Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Private Beach #1-2+

Private Beach

Rate this book
"Quirky, edgy, and immediately likeable … [an] enjoyable blend of humor, suspense, and social commentary." — Friction magazine
Everyday life takes on touches of the bizarre in these tales of sexy and cynical Trudy Honeyvan and her circle of twenty-something friends. From oddball coincidences to occasional UFO sightings to an ominously cryptic message from a Magic 8 Ball, Trudy's world is becoming increasingly weird — right up to the point when a pair of mysterious men in black ask her to "lend ambiance" to a nightclub called Heaven's Rift.
These entertainingly dark stories were nominated for Eisner and Harvey Awards. Combining elements of science-fiction adventure, political satire, and soap opera, the series was described by comicbookresources.com as "slice-of-life stories in a universe David Lynch fans would recognize."
This collection reprints the original seven issues and adds a brand-new 30-page conclusion by series creator David Hahn — the finale to Trudy's cliff-hanger encounter with a cult and a resolution that fans have awaited for fifteen years. Also included is a new Foreword by Jeff Parker, author of First Class .
Suggested for mature readers.

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 2016

Loading interface...
Loading interface...

About the author

David Hahn

198 books4 followers

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
5 (11%)
4 stars
15 (33%)
3 stars
21 (46%)
2 stars
2 (4%)
1 star
2 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
Profile Image for Rex Hurst.
Author 12 books36 followers
June 18, 2019
Private Beach first began being published in the 1995 with seven issues swiftly following, before (like most indies) ending on a cliffhanger with no resolution. Now decades later, all of the issues have been collected and a thirty page ending given. For those who might be interested, the ending here does not wrap up all the oddities neither does it explain the mysterious weirdness crawling behind the scenes of the series. It is simply an ending. Essentially, it is the story of Trudy and her semi-hipster pals making their late Gen X way through life with wry observations about life, dead-end jobs, with some sinister weirdness creeping in around the edges of the page. The characters are likeable and most of the action is light, in that breezy style common back in the day (perhaps popularized by Preacher) where the overall plot was almost considered secondary to the characters realistic interaction with each other. Despite that, the book is very enjoyable and blends art with text and story beautifully. The only criticism is that two of the characters are so similar looking, I got them confused occasionally.
Profile Image for Wayne McCoy.
4,054 reviews25 followers
June 18, 2017
'Private Beach' by David Jerome Hahn sees a reprint and a final eighth chapter to answer all the questions. Or does it?

The original seven issues of this comic were published between 2001 and 2002. The story follows Trudy Honeyvan and her group of friends. While the story starts out feeling mundane, the story begins to take weird turns. Trudy keeps finding an odd message in a magic eightball. Trudy gets a job as a sort of concierge in a bizarre nightclub. The job seems harmless, but is it?

I really appreciate Dover republishing works like this. I also appreciate the final chapter being finished and included. There is a foreword by Jeff Parker and an introduction by the writer/artist. There are also some strange short chapters included at the end called Beach Shorts. After finishing it, I'm still not entirely sure what I read or what happened, but like a good David Lynch movie, I'm okay with the journey, and not so much the destination. This is definitely an odd comic, but I really liked it.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Dover Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
Profile Image for Meghan.
Author 1 book11 followers
July 30, 2016
Maybe I don't get comic books. I always think I'm going to like them more than I end up doing. Like Private Beach, which seemed like it would be kind of quirky and sullen, but in a good, spooky way, and then just reads like an idea of a story rather than a story itself. The "newly added resolution" didn't help much (maybe, like comic books, resolution is something I don't get either). The idea of the story, I liked that. I liked that a lot. But it's just a throw-away. There's more time spent in having the main characters neg on strangers and generally be misanthropic.

Time speeding up so [undetermined creatures] can feed on our misery faster! How can you just dangle that in front of us and then just go back to pedestrian twenty-somethings trying to be hipster ironic and cool? It grates on me to have such a good idea squandered.

Private Beach by David Jerome Hahn went on sale July 20, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for Casey.
647 reviews48 followers
August 15, 2016
It's difficult to place the setting of Private Beach, if only because different issues of the comic came out over a span of times and, well, I was a bit young when it first hit stands. However, I find that works in this volume's favor. Trudy's struggles with finding a decent job and her snark with her friends still ring true today, and I admire the way that Hahn is able to portray a 20-something woman and her social group without seeming as though he's pandering. The strange/supernatural happenings in her life are more than incidental, but they just provide a creepy backdrop to a life that is mainly average. I love the interplay between the everyday and the bizarre.

I received an ARC from NetGalley.
Profile Image for Brian Rothbart.
211 reviews10 followers
September 13, 2016
A quirky, odd, wonderful graphic novel. Fans of the Twilight Zone or David Lynch are to enjoy this book. Don't try and read too much into the stories and just go with it, it is a strange journey, but well worth the trip. The drawings are simple, but so interesting. I highly recommend this book.
Profile Image for Googoogjoob.
279 reviews3 followers
March 22, 2024
This is magical realist, but with the emphasis kept, unusually, very firmly on the realism- it's predominantly a "slice of life" narrative with intermittent uncanny happenings, and the supernatural/science-fictional stuff only really becomes a major thing in the last issue. There's not really an overarching story; the characters just live their lives, deal with work, go out to eat, and have digressive conversations that provide an opportunity for some observational humor.

The main weakness of the work, I think, is that this sort of limited series is not necessarily a very good fit for the "slice of life" narrative format. A longer-running serial would've allowed for more character development and more breathing room for the slow, aimless depiction of the characters' lives; as it is, we see almost nothing of what protagonist Trudy's job actually entails, for example, and the characters Junior and Sam, set up as major figures in her life, are underutilized, and kind of fade into the background. The ending provides thematic closure rather than the literal narrative sort of closure, but it feels kind of half-baked- it feels like the sort of ending that's meant to come much later in a story than it does, after greater thematic patterning leading up to it.

Taken as it is, this is enjoyable; the only really frustrating thing about it is that it's apparent that it could have been more.
Profile Image for Mark Schlatter.
1,199 reviews15 followers
May 31, 2017
An odd little series from the early 2000's, this was a somewhat more mainstream version of Strangers in Paradise or Jaime Hernández's work in Love & Rockets, but with a more obvious slant towards the paranormal. We are following twenty-something women as they try to figure out their place in the world, but our protagonist Trudy Honeyvan (yep, that's her name) appears to be a strangeness magnet with some unexplained cosmological significance.

This volume has the unpublished issue 8, which attempts to put an ending on the strangeness plot. For the most part, the conclusion didn't work for me. I appreciated so much more the small details , not the big story. Hahn loves to write scenes where Trudy and her friends talk about the weirdness of the mundane (e.g., the hypocrisy of The Breakfast Club, how we talk about sushi, who prepares the last meals of prisoners about to be executed, ...) That stuff shines.

Hahn's black and white artwork is nice and clean with excellent use of black backgrounds, and his characters bring across the humor and oddities very effectively. I would have loved to have seen a longer series, but this collection is a decent read, especially if you value the dialogue over the plot.
774 reviews3 followers
July 29, 2018
This quirky "slice of life" book is fun until it turns into a lost episode of the old Twilight Zone TV shows. The edgy black and white art features clean lines carefully inked in a distinctively modern style. The attractive cast of young millennials have developed cynicism and self absorption into a high form of art. It's a shame that the story slowly fizzles out into almost nothing at the very end.
Profile Image for Jenika Ioffreda.
Author 5 books24 followers
March 2, 2020
Good drawings and nice story-telling but I really didn't like the characters. All they did was talking negatively of strangers and being racist and judgmental fools. I lasted probably less than a quarter of the book. I was mildly curious about who where those two men in black and what exactly was the club where they invited the main character to, but I preferred not to stick around and avoid getting another dose of misanthropic drivel.
Profile Image for Nikki in Niagara.
4,057 reviews148 followers
October 11, 2016
A brilliant, totally engaging story. Three twenty-somethings, two of whom are sisters, and their male sidekick go through life until a fantastical twist ending takes the story beyond the realms of realistic fiction. Set up in chapters which could stand-alone as shorts they are eventually all connected and tell a slice-of-life tale. These girls are very quirky characters and 100% not politically correct in their topics of conversation. They do and say surprising things which a reader has to admit that they've thought or said themselves at some time. There are also very poignant parts which give the story depth such as a day in the life of the sister who is a nurse and a visit to a male friend who received a large insurance settlement from some unknown event which led to the loss of one leg. Trudy is the main character and the overreaching arc concerns her and the fact that she is one of these people who strange, ironic or coincidental events happens to all the time. The seven original issues are fantastic though they end abruptly. While the new final chapter takes the story to a bizarre conclusion. I fell in love with the characters right away and highly enjoyed this unusual story.
Profile Image for Whitney.
171 reviews4 followers
July 26, 2018
The art is great. The stories were...weird. Not in a bad way, though. If you like David Lynch, this might be your cup of tea.
Profile Image for Pop Bop.
2,503 reviews120 followers
July 21, 2016
Finally - A Solid, Slightly Weird, Winner

This is a smart, funny, sly and wholly satisfying collection of all of Hahn's Trudy Honeyvan comics, punctuated by a brand new story that closes Trudy's story arc. Everything about it is appealing.

Not to sound like a grump, but sometimes these sorts of indie comics collections can be just tedious studies in self-absorbed navel gazing, interrupted by belabored, obvious insights or whiny gripes. Well, absolutely nothing like that happens here. From page one, (which may be one of the best page ones in recent comics history), we know that Trudy Honeyvan is a heroine to be reckoned with. With dry humor, deadpan wit, likeable vulnerability, and a touch of smiling snark she navigates life in the company of her equally appealing twenty-something friends, and you immediately feel a sympathetric connection with her.

Indeed, this may be the first collection I've read in which I actually even liked the promotional Foreward and the author's Introduction.

The stories are along the lines of magical realism, but mostly realistic, (especially early on), with just a touch of the fantastic to spice things up. Instead of the usual pretentious huffing and puffing, Hahn makes this look effortless. The incidents in Trudy's life pile up in an increasingly odd and slightly off-kilter fashion, but it all makes sense and it always feels natural and real, if a bit unnerving. As Trudy and her friends provide running commentary on Trudy's life, we just go along for the ride, like some kid sister who gets to sit quietly in the back seat while the grownups talk.

Eventually we drift into a sci-fi feel, but what twenty-something doesn't at some time feel like her life is drifting into sci-fi territory. Maybe that's the underlying inside joke behind the collection. Regardless, though, and without reference to the overall story arc, the little incidents, moments, events, sidetracks and digressions that make up Trudy's life are well worth following.

I wasn't sure at first how I felt about the stark black and white drawings. But Hahn makes it work. These are not grubby, artfully inartful, drawings. The characters are expressive and the action is clear. In many panels the joke is in the characters' reactions as drawn, and at least to me that's a sign of an assured and crafty artist.

This book collects all seven of the original stories, which were originally published in 2001-2002. The story arc was never completed. Until now. Hahn has written a chapter 8 that answers all of the main plot questions left over from the series' cliffhanger ending. I don't know how fans managed to wait fourteen years for a resolution, but at least we newcomers won't be left hanging.

So, the upshot, for me, is that this book is fun, it's just the right amount of edgy, it's inviting and generous, and it's a little dark around the edges. Just like a life well lived. An excellent find.

(Please note that I received a free advance copy of this book from the publisher when my ecopy wouldn't display properly. This was for the purpose of writing a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
38 reviews1 follower
August 2, 2016
This was a really interesting graphic novel that had a wonderful clean-art style. Whilst the first volume was released many years ago, in its newly released complete form it still felt incredibly timely and contemporary in its depiction of a twenty-something’s dealing with the familiar issues of image, career and relationships.

From this jumping off point it slowly begins to take a surreal skewed twist on life, the tone akin to maybe something like Black Mirror with it’s play between the ‘arbitrary everyday’ and science fiction.

Private Beach is quirky, humourous and edgy, with elements of science fiction, adventure and political satire. I definitely enjoyed the core elements of Private Beach but I did find the ending a little unfulfilling as well as frustrating, as I whilst conclusive in one sense, it seemed to be begging for a continuation.

A good one for David Lynch fans.

This graphic novel was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for Terri.
Author 10 books37 followers
August 21, 2016
Private Beach by David Hahn is a comic in which nothing is as it seems—an ordinary job offer turns into something bizarre, a consultation with a Magic 8 Ball gets freaky, and other slightly weird happenings to Trudy Honeyvan and all of her friends.

The artwork in this book is amazing, but I'll be totally honest—I didn't really get all of the different directions that the story went. Sometimes just kooky, normal life fore twenty-somethings, sometimes totally outrageous with a sprinkling of sci-fi. This is a collection that had a long-awaited new ending to it, so maybe if I had been on the Trudy Honeyvan bandwagon before this complete volume, I might have a different outlook on it. But for me, the artwork is the best part, not the plot (if there was a main one).

*Received a copy of this book from NetGalley
Profile Image for Laura.
2,878 reviews81 followers
July 18, 2016
This is an odd one, and perhaps that is ok. It starts out with the protagonist seeing a flying saucer when she is a kid, and then that is totally ignored until about 3/4 of the way through the story. In the meantime, we get a sort of Octopus Pie story, about love and life and work, and all those things that 20 and 30 somethings have to deal with.

At the 3/4 mark the flying saucer comes back up, and things get weird.

So, is this science fiction? Slice of life? Commentary? Who knows. I read it, but perhaps it is just not for me, as I wasn't sure who I was supposed to sympathize with, or care about. It is a strange volume, and perhaps it will appeal to others more than me.

But three stars for the slice of life and the weird stuff, but I really never got engaged with the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing this book for an honest review.
Profile Image for Jim.
1,789 reviews63 followers
August 1, 2016
This was…a bit odd.

Overall it was an interesting story. But it was almost more interesting as a slice of life - the whole supernatural element seemed like it was shoehorned in. I got caught up in the story of these people's lives, but the chapters seemed a bit disconnected.

Listening to the Elastica album Elastica was a good choice - but again, for following these people's lives.

Of course, it didn't help that it put me off at the beginning by using "gay" as a pejorative. And using a bus of kids with disabilities for laughs. I didn't know if this was just a sign of the times, or if it had a point.

Recommended, maybe, if you like weird, and maybe if you like following people's lives.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dover Publications for a copy in return for an honest review.
436 reviews17 followers
July 13, 2016
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This includes the collected issues and a previously unreleased conclusion. I was pretty exciting to read this, but it didn't totally live up to my expectations - however, I think this was more due to me hyping this up than any fault of the story. I also had not read this when it first came out, so people who had will likely have a different reaction (especially to the conclusion after such a long time). The characters feel very realistic, and the supernatural elements to the story are interesting. There were a few things to the story that were a little objectionable (stuff that wouldn't have been an issue when it was written, but is frowned upon today) that did decrease my enjoyment slightly.
7,354 reviews97 followers
September 23, 2016
Once again, unfortunately, the fine people at Dover make the mistake of restoring to fame a graphic novel of very little worth. I admire their efforts to find lost classics wholeheartedly, but this isn't one – the wiffly noodling about a girl who thinks she's being followed, and trying to work as a 'something' in an office while moonlighting as a 'something' in a bar. She and her friends all look completely interchangeable, and nothing happens – until the lost final chapter, only published for the first time ever here, in which nothing good happens. Surface-wise it looks to be a well-crafted indie book with nuance, but you need likeable characters and/or something worthwhile to happen. This offers neither.
Profile Image for Lindsey.
71 reviews1 follower
July 17, 2016
Private Beach started a little slow, but soon sucked me into it's quircky and strange world. The art work was simple, but enjoyable, and the story got gritty quickly. I really wish there were more books in this series.

Unfortunately, the version I had (for kindle) was a bit glitchy in the last chapter, which made the text hard to read. I could still - mostly - follow the storyline, though.

I'd recommend this graphic novel to anyone who wants to spend a bit of time immersed in a odd universe that seems to look an awful lot like our own.

I received a free review copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Profile Image for Chad.
8,717 reviews964 followers
October 22, 2016
David Hahn's art is a beauty to behold. A little reminiscent of Mike Allred or Mark Buckingham with nice clean lines. Hahn has an ear for snappy dialogue. The scene with the seal in the first issue made me laugh out loud. The series works well just telling the story of 3 friends drifting through their mid-twenties. If it wasn't for the last issue, the odd things Trudy sees throughout the series could even have been ignored. The last issue takes a left turn off a cliff and turns the series on its ear. It feels too rushed and tied up into a nice neat bow for such a huge bombshell.

Received an advance copy from Dover and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Profile Image for Arctic.
238 reviews2 followers
September 3, 2016
It was an interesting concept. I feel like there could be additional added to it but I understand the reason why they ended it as they did. There was one page in particular (107) that had mind blowing artwork. Gorgeous page. Overall it was kind of standard work but still an enjoyable story. Would have liked to see this in color though!
Profile Image for Maureen.
466 reviews29 followers
March 24, 2017
Some mix of Ghost World and Love & Rockets but doesn't work quite as well as either.
Profile Image for I.D..
Author 11 books19 followers
March 28, 2017
Loved the art and was digging the story until it takes a hard right and goes into crazy town before ending with no resolution. It starts as a slice of life thing then goes sci fi and never finishes.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.