Fantagraphics Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life

Chronicles the Austrian cartoonist's rebellious hitchhiking journey across Italy at age seventeen, during which she and her best friend Edi experienced sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll as well as stints in jail. "Two teenaged punk-rock girls hitchhike their way across Italy without a penny in their pockets. Set in 1984, Ulli Lust's Today is the last day of the rest of your life is an intimate, detailed, funny, touching, and dramatic chronicle of several eventfulmonths in the life of the author as she and her new best friend Edi make their way from Vienna, Austria to Sicily. There is sex. There are drugs. There is rock 'n' roll. And there are stints in jail, inclement weather, panhandling, life lessons, new friendships, acts of kindness and acts of betrayal-- and, this being Sicily, some uncomfortably close brushes with the Organization Whose Name You Mustn't Mention" -- p. (4] of cover. A powerful debut graphic memoir. Back in 1984, a rebellious,17-year-old, punked-out Ulli Lust set out for a wild hitchhiking trip across Italy, from Naples through Verona and Rome and ending up in Sicily. Twenty-five years later, this talented Austrian cartoonist has looked back at that tumultuous summer and delivered a long, dense, sensitive,and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece.Miraculously combining a perfect memory for both emotional and physical detail with the sometimes painful lucidity two and half decades’ distance have brought to her understanding of the events, Lust meticulously shows the who, where, when, and how (specifically, how an often penniless young girl can survive for months on the road) of a sometimes dangerous and sometimes exhilarating journey. Particularly haunting is her portrait of her fellow traveler, the gangly, promiscuous devil-may-care Edi who veers from being her spunky, funny best friend in the world to an out-of-control lunatic with no consideration for anything but her own whims and desires.Universally considered one of the very finest examples of the new breed of graphic novels coming from Europe, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life won the 2011 Angouleme “Revelation” prize, and Fantagraphics is proud to bring it to English speaking readers. Back in 1984, a rebellious,17-year-old, punked-out Ulli Lust set out for a wild hitchhiking trip across Italy, from Naples through Verona and Rome and ending up in Sicily. Twenty-five years later, this talented Austrian cartoonist has looked back at that tumultuous summer and delivered a long, dense, sensitive,and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece.Miraculously combining a perfect memory for both emotional and physical detail with the sometimes painful lucidity two and half decades’ distance have brought to her understanding of the events, Lust meticulously shows the who, where, when, and how (specifically, how an often penniless young girl can survive for months on the road) of a sometimes dangerous and sometimes exhilarating journey. Particularly haunting is her portrait of her fellow traveler, the gangly, promiscuous devil-may-care Edi who veers from being her spunky, funny best friend in the world to an out-of-control lunatic with no consideration for anything but her own whims and desires.Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life Autorid: Ulli Lust