BOOM! Studios has released an all-new look at Happiness Will Follow, the graphic memoir from cartoonist Mike Hawthorne. The forthcoming graphic novel tells Hawthorne’s story of growing up in New York as a Puerto Rican kid with an abusive single mother. The deeply personal story is the first autobiographical work from the artist, best known for work on Marvel series for Deadpool and Superior Spider-Man. He’s joined in telling his story by colorists Sam Bowen & Ari Pluchinsky, and letterer Clem Robins.
Here’s the synopsis for Happiness Will Follow, which is being published under BOOM!’s Archaia imprint:
Mike Hawthorne’s mother, Blanca Otero, was a proud though atypical Puerto Rican woman from Santurce, San Juan who moved to the mainland, where she became a single mother and struggled to raise her son alone in New York City, a place that tormented them both with its unforgiving nature. But when Mike falls victim to a death curse—a haunting sign of the old country that his mother could never truly escape—she begins a series of events that drive him away from her both physically and emotionally, leaving him to grapple with his complicated relationships with his mother, identity, and heritage.
You can check out the six-page preview, exclusive to The Beat, of Happiness Will Follow below, and click here for another preview for the memoir we ran previously. The graphic novel will arrive in bookstores on Tuesday, July 21st, with a direct market in-store date of Wednesday, August 12th.
