Leslie Stein’s Present,published by Drawn and Quarterly, has won this year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the “Graphic Novel/Comics” category.
Called “her best work to date” by our own Alex Dueben, Present collects short comics that originally appeared on Vice.com.
“… that’s been a theme in all my work, the little daily things that make life worth living are as equally important to me as overarching themes,” Stein told Dueben in an interview last year. “To me they really are, especially aspects of the natural world like weather and animals. Which I mean, are not little things at all, but I’m not so human centric in my view of the world, so I think I view things kind of differently. I also talk about the title in the introduction as having the dual meaning of being a gift. I used to make collaged comics out of construction paper in college and it was very tedious. I would fool myself into thinking I was making a card for a love one to get through the page without giving up.”
The Times has given an award in the graphic novel category since 2009, when Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli won the award. Other previous winners include The Love Bunglers by Jaime Hernandez, Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines and Beverly by Nick Drnaso.