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The cover to Kayla E's Precious Rubbish, featuring an illustration of a worried-looking woman in a classical cartoon style holding a baby. The woman has bandages on her face and looks to have been beaten up, while the baby has a tear falling from one eye.
The interior of Precious Rubbish, featuring a number of colorful illustrations from the book, as well as a signed bookplate by Kayla E. and a copy of the Precious Rubbish "Li'l Glop" comic.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, The cover to Kayla E's Precious Rubbish, featuring an illustration of a worried-looking woman in a classical cartoon style holding a baby. The woman has bandages on her face and looks to have been beaten up, while the baby has a tear falling from one eye.
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, The interior of Precious Rubbish, featuring a number of colorful illustrations from the book, as well as a signed bookplate by Kayla E. and a copy of the Precious Rubbish "Li'l Glop" comic.
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Kayla E.

Precious Rubbish

On sale date: April 8, 2025

A landmark graphic novel debut and groundbreaking work of trauma recollection told in the style of post-war children’s comics.

“If an exorcism can ever be slow and quiet, then every panel I’ve finished has felt something like an exorcism. The gutters give me space to make sense of things: to connect dots and close gaps. To remember.” Kayla E.’s Precious Rubbish is an experimental graphic memoir drawn in a style that references the aesthetics of mid-century children’s comics and tells the story of a childhood shaped by maternal emotional dysregulation, rural poverty, and incest. The author’s childhood is portrayed as a collection of short-form comics and gag panels punctuated by interactive elements like paper dolls, satirical advertisements, games, and puzzles.

While the work is concerned with violence and a particularly Texan brand of Pentecostal fanaticism, it is presented in a playful visual language with a deadpan humor that elevates the material beyond mere graphic memoir. Precious Rubbish is a landmark work of comics storytelling and graphic medicine.

The debut graphic novel from artist Kayla E., Precious Rubbish asks the reader to do the extratextual work of filling out narrative gaps, which mirrors the challenge of trauma recollection. The reader is invited to co-labor in the meaning-making process, an exercise that facilitates an intimacy (between the author, the subject, and the reader) that is at once horrifying and hilarious.

Praise

"Precious Rubbish is a scream as precisely pitched as a middle C from a tuning fork . . . Her work is such an unexpected mixture of control and frankness that it is impossible to ignore." — The New York Times

"Kayla E. uses her medium to striking effect: her wry portrait reveals a fresh eye, at once vulnerable and undaunted." — The New Yorker

"This four-color atomic bomb of a comic signals the arrival of a formidable talent." — Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Kayla E.'s uniquely unconventional, hauntingly shocking debut graphic memoir is reminiscent of a complicated mosaic that's missing pieces but has been filled in with unexpected replacements to create a disturbing collage both horrific and beautiful." — Booklist Starred Review

"FIVE STARS STUNNING! Precious Rubbish has the biblical-level artistry and poetry of William Blake combined with the playful commercialism of Mad Magazine." — Maria Bamford, comedian and NYT bestselling author of Sure, I'll Join Your Cult

Specs

Pages
196
Format
Hardback
Color
Full-color.
Dimensions
7.5" × 10.8"
ISBN-13
9781683969280
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