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2013 Stumptown Comic Arts Award Nominee: Best Cartoonist

Ranked #1 on MTV Geek's "Best Graphic Novels of 2012"

One of Library Journal's "Best Books of 2012: Graphic Novels"

Ranked #3 (tie) on Boing Boing's "Best Damn Comics of the Year" survey

Ranked #4 (tie) on Publishers Weekly's "2012 Graphic Novel Critics' Poll"

Ranked #2 on Panel Patter's "Favorite Graphic Novels of 2012"

Ranked #54 on Comic Book Resources' "Top 100 Comics of 2012"

The debut graphic novel from Noah Van Sciver follows the twentysomething Abraham Lincoln as he loses everything, long before becoming our most beloved president. Lincoln is a rising Whig in the state’s legislature as he arrives in Springfield, IL to practice law. With all of his possessions under his arms in two saddlebags, he is quickly given a place to stay by a womanizing young bachelor who becomes his friend and close confidant. Lincoln builds a life and begins friendships with the town’s top lawyers and politicians. He attends elegant dances and meets an independent-minded young woman from a high-society Kentucky family, and after a brisk courtship, becomes engaged. But, as time passes and uncertainty creeps in, young Lincoln is forced to battle a dark cloud of depression brought on by a chain of defeats and failures culminating into a nervous breakdown that threatens his life and sanity. This cloud of dark depression Lincoln calls “The Hypo.”

Dense crosshatching and an attention to detail help bring together this completely original telling of a man driven by an irrepressible desire to pull himself up by his bootstraps, overcome all obstacles, and become the person he strives to be. All the while unknowingly laying the foundation of character he would use as one of America’s greatest presidents.

Advance praise:

"Noah Van Sciver has brought new soul to this hard, weird time in Lincoln's life. The Hypo is a story of suffering & yearning, artfully told." — Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln's Melancholy

"Noah Van Sciver has developed a storytelling style that I find enormously appealing. In this book he's used that style to create a vivid and engaging portrait." — Chester Brown, author of Louis Riel

16-page excerpt (download 2.4 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

"It’s rather like an American version of Dickens infused into a Jane Austen love story, and Van Sciver’s moody cross-hatching works exceedingly well in showing these lesser-known facets of Lincoln’s nonpolitical life. An excellent choice for compelling leisure reading as well as for use in classrooms." – Library Journal

"Van Sciver['s]... spare style and determined cross-hatching allow a vivid sense of the scene — personal and social, ballroom to slave pen. He has successfully captured all these and brought them to life with his own idiosyncratic touch." – Paul Buhle, Rain Taxi

"… an interesting look at young Abe Lincoln and his melancholic. This is a side of Lincoln that is often overlooked…" – Lone Star Book Review

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