| I Never Liked You | |
|---|---|
Cover of the 2nd ("New Definitive") edition of I Never Liked You |
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| Publisher | Drawn and Quarterly |
| Date | 1994 |
| Page count | 200 pages |
| Creative team | |
| Creator(s) | Chester Brown |
| Original publication | |
| Published in | Yummy Fur |
| Issue(s) | 26-30 |
| Date(s) of publication | October 1991-April 1993 |
| Language | English |
| ISBN | 978-0-969-67016-2 (1st ed.) 978-1-896-59714-0 (2nd ed.) |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | The Playboy |
| Followed by | The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995 |
I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex.
It was originally published in issues #26-30 of Brown's comic book, Yummy Fur, between October 1991 and April 1993, and was published in book form by Drawn and Quarterly in 1994. A "New Definitive Edition" was released in 2002, with the original black background of the pages changed to white, panels slightly rearranged on the page, and with two pages of notes appended.
Contents |
The autobiographical story takes place during Brown's adolescence, growing up in Châteauguay, Quebec in Canada. Notably absent in the story are "the normal staples of teen life," such as sex and drugs, due to Brown's life being shaped by his strictly religious parents.[1]
Brown ("Chester" or "Chet" throughout the book) depicts his introversion and his difficulty talking to people. He has trouble talking with girls, even though he is interested in them, and they express their interest in him. He constantly, and inexplicably, turns them away.
Chet's mother takes a hard line with him with regards to swearing. As a result, he has a hard time bringing himself to use such language, a fact that is picked up by his classmates who tease him for it and repeatedly try to trick him into swearing. This was the source for the original title of the story (Fuck) when first serialized.
He also has difficulty expressing affection for his mother (except in his imagination), who is suffering from schizophrenia and has herself hospitalized towards the end of the narrative.
The book is told in "scenes...[that pop] out of nowhere as a dreamlike series of pulses". Little setup or context is given to each scene in the book. "The effect is sometimes eerie, as here, despite the grounding of the story in mundane everyday stuff."[3]
Unlike Brown's previous graphic novel, The Playboy, he makes limited use of a narrator or narrator's voice in I Never Liked You. The story is told almost entirely through its pictures and sparse dialogue.
The artwork is drawn using a brush, and is amongst the simplest and sparsest in Brown's body of work. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of hatching in the art. Brown had been paring down his style starting with the Playboy stories. He wasn't happy with his style, and was trying "to rebuild [his] style in a way that [he] would like," which he continued with I Never Liked You, where he was "trying to get even more pared down than The Playboy."[4]
The story was originally serialized as Fuck in Brown's Yummy Fur (issues #26-30) between October 1991 and April 1993. The panels were much more crowded on the page in Yummy Fur than in the eventual collected edition, in issue #30 continuing from the cover and onto the page page. When collected, Brown reformatted the panels on the pages, which resulted in a much higher page count, but the story was found to be more effective that way.
The story was the last of Brown's works from his much-acclaimed "autobio" period that started with the story Helder in Yummy Fur #19. Yummy Fur continued for two more issues before coming to an end as Brown started to publish Underwater under its own title.
When the story was originally collected in 1994 the pages were black behind all the panels, but when the new edition was released in 2002, the pages were changed to white. Asked why in 2007, Brown said, "I like austerity. The white background looks more austere to me."[5] A two-page appendix of notes was also included in this edition, a trend in Brown's work since My Mom was a Schizophrenic.[6]
In contrast with his earlier works, especially the highly-improvised Ed the Happy Clown, Brown says that in I Never Liked You "[t]he[re] was very little improvisation in I Never Liked You. It was quite planned out, even if I didn’t write a full script."[5]
The book was dedicated to media personality Sook-Yin Lee, who was Brown's girlfriend from 1992 until 1996.
As one of "The autobiographical comics from Yummy Fur", I Never Liked You placed #38 on the prestigious Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century. I Never Liked You was also included in Stephen Weiner's book The 101 Best Graphic Novels.[7]
The book is admired by critics and many of Brown's fellow cartoonists. Gilbert Hernandez, of Love and Rockets fame, has said, "The Playboy and I Never Liked You are probably the best graphic novels next to Maus".[8] Norwegian cartoonist Jason said, "[o]ne of my favorite autobiographical comics is I Never Liked You."[9]
Critic Charles Hatfield, author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, calls the "hide with me"[10] page of I Never Liked You "[one] of my favorite comics pages."[3]
| Translations | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Title | Publisher | Date | Translator | ISBN |
| Italian | Non Mi Sei Mai Piaciutto[11] | Black Velvet Editrice | 1999 | Omar Martini[12] | 978-8-887-82700-2 |
| French | Je ne t'ai jamais aimé | éditions Les 400 coups[13] | 2001 | 978-2-845-96036-7 | |
| éditions Delcourt[14] | 2010 | Vincent Bernière | 978-2-756-01449-4 | ||
| Spanish | Nunca me has gustado[15] | Astiberri Ediciones | 2007 | 978-8-496-81518-6 | |
| German | Fuck[16] | Reprodukt | 2008 | Torsten Alisch and Dirk Baranek hand-lettered by Dirk Rehm |
978-3-938-51196-1 |
| Greek | ΠΟΤΕ ΔΕΝ ΣΕ ΣΥΜΠΑΘΗΣΑ[17] | Inkpress/Kormoranos | 2010 | Χάρης Λαγκούσης | 978-9-608-96593-5 |
| Korean | 너 좋아한 적 없어 | Sai Comics | 2004-11-30 | 978-8-932-90583-9 | |
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