Happiness Will Follow

A deeply personal one-shot from Mike Hawthorne at Boom! Studios, Happiness Will Follow (2020) is a raw, autobiographical comic that explores the artist's childhood in a violent, poverty-stricken Puerto Rican household. Hawthorne both writes and illustrates this intimate story, which grapples with the legacy of abuse and the struggle to find joy amid trauma. It matters as a powerful example of the medium's capacity for unflinching memoir.