Lifelike

by Dara Naraghi, Tom Williams, Steve Black (Artist)

Lifelike is a diverse collection of slice of life stories... and beyond. Each vignette, illustrated by a different artist, presents a glimpse into a different corner of the world outside our window. From the sentimental to the shocking, the familiar to the unknown, it's all here. Lifelike's stories are not limited to the cliched autobiographic tales so often associated with the genre. Instead, the stories range in content from noir crime to love stories to war memoirs to humorous conversation pieces. A multi-cultural, multi-ethnic cast of characters infuses the book with a realism often missing from today's comics.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

108 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2007

About the author

Dara Naraghi was born in Iran, but has made Columbus, Ohio his home for most of his life. His debut graphic novel LIFELIKE, a collection of slice-of-life vignettes, garnered many positive reviews from the likes of award-winning novelist Cory Doctorow, and cartoonist Sam Kieth.

His other notable graphic novels include: TERMINATOR SALVATION official movie prequel (3 weeks on the NYT Best Sellers list), THE ABSURD ADVENTURES OF ARCHIBALD AARDVARK, WITCH & WIZARD: BATTLE FOR SHADOWLAND (2 weeks on the NYT Best Sellers list) and WITCH & WIZARD: OPERATION ZERO, original graphic novels based on characters and settings from the James Patterson series of YA novels. His current project is the award-winning PERSIA BLUES trilogy of graphic novels.

Dara is also a founding member of the Columbus, Ohio-based comic book writers/artists collective known as PANEL. To date, he has contributed stories to - and helped produce - 20 volumes of their comics anthology, which he self-publishes under his Ferret Press imprint. For information on his latest project, check out www.DaraNaraghi.com

Reviews

[A.J. Bauers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection of vignettes. A few of them hit me square in the feels, like the comic's opener "The Long Journey," "Art/Life," and "The Routine." The common theme in all of them seemed to be the challenging of first impressions. You think you may know what the story is going to be about, only to have the ending completely surprise you.

Naraghi had a different artist for each story, which was extremely cool. My favorites were Jerry Lange, with his surreal use of watercolors and Tom Williams for his caricature styler and earthy color pallet.

Definitely worth the read for short story enthusiasts.

[StrictlySequential ArtNarrative · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dara is a guy who I picked because I assumed the name was female. THEN, to really rub it in, there are 11 artists in here- and ZERO are female.

These stories fall under the "mostly gritty primarily city" catagory of real-life inspired fiction fusion.

[Loocuh Frayshure · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a fine little collection. The writing is never anything past decent, but the shortness of the stories and mix of art makes this pretty solid for my classroom library—it’s simple and easily digestible for the kiddos.

[Destiny Dawn Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of my ongoing exploration of comics and graphic novels. I picked this up from the library, on a random browse. I really like the various styles from the different artists. I also really enjoyed the various stories--some of them profound and some of them mundane. I liked the little twists that they take and how Naraghi captures the best and worst of humanity. For someone just starting to explore the medium, I think that this provided a good cross-section of the different types of stories that can be told through serial art.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm one of the artists on this book. This book collects some of Dara's earlier shorts that ran on Komikworks as a webcomic. I think it's interesting as you get to see Dara's development as a writer. The gap between Skin Deep and the Imaginarians is two or three years for me. Dara's currently got more work coming out from IDW. Including an adaptation of Cory Doctorow stories, and a zombie/dinosaur piece that had me sold at the concept.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book has a great variation of drawing styles, but poor stories/writing. i wanted a lot more out of the stories, but none of them added up to much. friends, i know you'd never have found this anyway, but if you do end up seeing it, don't buy it. just borrow it from me for a day or two.

[Frightful_elk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nice selection of artists, but disappointing and mindless stories.