Brown gradually simplified his style, inspired by the example of his friend and fellow Toronto cartoonist Seth. He began tentatively with a pair of short tales, and gradually became freer with his panel layouts and simpler in his artwork. Brown had switched publishers to the Montreal-based Drawn & Quarterly by the time he completed his first autobiographical graphic novel, The Playboy, in 1992. At first, he intended The Playboy and I Never Liked You to form one story, but found it too complex to handle when he started to plan it out. The Playboy deals with Brown's guilt over his teenage obsession with masturbating over pornography. The book gained praise from fans, critics, and other cartoonists, and won a Harvey Award. It received criticism from those who saw it as objectifying women and glorifying pornography; Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner wrote to Brown voicing concern that Brown would feel such guilt in a post-sexual revolution world. Synopsis The story is set during Brown's 1970s adolescence in Châteauguay, a suburb of Montreal. Chester—"Chet" for short—is a thin, long-haired teenager who is awkward, introverted, and better able to express himself through drawing than speaking. He constantly and inexplicably turns away girls, even though he is interested in them and they in him. Except in his imagination, Chet has difficulty expressing affection even for his mother. She talks to Chet and his younger brother Gord about issues that embarrass them, and the religious teaching she has instilled in them has rendered Chet unable to bring himself to swear, for which he is teased and goaded at school. Chet plays games such as hide-and-seek with the neighbourhood children. One girl, Carrie, has a crush on Chet and invites him to her house each day to wash the dishes. He and Carrie's older sister Connie, a bossy blonde a year his senior, often hide during hide-and-seek games in tall grass where they spend the time talking with each other, though they have little in common. Connie asks him to the movies, but he sits away from her when he spots boys from his school; he fears he will be teased for being on a date. When the film ends, they walk home in silence. Chet is interested in Sky, a large-breasted dark-haired girl two years younger who lives next door, about whom he has masturbatory fantasies. He confesses his love but immediately regrets it, unable to