The Mess

A family death and a missing Picasso send a mother and son on an unexpected spring break that threatens to permanently damage their relationship — if they survive the trip!

When her semi-estranged and penniless hoarder father dies, Erin Messina is tasked with cleaning out his house before the bank forecloses on it. This otherwise thankless task is given a purpose, however, when she remembers the original Picasso drawing her father was gifted in 1964. She enlists her teenage son, Jackson, to spend spring break looking for their possible ticket to long-term financial stability. Jackson, resentful and eager to shirk responsibility, befriends twin skateboarders who live in the hood, and tell him about the violent murder that happened directly across the street from his grandfather’s home — and the murderer who still lives there. Emotional baggage, paranoia, and frayed nerves stretch the Messina’s relationship to the brink, as The Mess careens to a thrilling final act that includes… two-way radio communication with the dead?

Over the past decade, Noah Van Sciver has established himself as the most versatile graphic novelist working today. Whether it be in the service of straight-up satire (Fante Bukowski, Beat It, Rufus!), serious historical nonfiction (Joseph Smith and the Mormons, The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln), autobiography (As a Cartoonist, One Dirty Tree), or books for younger readers (Calamity Before Jane, Johnny Appleseed), Van Sciver’s singular voice and style has proven remarkably malleable to the needs of each project. With The Mess, Van Sciver stakes yet new creative ground as a fiction writer, crafting the most magnetic and literary work of his career. The Mess is a brilliant, original graphic novel infused with drama, laughs, pathos, and suspense, beautifully drawn and colored in Van Sciver’s immersive and intimate style.