Get Naked

Each of these illustrated essays delightfully covers a self-depreciating journey from being body-shamed to body-positive. I found the varying comic styles to do a great job of capturing the mood and tone of that particular essay. The great constant in all of them was the narrator slowly overcoming embarrassment and personal inhibitions about being naked. And yet, it wasn't a single transition but a discussion of the process of growing comfortable over years and exposures to many cultures. Definitely worth your time and money.

In these fun anecdotes, Steven T. Seagle revisits moments of global nudity - whether exploring spas in Finland or Japan, or disrobing in an airport cubicle to get to the bottom of a strange odor. Along the way he peels back the layers of our taboos about nakedness, liberating himself and the reader into a brave new world of non-sexual nudity. The vivid styles of the different artists enhance the sense of travelogue adventure to foreign parts and body parts unknown.

I had never read a graphic essay, but this one, as it seems, was, and I enjoyed, even if at the beginning I found the topic not so interesting, but the more I read, the more I was fascinated by the different illustrators and the way they handled the story.Non avevo mai letto un graphic essay, ma questo a quanto pare é uno dei primi e mi é piaciuto, anche se all'inizio, il fatto di essere nudi in diverse cittá non pensavo fosse un argomento poi tanto interessante, invece poi, a mano a mano che la storia si sviluppava e i diversi disegnatori ne illustravano una parte, mi sono proprio divertita.

I had a great time working with 19 newer international comics artists. This is a tough kind of project to get the US comics market to try, so I bought a copy from Amazon so i could hop in here and spread the word myself in hopes people will give comics-format essays - especially this collection - a try. Thanks! Steve.

I read through this book the other day and it resonates with me in ways that I did not expect. I think once anyone reads this they will connect with the overtly American fear of getting naked around people. Which is odd for a country with so much nudity and sex everywhere you turn, but the thought of getting naked in a high school locker room is terrifying to most. It certainly was for me. My take away from this is that you should just get naked and move past the awkwardness. So let's all get naked!

As someone who has spent an inordinate amount of his life avoiding getting naked in public, I very much related to the starting point at which Seagle begins the book. GET NAKED's honesty prods us to examine our fears and insecurities, and inspires us to realize that there’s nothing to worry about. Each vignette is funny and well-paced, and the wildly idiosyncratic drawing styles by the artists keep things fresh. The very brevity of each story makes it hard to read just one, making the book difficult to put down.

Like most of Seagle's books, it opened my mind to what the graphic medium is capable of in terms of being a reflective practice of art. The drawings are on point, stylish and varied, and the storytelling is brisk, insightful and yes there are a few nekkid scenes. Highly recommend.

The premise of this book is that American comics writer, Steven Seagel, was born into a society that was once as accepting and respectful of the human body but has, since the late 1970s/early 1980s, strictly denounced nudity and even in non-religious spaces made the naked body a shameful/sinful thing to cover up as much as possible - but Steven is going to relearn the beauty and wonder of the naked human body!That does happen, I guess, but not in a way that I think most readers will expect from the cover and a brief read of the back cover. To be fair though, the publishers did write that not all of the nakedness of this collections of graphic essays would be literal nudity. In much of the essays the nakedness refers to emotional nudity - vulnerability and openness - one might assume is difficult for the typical American.I am not the typical American, in this sense. I grew up with southern Black-American, Italian, German, Korean, and Japanese culture (amongst some other things) very tightly intertwined in the home (thanks family for insisting I know where all I came from!) but also had the huge blessing of living in the home countries of the many different branches of my diverse fam. So many of the experiences abroad, Seagel describes were familiar to me and I was eager to see how a “regular” White-American felt about and processed these experiences the first time around. Many of Seagel’s insights are touching, and others are...stories that your friend tells you in-between commercials of your favorite show or over coffee or a strong drink after you haven’t seen each other in a while. Those are the stories I took issue with.Many of Seagel’s essays just didn’t seem to fit - not in the sense of physical nudity NOR real emotional nakedness. A couple of the essays seemed to be working really hard to be included in this collection, and that made the reading drag. On the other hand, they also highlighted what awesome readers the other, tighter essays are. The essays where the artist really dives into the storytelling as well shine the most - obviously. My favorites were (in no particular order) Tokyo, Bern, Sydney, the Spanish city where all the people were stylized as bunnies, and of course the city in Denmark featured (which I want to say was the capital Copenhagen, but maybe was not).This is a great collection. Which interestingly, Seagel did in partnership with The Animation Workshop in Denmark - an international school that offers degrees only in animation, graphics, and graphic storytelling! Seagel worked with a number of different artists in creating this project, and each of the artists are (or where at the time) students of the Animation Workshop. It’s interesting to see their work at play here. The styles are all very different, and some will work better for you than others, but all are worth the look in my opinion.The final chapter “Forward” really drives home the intention of this work - a hope that we all, regardless of nationality, upbringing, look, etc. will make the steps necessary to build a future where the human form is no longer a scandalized object but once again a respected and normal part of who we all are and our communities at large. And I would like to see that to - a future where no one is ever taught to be ashamed of their body, clothed or not.

Author displays at length his personal issues with nudity. It seems to be an overwhelming issue. Boring. When portraying situations abroad, texts veer between condescendence (Lithuania) and haplessness (Berlin or Berne).One is surprised that non-American partners would go along with such an attitude. I'm glad I experienced the US before it turned prude and pudibond.At times, the quality of the drawings is underwhelming.