Chester Brown's autobiographical comics

The story takes place in a rooming house with shared kitchen and washrooms where Brown lived in Toronto in 1984. Another tenant, Helder, lives there with his fiancée, Anne. Helder gives Brown a cold welcome when he moves in, but soon comes to Brown's room to introduce himself and Anne—and to ask to borrow money. A week later, Anne returns the money and requests that the tenants not lend to Helder any more.

Helder has a reputation for violence, and a few months later gets into a violent argument with Anne, who receives a black eye. Anne moves out and, since the lease was hers, Helder also must move out, but returns regularly to borrow money from one of the tenants.

Brown meets a new tenant, Donna, whom he wants to ask out. He waits too long, and she ends up going out with Helder. Later, Helder gets into yet another violent confrontation, breaking down Donna's door and smashing a window. Donna soon moves out, but Helder continues to frequently stop by to borrow money until someone calls the police, knowing Helder is carrying illegal drugs. Helder is never seen at the rooming house again.

"Helder" originally appeared in Yummy Fur No. 19, and appears in The Little Man on pages 47–67. The first of Brown's autobiographical stories tells of his experiences with Helder, a difficult neighbour who is prone to violence.[10] The reader encounters two Browns in the story: the character who features in the story, and the narrator who relates it, comments on it, and addresses the reader.[11]

The outspoken and aggressive Helder contrasts with Brown, who is too passive to speak up for himself. When his friend Kris speaks up for him, telling Helder that Brown is "the most honest and straightforward person [she] know[s]", Brown the author downplays this with a note to "take this with a grain of salt".[12]

"Showing Helder" originally appeared in Yummy Fur No. 20 and appears in The Little Manon pages 68–101.

The story of how "Helder" came to be made. Brown's character worries about the artistic decisions he has made, consulting with friends Kris (his ex-girlfriend), Mark Askwith and Seth, but getting conflicting advice.[13] He changed some of the panels of "Helder" (mainly of Brown's character breaking the fourth wall by talking to the readers) on the advice of Askwith and Kris. Two of the original panels were reproduced in the notes to the collection The Little Man.

According to critic Bart Beaty, the story has an "aura of 'truth'", as "the anecdotal nature of the story lends an air of authenticity for readers who might well wonder why someone would bother to fabricate a story that is so slight."[14] However, Brown runs into trouble with his depictions of people. In particular, his friend Kris objects to the way she is depicted and has Brown change her dialogue.

In this story, Brown "uses no panel borders at all – but still maintains the grid’s left to right zig zag reading"[15]–immediately after this issue Brown would abandon the grid entirely. Originally, Brown had penciled in the panels with borders and backgrounds, but when it came time to ink the artwork, he decided to ink only what he considered essential, dropping the borders and much of the background detail, later saying he had "become dissatisfied with [his] drawing style for awhile and wanted it to be freer -- more spontaneous."[16]

In the end, Brown ran into the problem of telling his story using people he knew:

"[M]y 'story' intersects with other people's 'stories' and sometimes those people are going to think I'm not telling their story right. If those people are friends, I've got a problem."

— Chester Brown, 1998[16]

Brown based his next story on his adolescence, as, aside from relatives, he had lost touch with those he had known as a teenager.[16]

Set in Châteauguay in the 1970s, The Playboy tells of the adolescent Brown's overwhelming guilt over his obsessive masturbation over Playboy models, narrated by a goading angel-demon lookalike of himself.[17] His obsession so overcomes him that, even when his mother passes away while he is at camp, his first thought at returning home is to retrieve the Playboy he has hidden in the woods.[18] His obsession interferes with his relations with women as an adult: he can maintain an erection for one girlfriend only by fantasizing about his favourite Playmates, and discovers he prefers masturbation to having sex with her.[19]

The story was serialized under the title Disgust[15] in issues #21–23 of Yummy Fur, at the time published by Vortex Comics.[20] Brown stated that he intended a longer story encompassing what ended up in The Playboy and I Never Liked You, but found it too complex to handle when he started to plan it out.[21]

(originally appeared in Yummy Fur #24; appears in The Little Man, pages 102–120)

Inspired by Peter Bagge's "Dickie Bird" strip from Weirdo #10, "which was a perfect simulation of the type of juvenile drawings so many of us did while trapped in dull classrooms."[16]

A "true story"—a retelling of a story that Brown would tell to a friend when he was in elementary school. Brown's character is caught playing with his penis by his teacher, who grabs him by the penis and tries to cut it off with scissors, stretching it in the process. The story progressively gets bigger and more ridiculous, with the police chasing after Brown, who escapes by spinning his stretched penis like a helicopter's blades, while urinating on the police at the same time. Brown then shoots his principal and drives away in a police car. Towards the end, the scene cuts to Brown continuing to build up his story to his friend, Russell. He's cut off by his mother, however, as he gets home, who asks Russel to leave, telling Brown, "I just...don't want anyone here right now."[22] The story closes with a page of the young Brown urinating in the toilet at home.

(originally appeared in Yummy Fur #25; appears in The Little Man, pages 128–141)

A short story of Brown waking up, urinating, picking his nose, getting dressed and being confronted at his room door by a talkative, black neighbour, "Danny". In the end, Brown tries to close the door, but "Danny" forces his hand inside, which Brown then bites. Danny yells at Brown, "White man never have respect for black man!"[23] and eventually leaves, as Brown ponders breakfast.

The real "Danny" had asked Brown to include him in a Yummy Fur story. Brown did, but never showed it to him. Brown says he was seen flipping through a copy of Yummy Fur #25, but believes "Danny" didn't recognize himself in the story.[24]

Once again telling a tale of Brown's adolescence. Brown has trouble relating with the opposite sex, even when they are the ones trying to connect with him.

The cartooning is far looser than in Brown's earlier work, and concerned more with gesture and expression than literal detail.[25] Brown drew the pictures before laying down the panel borders, which conform to the shapes of the pictures they enclosed and are drawn in a wobbly free-hand.[26]

Brown serialized the story under the title Fuck in issues #26–30 of Yummy Fur between October 1991 and April 1993.[27] Drawn & Quarterly issued a collected edition as I Never Liked You in 1994, in which Brown significantly rearranged the page layouts.[25] A "New Definitive Edition" appeared in 2002 with two pages of endnotes[6] and the black pages backgrounds changed to white, reflecting Brown's turn to an austere aesthetic.[28]

I Never Liked You was the last work from Brown's autobiographical period of the 1990s. Yummy Fur continued for two more issues before Drawn & Quarterly publisher Chris Oliveros convinced Brown to publish his next serial, Underwater, under its own title in 1994.[29]

(original graphic novel)

In 2011 Brown returned to autobiography and his relations with women with the graphic novel Paying for It, a polemic arguing for the decriminalization of prostitution.[29]

After breaking up with his girlfriend, Sook-Yin Lee, Brown gives up on "possessive monogamy" and makes the case for taking up the life of a "john", detailing each of the 23 prostitutes he has visited to date and his debates with friends over the issue. Includes a 50-page, 23-part appendix elaborating the case for decriminalization of prostitution.