My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (2018)
Tangentially connected to Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Criminal series of noir comics (which, full disclosure, I have yet to read), My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies feels like a minor work by the duo. That said, even a “minor” work by Brubaker and Phillips is still pretty darn good and worth checking out. Teen addict Ellie chafes against the rules of the rehab clinic where she’s currently staying. But as she falls for a fellow addict, we learn more of her difficult past and her bizarre, even self-destructive idolization of addicts like Gram Parsons and Billie Holiday. I was actually a little underwhelmed by the story, which seems to follow a fairly clichéd path. But in classic Brubaker fashion, the graphic novel ends with a real gut punch that forces you to reassess everything you just read.
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