High Fidelity meets Wayne’s World in this utterly charming graphic memoir about a young man’s life-long obsession with the rock band Queen.

All of us have had that one band with which we identify, the band that was always there for us during good times and bad. For Mike Dawson it's always been Queen and Freddie Mercury. Not unlike “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Freddie & Me takes readers on a rock-opera-like journey—from Mike’s childhood in the UK, through high school in New Jersey, and into the nineties, when grunge ruled the day and Queen was terminally uncool. As Mike works to navigate the trials and tribulations that accompany the road to adulthood (with Queen behind him every step of the way), he must grapple with the fears we all find ourselves facing: committing to one person for the rest of our lives, pursuing our dream job, coming to terms with our familial responsibilities, and even facing our own mortality. With humor, sensitivity, and some wonderfully imagined appearances by Freddie Mercury, Brian May, George Michael, and Andrew Ridgeley (among others), Freddie & Me is a touching reminder of how our favorite music is the soundtrack for so many of our most important memories and moments. And how one note can bring them all flooding back.

"It's usually wise for a memoirist to have either an intrinsically interesting life or unusual sensitivity to the meaning of personal experiences. Dawson, unfortunately, has neither. The premise of his comics memoir is, as he puts it, that 'when I think of Queen I can remember my whole life': he's been obsessed with the British rock band and its late front man, Freddie Mercury, since he was a child living in England, and they're the madeleine that triggers memories of his life's significant events. But he barely explains why they mean so much to him, other than that they rock (Mercury's sexuality is mentioned briefly, once), and his recollections are the common stock of geeky, misunderstood adolescent male cartoonists. Dawson's black-and-white artwork is smoothly paced, fluid caricature in the vein of Joe Sacco or Alex Robinson, and his narration neatly evokes the hyperdramatic worldview of a teenager; some of the individual anecdotes he recalls are amusing, as when he imagines the breakup of Wham! or shows himself as a 10-year-old belting out 'Bohemian Rhapsody' a cappella at a talent show and being hustled off stage. While Dawson rambles at times, anyone who was ever obsessed with a creator will recognize some of the whimsical story. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Mike Dawson, born in 1975, immigrated to the United States from the UK in 1986. In 2002 he began the critically acclaimed humor comic-book series Gabagool!, and was nominated for the Ignatz award for Promising New Talent. Mike’s comics have appeared in a number of popular anthologies. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn.