I Never Liked You

This article is about the graphic novel. For the song, see I Never Liked You (song).

I Never Liked You
Cover of the 2nd ("New Definitive") edition of I Never Liked You
Date	1994
Page count	200 pages
Publisher	Drawn and Quarterly
Creative team
Creators	Chester Brown
Original publication
Published in	Yummy Fur
Issues	26-30
Date of publication	October 1991-April 1993
Language	English
ISBN	978-0-969-67016-2 (1st ed.) 978-1-896-59714-0 (2nd ed.)
Chronology
Preceded by	The Playboy
Followed by	The Little Man: Short Strips 1980-1995

I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown, dealing with Brown's introversion and difficulty talking to others, especially members of the opposite sex.

It was originally published in issues #26-30 of Brown's comic book, Yummy Fur, between October 1991 and April 1993, and was published in book form by Drawn and Quarterly in 1994. A "New Definitive Edition" was released in 2002, with the original black background of the pages changed to white, panels slightly rearranged on the page, and with two pages of notes appended.

Overview

The autobiographical story takes place during Brown's adolescence, growing up in Châteauguay, Quebec in Canada. Notably absent in the story are "the normal staples of teen life," such as sex and drugs, due to Brown's life being shaped by his strictly religious parents.

Brown ("Chester" or "Chet" throughout the book) depicts his introversion and his difficulty talking to people. He has trouble talking with girls, even though he is interested in them, and they express their interest in him. He constantly, and inexplicably, turns them away.

Chet's mother takes a hard line with him with regards to swearing. As a result, he has a hard time bringing himself to use such language, a fact that is picked up by his classmates who tease him for it and repeatedly try to trick him into swearing. This was the source for the original title of the story (Fuck) when first serialized.

He also has difficulty expressing affection for his mother (except in his imagination), who is suffering from schizophrenia and has herself hospitalized towards the end of the narrative.

Main Characters

Chester "Chet" Brown

Brown's depiction of himself as an awkward, introverted teenager; he is emotionally withdrawn and finds refuge in drawing;

Gordon Brown

Chet's younger and more well-adjusted brother.

Mrs. Brown

(1923–76) Chet and Gordon's mother, who is suffering from schizophrenia and is eventually hospitalized and quickly ends up passing away. The story was originally called Fuck in reference to Brown's mother's hard stance against foul language.
The fact that his mother is schizophrenic is not made explicit in the book, but Brown talks about it in his cartoon essay My Mother was a Schizophrenic, in which he takes an anti-psychiatric stance.

Sky

a buxom dark haired girl whom Chet falls in love with, but with whom he can't bring himself to admit he likes. She connects with Chet and tries to develop a relationship, but he is unable to deal with his feelings and turns her away.

Connie

a popular, pretty blond girl who lives across the street from Chet's house

Carrie

Connie's younger sister who transparently has a crush on Chet and "develops a possessive attitude toward him", but whom Chester repeatedly tries to put off.

Style

The book is told in "scenes...[that pop] out of nowhere as a dreamlike series of pulses". Little setup or context is given to each scene in the book. "The effect is sometimes eerie, as here, despite the grounding of the story in mundane everyday stuff."

Unlike Brown's previous graphic novel, The Playboy, he makes limited use of a narrator or narrator's voice in I Never Liked You. The story is told almost entirely through its pictures and sparse dialogue.

The artwork is drawn using a brush, and is amongst the simplest and sparsest in Brown's body of work. Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of hatching in the art. Brown had been paring down his style starting with the Playboy stories. He wasn't happy with his style, and was trying "to rebuild [his] style in a way that [he] would like," which he continued with I Never Liked You, where he was "trying to get even more pared down than The Playboy."

Publishing History

The story was originally serialized as Fuck in Brown's Yummy Fur (issues #26-30) between October 1991 and April 1993. The panels were much more crowded on the page in Yummy Fur than in the eventual collected edition, in issue #30 continuing from the cover and onto the page page. When collected, Brown reformatted the panels on the pages, which resulted in a much higher page count, but the story was found to be more effective that way.

The story was the last of Brown's works from his much-acclaimed "autobio" period that started with the story Helder in Yummy Fur #19. Yummy Fur continued for two more issues before coming to an end as Brown started to publish Underwater under its own title.

When the story was originally collected in 1994 the pages were black behind all the panels, but when the new edition was released in 2002, the pages were changed to white. Asked why in 2007, Brown said, "I like austerity. The white background looks more austere to me." A two-page appendix of notes was also included in this edition, a trend in Brown's work since My Mom was a Schizophrenic.

In contrast with his earlier works, especially the highly-improvised Ed the Happy Clown, Brown says that in I Never Liked You "[t]he[re] was very little improvisation in I Never Liked You. It was quite planned out, even if I didn’t write a full script."

The book was dedicated to media personality Sook-Yin Lee, who was Brown's girlfriend from 1992 until 1996.

Reception

As one of "The autobiographical comics from Yummy Fur", I Never Liked You placed #38 on the prestigious Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century.

The book is admired by critics and many of Brown's fellow cartoonists. Gilbert Henandez, of Love and Rockets fame, has said, "The Playboy and I Never Liked You are probably the best graphic novels next to Maus". Norwegian cartoonist Jason said, "[o]ne of my favorite autobiographical comics is I Never Liked You."

Critic Charles Hatfield, author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, calls the "hide with me" page of I Never Liked You "[one] of my favorite comics pages."

Foreign editions

Translations
Language	Title	Publisher	Date	Translator	ISBN
Italian	Non Mi Sei Mai Piaciutto	Black Velvet Editrice	1999	Omar Martini	978-8-887-82700-2
French	Je ne t'ai jamais aimé	éditions Les 400 coups	2001		978-2-845-96036-7
		éditions Delcourt	2010	Vincent Bernière	978-2-756-01449-4
Spanish	Nunca me has gustado	Astiberri Ediciones	2007		978-8-496-81518-6
German	Fuck	Reprodukt	2008	Torsten Alisch and Dirk Baranek hand-lettered by Dirk Rehm	978-3-938-51196-1
Greek	ΠΟΤΕ ΔΕΝ ΣΕ ΣΥΜΠΑΘΗΣΑ	Inkpress/Kormoranos	2010	Χάρης Λαγκούσης	978-9-608-96593-5
Korean	너 좋아한 적 없어	Sai Comics	2004-11-30		978-8-932-90583-9

See also

• Autobiographical comics
• Alternative comics
• Chester Brown's autobiographical comics
• The Little Man
• The Playboy: A Comic Book

References

• I Never Liked You at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• Juno, Andrea. Dangerous Drawings. Interview with Chester Brown. Juno Books, LLC, 1997. pp 130–147. ISBN 978-0-965-10428-9
• Bell, John. Invaders from the north: how Canada conquered the comic book universe. Dundurn Press Ltd., 2006. ISBN 978-1-550-02659-7
• Booker, M. Keith. Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels. ABC-CLIO, 2010. pages 313-314. ISBN 978-0-313-35746-6

External links

• preview at Drawn and Quarterly's website