This book is very nicely done, some great art, and purely in black and white. Only problem with this book is that is weights about as much as the 7th Harry Potter book, and is taller so it doesn't make for the easiest book to carry around.This book is broken into twelve chapters and each one takes place in a different city, but the main character Megan is central to about 10 of the 12 and is in the other 2 in some way. It is telling the story of her life as she drives to figure out where she bel...

Local is a collection of 12 disjointed stories about (or in some way related to) the central character, Megan McKeenan. She’s not always a likeable character. She abandons people. She doesn’t appreciate her family. She lies to strangers to entertain herself or to escape or just out of boredom-it’s not clear. Taken one story at a time, at first it doesn’t add up to much. But what you get at the end is a picture of a girl’s life, things that happened to her, mistakes she made, and how she ulti

First, this novel is a pleasure to look at and hold. So well packaged. I read this in one sitting, I enjoyed it like an indie movie, but it was really reading the artist/writer entries at the back that led me to re-read it and appreciate it on a whole different level. I am beginning to really love the innovation and freedom of narrative that is possible with the graphic novel genre. This is a great entry for my shelf of keepers!

Book blurb: A collection of twelve interconnected short stories. Crossing genres as it crosses the country, Local examines Megan McKeenan, a young woman who sets off from Portland, OR with nothing but a backpack and a bad case of wanderlust. Each emotional vignette is a self-contained story that represents one year in the life of this young vagabond as she struggles to find a place to call home, both physically and spiritually.I'm not usually a fan of short stories, and though some of these stor...

I read Local quickly. It was supremely riveting, and I wanted to be finished. It's brilliant and disturbing. Local contains 12 separate but interrelated stories with one character in common, Megan. In each story, she's either central or tangential. I wondered if Megan was based on a real person. I read later on, she wasn't. She felt real. The stories felt real. I was an outsider looking in (to Megan's life), much akin to watching a film. My life barely touches the edges of hers. Although, I'm no...

I've been a full-time traveller for a bit more than two years now, and there are two pleasures I crave from a stable life: reading graphic novels and eating Finnish salmiakki ice cream. While the ice cream has to wait for my return, I got a chance to read a graphic novel today as I decided to spend the whole day in a library in Belgium.Local is a short story collection about vagabond Megan who drifts around North America. Each story takes place about a year after the previous one, thus following...

What a gorgeous piece of work. Slices of life from all over North America, covering a dozen years. The binding is notably artful and there are liner notes in the back. I find myself wanting to open the book to a random page and just stare forever. The edgy realism is just breathtaking. This is the kind of sequential art I would frame and put up on my wall (obvious shout-out to Ryan Kelly). I particularly enjoyed the vignettes which were a touch twisted - Polaroid Boyfriend; The Last Lonely Days

12 separate stories, stand alone stories, but now linked in the collection, all about a girl who leaves Portland to find herself in different cities and we get Ryan Kelly's great art depicting her in various ways in these places, and each story is a year from her life… I won't write a long review because I just read Raina's and agree with it, and it is more thorough, but I also was disappointed it kinda gets wrapped up in the way it does, and I also liked the really edgy ones.

The first few stories I really was not into the book. I just didn't care about this girl. The second half I liked it. Overall very alright, it is ultimately about a lot of people that really could just use a good therapist.

A beautiful, oversize collection of the 12-issue comics series by writer Brian Wood and artist Ryan Kelly. The conceit behind "Local" is that each issue represents a year (from roughly 2004 to 2006) and each highlights a different North American city. It also becomes -- almost accidentally, it seems -- the story of Megan, who slowly grows from a teenage runaway into an adult. We see how she changes with every place and watch her interact with (or just as often, avoid interacting with) new people...

Brilliant. Brian Wood tells the story of Megan McKeenan, a drifter and generally lost woman in her twenties who experiences the loneliness and existential angst that many of my generation have (and others, too, obviously). We just don't know what to do with ourselves, how to act, where to go, and sometimes we lose it. Megan drifts aimlessly and makes a series of impulsive decisions which usually end badly, and instead of dealing with the consequences in a mature and adult fashion, she bails time...

The stories feature more that one protagonist, but are ultimately centered on Megan, a girl that runs away from home to live an unfettered life for over a decade. She only feels the pull home after her mother dies. At this point she realizes what her experiences - some happy, some tragic - have given her. She doesn't regret her past because it has helped to make her grow. In the end she comes full circle, but she does so on her own terms.Megan is a young woman trying to help her boyfriend obtain...

Local is a collection of twelve stories taking place in different parts of North America, in the life of Megan McKeenan. Life is depicted in a real form and true sense - very well drawn and engaging storyline! Blurb:LOCAL examines Megan McKeenan, a young woman who sets off from Portland, OR with nothing but a backpack and a bad case of wanderlust. Each emotional vignette is a self-contained story that represents one year in the life of this young vagabond as she struggles to find a place to call...

I wanted to take a day to reflect. This was a BIG story with single stories for each chapter and all connecting at the very end. Megan is a drifter. That means she travels from city to city to try and find her place. Find people she can connect to. You start off with a story of her and the current boy she'd dating and how he wants her to do something illegal and score him drugs. Then you flip to a story about a stalker who she begins to somewhat fall for. Then we jump into a time when she was he...

Most peoples' perception of the opposite sex are pretty damn flawed. There's really only three kinds of people anyone really deals with, the people who you're attracted to, the people who are attracted to you, and the people thrown your way by circumstances (coworkers, churches, book groups, etc). This is hardly a scientific cross sample of anything, but people base their perceptions around such data.Much has been said about the sort of capricious girls some men find eternally screwing with thei...

After little disconcerting comics Demo, I found the courage to read another black and white indie comics from my favourite Brian Wood. Thanks to gods this time is the experience different. Megan drifted from home in her late teen years. She's not a very likeable character (at first), and she usually copes with her issues by running away, so she's spending her years by drifting from town to town. But Local is not only about Megan. it consists of twelve standalone stories, common people stories, t...

A collection of twelve interconnected short stories. Every chapter represents one year in the life of protagonist Megan McKeenan, from age 18 to age 30. Beautiful, beautiful stories, and with great art, too. The art truly shines in the quiet frames, particularly in the largely wordless "Polaroid Boyfriend". My other favorites are "The Last 10 Lonely Days at the Oxford Theater" and "Megan and Gloria, Apartment 5A". "Two Brothers" was a violent surprise.

Local is mostly the story of Megan McKeenan and her insatiable wanderlust. Each of the 12 stories collected here is set in a different city as she travels around, taking meaningless jobs, hooking up with guys, maybe-almost falling in love, reminiscing about her past, and trying (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to stay one step ahead of herself. Along the way, she gets into all kinds of trouble and makes a lot of stupid decisions. Basically, this book is like an ode to the nightmare that i...

I took my time reading this one, as I tend to go through graphic novels much too quickly. The first story really drew me in - a bit like "Choose Your Own Adventure" genre with all the possible outcomes and scenarios of one single action - as you meet Megan McKinnen, the young main character of the book. There are 12 issues in this volume, gathered together to show 12 localities where Megan travels or has a connection to. The cities and towns span the US and Canada. Some of her experiences are ha...

I am fast becoming a huge fan of Brian Wood's. Like Demo, this book is about fringe characters, those who are rootless and alienated. The main character Megan is herself rootless, a reluctant travelor who can't put down roots. It is fitting then that she is our guide to perscription drug addicts, brothers who lose it and nearly destroy their famillies, and even her own family torn apart not just by the tragic death of their mother, but of the horrible house where they grew up. Her brother is so