existential frustration. Porcellino's memoirish self struggles for self-understanding, but he cannot pause life in order to grasp it. He's always reaching for it and rarely catching hold. A lot to consider in here about friendship, masculinity, intimacy, love and trust.
He doesn't explore his mood struggles as deeply in here as he does in "The Hospital Suite", but he does address them. These struggles are not a choice, and their physical and emotional manifestations often make no sense to him. "I've always been this way...But I don't know why...I'm just sad...All the time." The words, the close-up frames and closed-in feeling, the pain in his (close, closed) eyes are (I don't know how to close this sentence.) Beautifully awkward and graceful all at once.
November 13, 2015
Raw, awkward, sporadic, alienating. Appropriately so, as the topic is depression.
September 19, 2011
John Porcellino—or at least Porcellino in the guise of Perfect Example's John P—is not the kind of person I really understand. He suffers under a cloud of depression that curdles even relationships he values. He hopes just like I do but as life rejects those dreams (since this is what life does), he is turned toward home countries where I find no citizenship. Small things set off a miasma of the psyche and drag his mood into the dimlands, into a world cloaked in malaise. John P is not the kind of person I really understand, but for that Perfect Example offers me purview into an experience of this world that is foreign to my own.
Many of the details of John P's life intersect with my own. The years are a touch off (I was a sixth/seventh grader in '86 while John was in the throes of high school), but in a lot of ways that's rather incidental to the social dynamic presented. John P is a bit of skater and I would skate from place to place in the days before I was a licensed driver. John P listens to music outside the mainstream of the high school mise-en-scène and I did the same. John P's hair doesn't match his mother's ideal for a teenage boy; and lest we forget, same here. I was stimulant free just like John P was. And girls were a tough nut to crack for both of us (though John P seems more successful than I was).
And yet in one striking way, John P and I are very different and that is why I found this roughly autobiographical book as powerful as I did.
[Pro-tip for the inexperienced guys: if you ever go over to a girl's house and she asks if you want something to eat, this means within minutes you'll be on the couch eating sloppy make-outs. This happens 100% of the time.]
Pefect Example explores the day-in and -out of a young man with no apparent malfunction save for the inability to feel happiness. It seems like such a small thing, happiness. But its absence haunts him, chasing down and tarnishing even his more pleasant moments. In one moment he'll be having sloppy makeouts with a girl that he really does like (even if there's another girl he probably likes more) and seconds later some minor, abrupt alteration to the scene will shift his mood toward darkness and all pleasure in the experience evaporates. He wonders, fetally, at his inability to be happy.
Despite the humour with which Porcellino infuses John P's story (and there is quite a bit of it), there are plenty of moments that are hard to take, times when your heart breaks for this hurting child, this young man with so much promise and so little confidence in the world's ability to not destroy him. When he jumps the gun to ask out a girl who is not ready for him, I shuddered. When he wanders off from his friends to find a savage sort of solace, I worried. When he breaks down in suicidal rage and ineffectual terror, I wished for Porcellino to give him some respite. A friend who could correct his listing, point his rudder in some helpful direction, and give wind to his sails.
[This scene ends about as well as you expect it to.]
I was invested. Porcellino had me involved enough in John P's journey and struggle that I devoured the small bio of Porcellino in the book's backmatter and went straight onto Wikipedia to find what information I could regarding the intervening years since Perfect Example was drawn in March 1996. And that says something there. I might not have been wowed by the book's art, but it does work to enhance the story a bit. It's simple and unaffected and tells the story Porcellino intends to tell—and probably does so in better fashion than many more detail-oriented styles would allow. Perfect Example is not the best book I've read, but it is worthwhile and I'm glad I took the time to read it and I'm glad for what it's given me: a portrait of a man I could never be and of a guy I'd love to know.
____________
[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]
Many of the details of John P's life intersect with my own. The years are a touch off (I was a sixth/seventh grader in '86 while John was in the throes of high school), but in a lot of ways that's rather incidental to the social dynamic presented. John P is a bit of skater and I would skate from place to place in the days before I was a licensed driver. John P listens to music outside the mainstream of the high school mise-en-scène and I did the same. John P's hair doesn't match his mother's ideal for a teenage boy; and lest we forget, same here. I was stimulant free just like John P was. And girls were a tough nut to crack for both of us (though John P seems more successful than I was).
And yet in one striking way, John P and I are very different and that is why I found this roughly autobiographical book as powerful as I did.
[Pro-tip for the inexperienced guys: if you ever go over to a girl's house and she asks if you want something to eat, this means within minutes you'll be on the couch eating sloppy make-outs. This happens 100% of the time.]
Pefect Example explores the day-in and -out of a young man with no apparent malfunction save for the inability to feel happiness. It seems like such a small thing, happiness. But its absence haunts him, chasing down and tarnishing even his more pleasant moments. In one moment he'll be having sloppy makeouts with a girl that he really does like (even if there's another girl he probably likes more) and seconds later some minor, abrupt alteration to the scene will shift his mood toward darkness and all pleasure in the experience evaporates. He wonders, fetally, at his inability to be happy.
Despite the humour with which Porcellino infuses John P's story (and there is quite a bit of it), there are plenty of moments that are hard to take, times when your heart breaks for this hurting child, this young man with so much promise and so little confidence in the world's ability to not destroy him. When he jumps the gun to ask out a girl who is not ready for him, I shuddered. When he wanders off from his friends to find a savage sort of solace, I worried. When he breaks down in suicidal rage and ineffectual terror, I wished for Porcellino to give him some respite. A friend who could correct his listing, point his rudder in some helpful direction, and give wind to his sails.
[This scene ends about as well as you expect it to.]
I was invested. Porcellino had me involved enough in John P's journey and struggle that I devoured the small bio of Porcellino in the book's backmatter and went straight onto Wikipedia to find what information I could regarding the intervening years since Perfect Example was drawn in March 1996. And that says something there. I might not have been wowed by the book's art, but it does work to enhance the story a bit. It's simple and unaffected and tells the story Porcellino intends to tell—and probably does so in better fashion than many more detail-oriented styles would allow. Perfect Example is not the best book I've read, but it is worthwhile and I'm glad I took the time to read it and I'm glad for what it's given me: a portrait of a man I could never be and of a guy I'd love to know.
____________
[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]
November 18, 2024
spare and sullen. beautifully understated coming-of-age vignettes. definitely gonna check out more Porcellino.
February 26, 2017
One of the best things I've read from Porcellino. I think it encapsulates that suburban teenage depression quite well. I definitely saw glimpses of my life in this book, if in a completely different form (and a different generation). I think the stories here took place in the early to mid 80s, (after 83 based on the Husker Du references). I went through a similar summer-before-college experience, but close to 30 years after. Its remarkable how much I could relate to his situation though.
The ending succumbs to sentimentalism - John decides to embrace life and be happy. --- I don't think its that easy, but I guess throwing in scientific facts about brain chemistry would have just taken away from the artistry.
The ending succumbs to sentimentalism - John decides to embrace life and be happy. --- I don't think its that easy, but I guess throwing in scientific facts about brain chemistry would have just taken away from the artistry.
May 10, 2021
I’ve becoming quite a fan of Porcellino’s, I like his honest self assessment, sometimes awkward, unafraid to show even the thinking he finds embarrassing or strange, but without false humility or excessive display.
I like the art, it suits the tone and the stories I find.
I like the stories he chooses to tell, the observations, the details he notices, and how he tells them.
I often don’t connect with coming-of-age stories because I can’t relate to the experiences, this one was the first in a long time I really liked. A lot of the experiences, the thoughts, the feelings he describes were familiar
I like the art, it suits the tone and the stories I find.
I like the stories he chooses to tell, the observations, the details he notices, and how he tells them.
I often don’t connect with coming-of-age stories because I can’t relate to the experiences, this one was the first in a long time I really liked. A lot of the experiences, the thoughts, the feelings he describes were familiar
March 6, 2025
this book deserves a permanent spot on my goodreads. i think about this everyday “i see now that i create my own unhappiness…it’s the way i react to them that makes it good or bad.” remind me i need to reread this again, it changed me
September 19, 2014
Everything about "Perfect Example" is simple - the drawings, the moments depicted, the language - except for the emotions involved. Porcellino is a master at capturing the sublime confusion of life, particularly that melancholy time when adolescence is ending but "real life" hasn't yet begun.
Covering one tumultuous summer, "Perfect Example" captures its time and place so well that you can practically feel the warm summer breezes on your face and smell the bug spray and burning charcoal in the air. Also, as someone who has struggled with depression, Porcellino's depiction of sadness is just as real as his settings.
To some readers, the book may feel slight and mundane but I think it's magic. With its beautiful minimalist art and slice-of-life stories, "Perfect Example" is imperfectly perfect.
Covering one tumultuous summer, "Perfect Example" captures its time and place so well that you can practically feel the warm summer breezes on your face and smell the bug spray and burning charcoal in the air. Also, as someone who has struggled with depression, Porcellino's depiction of sadness is just as real as his settings.
To some readers, the book may feel slight and mundane but I think it's magic. With its beautiful minimalist art and slice-of-life stories, "Perfect Example" is imperfectly perfect.
April 8, 2007
Well mine is not hardcover, but whatever. It is a pretty cute book. As I said to my friend Grace, it's almost like the comics version of 'Slanted and Enchanted'-era Pavement, not to sound even more hipster or anything.
January 13, 2015
Ay, pobre chico rico que tiene tristeza. Por favor, que alguien le extirpe el ombligo cuanto antes que se lo va a tragar entero y a todos los que lo rodean. Y si de paso alguien le dona una mano con algo de talento, mejor.
July 25, 2016
Although not written as a cohesive autobiographical graphic novel, the stories/chapters that make up Perfect Example are the kind of comics making up his King-Cat series. Taken together, they present a focused thread of narrative that reads in a somewhat novelistic way.
April 28, 2016
I read this ages ago for one of my English classes. I LOVED it even though it was pretty depressing!!
February 17, 2025
The content felt very close to home, but about two decades before I experienced them. Teenage doubt, anxiety, excitement.
This book is a long story separated by a few chapters. The story isn’t exactly entertaining I don’t believe or even that unique.
It’s about a teenage boy in his senior year of high school. Making/hanging out with friends.
The art is simple and clean. The story is straightforward. It’s just a decent story that some may connect with.
I don’t think I’ll read this again because it was just fine for most of it. Nothing that fun or interesting.
This book is a long story separated by a few chapters. The story isn’t exactly entertaining I don’t believe or even that unique.
It’s about a teenage boy in his senior year of high school. Making/hanging out with friends.
The art is simple and clean. The story is straightforward. It’s just a decent story that some may connect with.
I don’t think I’ll read this again because it was just fine for most of it. Nothing that fun or interesting.
January 21, 2021
A quick and poignant examination of a teenage summer in the Chicago suburbs--who can relate!!! John teeters on the edge of depression while skateboarding, pursuing crushes, and driving to Chicago again and again. It's no secret that I'm a Porcellino superfan, so I'm shocked I hadn't read this before. But I found its simplicity, moments of quiet, and emotional resonance--which all lead up to a really triumphant ending--absolutely perfect.
February 12, 2019
Calling this memoir and fiction because why not? I pick up graphic works because they are fast and easy to read and then complain about them because they are quick easy reads. True story. I enjoyed the concluding resume more than the picture book part -- mostly because in the art work I could not tell any of the characters apart. The text at the end felt way more honest and revealing.
March 2, 2020
Far & away, one of my favorite books of all time. Deeply love the story, the characters, the headspace – very relatable to the sector of my own life that this story takes place. It has everything: the mysteries of life, fear of loving, feeling unloveable, unexplained sadness, disappointment, friend drama, poetry, laffs ("urinate & create!"), and an unforgettable appearance by Chuck Berry.
September 26, 2017
Teen depression focusing on summer between high school and college. Set in Chicago and suburbs. Minimalist illustrations.
May 23, 2019
I get the sentiment of this book, feels raw but also somewhat dated. I appreciate the art style for what it is but it was hard for me to stay focused on the overall story.
March 28, 2021
Slice of life
July 1, 2021
3.5 stars
July 21, 2021
Messy, spiny feelings expressed concisely - wish it was about triple its length
February 26, 2025
Un libro hermoso honesto y sensible
August 2, 2025
Bien. no tengo mucho más que decir
November 14, 2013
Porcellino uses a disarmingly simple style that immediately evokes the drawings of childhood. Accompanied by deeply honest stories and occasional flourishes of sophisticated composition, his childlike renderings exhibit a vulnerability that engages the empathy of the reader profoundly. In this 2000 memoir the effect is particularly poignant. The book details the fragile, nearly fatal balance he walked in the summer before college. Often when great comics are relegated to the Youth Graphic Novels section it seems like a slight, or a sigh inducing oversight evidencing a lack of understanding regarding the diversity of the medium. In this case the location is apt and correct. Those of us who work with youth, or know them well, have often seen or maybe sensed when a young person we know has reached an internal season of crisis. They linger on the edges of life searching for meaning and fulfillment, finding inanity, tedious convention, unavoidable despair. Despite efforts to find fulfillment through music, friendships, love, something refuses to connect. The lack or absence becomes a thing in and of itself. This thing is often called depression. Young people are particularly sensitive, and disaffected to authority figures, and as such, attempts to help often fall on deaf ears. To some extent this has to do with our societies' general lack of language tools or comfort talking about Depression, Suicide, or How to Navigate this Sometimes Beautiful Sometimes Fucked up World We All Live In. And this is why "Perfect Example" is a great book. It presumes no power nor efficacy towards fixing anyone else's negative feedback loops. Nonetheless it shows that despite ones' intentions, desires, or expectations; deliverance from that empty place common among the depressed is possible. And it can sometimes happen all on its own, without permission, or anticipation. I don't know, but I imagine that knowledge would be helpful. Because it's not some overt pamphlet on "How to Cheer Up When Your Feeling Down" handing a book like this to a kid who might be feeling depressed is likely to be surreptitious enough to make them think of you as cool instead of "some meddling adult". So...take note, if you're concerned for the mental welfare of an adolescent or teen, there are a lot of things you could do. One of the simplest is to give them evidence that some people just like them made it through: "Perfect Example", John Porcellino.
April 5, 2013
I bought Perfect Example after being thoroughly impressed by Porcellino's adapted excerpt from Thoreau's Walden in The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2: From "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray. In the Graphic Canon, his minimalist art style was a lovely compliment to Thoreau's minimalistic philosophy. The art hinted at so much more left unsaid. Sadly, in Perfect Example, the minimalism just feels simplistic. A nice story with a nice message, but nothing beyond that. Who knows? Perhaps I read this a few years too late.
May 29, 2012
I found myself unable to connect with this story. Although I will be graduating highschool in a few days, I do not share the cringeworthy thoughts of the depressed main character. The summer after highschool is supposed to be fun, not awkward and depressing. I can understand why one may become depressed but I just can't relate. The story and illustrations are terrible. All in all, this story is very depressing and boring. Do not read if you are feeling down and bored, it will make you feel even worse.
January 8, 2015
Actual Rating: 2.8
To be honest, even after reading the last page of this novel, I still can't shake the depressed feeling off the story. This might be because I read the author's bio which talks about what happens after the story is over. It's almost like a sad capture of hope that John felt at a point in his life, like an unintentional reminder that though you may have hope now, not everything will go to plan.
I could understand the character, John, to a certain extent, though it wasn't enough to fully feel the point of the novel.
To be honest, even after reading the last page of this novel, I still can't shake the depressed feeling off the story. This might be because I read the author's bio which talks about what happens after the story is over. It's almost like a sad capture of hope that John felt at a point in his life, like an unintentional reminder that though you may have hope now, not everything will go to plan.
I could understand the character, John, to a certain extent, though it wasn't enough to fully feel the point of the novel.
June 3, 2012
I'm not sure if I'm old enough yet to "revisit" my high school days - that awkwardness feels like it was just yesterday, still with me even. On the surface these stories are fairly simple and charming, but they deal with all too real issues such as depression, anxiety, and hopelessness and it's clear that the author has overcome some of his anxieties that he can now see are "foolish" but that he's still currently working out most of them. I like his drawing style a lot 2!
November 1, 2014
I like this guy. King Cat was so good, I was sure to buy the next book I saw with his name on it, and this is it (even if it was 14yo at the time it got to me). Great voice and perspective and atmosphere. All kinds of interesting and subtle comic moments... Empty dialog bubbles, thought bubbles cropped out of their contents by the panel frame... All came together nicely to really hit the teen post-high school story square on the head.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews