The following appeared in “favorite books of 2006” at CRITICAL MASS, the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors:

And while critics have hailed this as The Year of the Graphic Novel Memoir, I must put in a plug, not for Alison Bechdel’s deeply poignant Fun Home, but for Eddie Campbell’s The Fate of the Artist, in which the author, who has disappeared, hires a troupe of amateur actors to recreate silly scenes from his wretched family life. It’s an autobiography of Tristam Shandy-ian complexity, delicate collages and comic-strip humor.