Marbles Mania Depression Michelangelo & Me Graphic MemoirMedia Release -- The Cartoon Art Museum proudly welcomes cartoonist Ellen Forney on Tuesday, November 27, 2012 from 7:00-9:00pm as she discusses and signs copies of her latest graphic novel, Marbles. This event is free and open to the public.

About Ellen Forney:

Cartoonist Ellen Forney grew up in Philadelphia and has lived in Seattle, Washington since 1989. She created the Eisner-nominated comic books I Love Led Zeppelin and Monkey Food, and collaborated with Sherman Alexie on the National Book Award-winning novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. She has been teaching comics at Cornish College of the Arts since 2002. Ellen swims and does yoga, and fixes things with rubber bands and paper clips.

About Marbles:

Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, cartoonist Ellen Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity and her livelihood, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passion and creativity.

Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She analyzes the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder as she struggles with the strengths and limitations of a parade of medications and treatments.

Darkly funny, intensely personal, and visually dynamic, Forney's graphic memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on the artist's work. Her story seeks the answer to this question: if there's a correlation between creativity and mood disorders, is an artist's bipolar disorder a curse, or a gift?

"Marbles isn't just a great story; it's proof that artists don't have to be tortured to be brilliant. A" -Melissa Maerz, Entertainment Weekly

About Gotham Books:
Gotham Books, a nonfiction imprint of Penguin Group (USA), was launched in 2003 by industry veteran William Shinker. Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is one of the leading U.S. adult and children's trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick Warne, G.P. Putnam's Sons, Gotham Books, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin, Penguin Press, Philomel, Riverhead Books, and Viking, among others. Penguin Group is owned by Pearson plc, the international media group.