Pill Hill

“Nic Breutzman marshals the mind-bending power of comics to share an often hilarious, occasionally harrowing, and deeply moving account of parenting against all odds.” —Matt Madden, Ex Libris

“A book where artistic style and form morph and evolve while the core story stays rooted in an unflinching realism; it is both a formalist tour de force and a triumph of the author’s humanity over a universe teeming with incomprehensible horror.”
—Josh Bayer, author of Unended, Teth, America’s Best Comics

Nic and Henry—father and son—stumble on an old forgotten park and make a bizarre discovery. Someone has marked all the trees with wads of chewed gum! Who is the gum bandit?

Reeling from recent family upheaval, Nic navigates the brave new world of single parenthood. Meanwhile, his ex-wife descends into addiction, abuse, and homelessness. Amid the turmoil, he becomes increasingly and desperately obsessed with exposing the gum vandal. Can Nic rise to the occasion and come to terms with his new reality? Or will he let the past drag him back into despair and denial, threatening the thing he holds most dear: his relationship with Henry, his son?

Pill Hill, Nicholas Breutzman’s darkly funny and utterly heartbreaking memoir, plunges the reader into a world of horrifying Tinder dates, flea markets, lizard people, child protective services, black holes, time travel, and stress-induced psychosis.

Part Cat o’ Nine Tails and part Shameless, Pill Hill is the story of a single father’s increasingly strange preoccupation with tracking down said gum vandal while navigating the brave new world of single parenthood and his ex-wife’s shocking descent into addiction, abuse, and homelessness.

Nicholas Breutzman is a Rochester, Minnesota-based cartoonist and designer. He is the author of Pill Hill, Yearbooks, and You Can’t Be Here, among others. He lives with his wife, Emily, their three children, and two Pittbulls.