A Complete Lowlife

Ed Brubaker and Tom Hart teamed up for this 1997 Black Eye one-shot, a raw, autobiographical look at a young cartoonist's aimless drift through dead-end jobs and failed relationships. It's a stark, early example of Brubaker's gift for gritty, personal storytelling, rendered in Hart's expressive, scratchy linework. A quiet but significant snapshot of the alt-comics scene of the late '90s.