What Am I Doing Here?

Abner Dean's singular 1947 graphic novel for Simon and Schuster, What Am I Doing Here?, is a surreal, one-shot meditation on modern anxiety and the search for meaning. Through a series of wordless, meticulously detailed panels, Dean's nameless, everyman protagonist navigates a dreamlike landscape of psychological absurdity. This standalone work stands as a landmark of early American graphic storytelling, a sophisticated and darkly humorous precursor to the confessional, existential comics of later decades.