Nowhere
“What if the most terrifying thing has already happened?”
Drawn by a mysterious force, 12-year-old Joel and his terrible parents have just arrived in yet another nondescript small town. There’s a diner, a movie theatre, a motel, and a bar. But this time, things seem different, especially when suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant cube appears on the edge of town.
And . . . just as Joel starts to make friends and navigate a new school, which is hard enough, Beauséjour is beset by nightly appearances of zombies, demon landlords, therapy-seeking vampires, and depressed clowns. One by one, the citizens of Beauséjour begin to disappear. When his parents vanish, Joel and his friend Charlie seek to shelter themselves from the strangeness all around them.
A hilarious and sinister reflection on growing up in a world where monsters are real, Nowhere is a dreamlike meditation on adolescence and the absurdity of small-town life. Illustrated with Claytor’s expressive, richly textured visuals, wildly echoing the offbeat world of Beauséjour, Nowhere signals the arrival of a profound and vital voice.
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Jon Claytor is a graphic novelist, painter, and writer. Born in San Francisco, he lived and worked in several Canadian cities, including Halifax, Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto, before settling in Sackville, New Brunswick.
Claytor’s work ranges from oil painting and watercolour to comics. He has had solo exhibitions at galleries in Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles, and throughout the Maritimes. He has also written and illustrated stories for CBC Radio, the Frye Festival, and the website ruralharmreduction.com.
Claytor co-founded SappyFest independent music and arts festival in 2006 and opened Thunder & Lightning Ideas Ltd. in 2013. He holds an MFA from York University and a BFA from Mount Allison University. He was nominated for a Juno Award for the cover of Gord Downie’s Battle of the Nudes in 2004. His graphic memoir, Take the Long Way Home, was published by Conundrum in 2022. Nowhere, a fictional graphic novel about growing up among monsters in a small maritime town is his first graphic novel.
