Joe, the protagonist in Noah Van Sciver’s new graphic novel, “Saint Cole,” works at a pizza shop to support his girlfriend, their infant child and his own alcohol habit. His days are filled with drinking, wandering and self-doubt — all rendered in heartbreaking detail by Van Sciver’s experienced hand.

As with anything the 30-year-old draws, the most affecting scenes in “Saint Cole” are all about visual impact, telling their stories with ink instead of dialogue or movement.

“There’s some crazy stuff that happens in the book, but none of it is unrealistic,” Van Sciver said this week from Pablo’s, a coffee shop near his Capitol Hill apartment that often doubles as his studio. “You can tell the whole story’s building toward something, which I don’t want to give away, but it’s just this guy making a lot of mistakes. And by the time he realizes them, it’s too late.”

Fortunately, Van Sciver isn’t much like Joe. But as he celebrates 10 years of drawing and publishing his internationally acclaimed comics, he is struggling to balance his artistic ambitions — which mine truths from life’s awkward, painful moments — with a growing career that wants to spirit him away from Denver.

“Saint Cole,” the cartoonist’s second novel for Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books, is a wiry thicket of black-and-white imagery both feverish and mesmerizing in its intensity. Meticulously cross-hatched scenes sprout gangly, downcast figures who often seem to be struggling through their environments, impeded by nagging textures and thoughts.

It’s the same trembling style that won praise in “The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln,” Van Sciver’s first graphic novel and one that announced him as a major new talent in comics. Thanks in part to attention from the 2012 presidential election and a pair of Abraham Lincoln movies, “The Hypo” sold out its first printing of 5,000 copies and landed on numerous Best-of-the-Year lists.

In 2014, Van Sciver was also namechecked by his hero, ’70s cartoonist-icon R. Crumb, as a contemporary artist he admired.

But like that famously cranky personality, Van Sciver is not outwardly thrilled about past work.

“That book is a portfolio of ugly drawings. I can’t even look at it,” he said of “The Hypo.” “What was I even thinking? All their shoulders are giant and their heads are small. Still, it gave me a good relationship with Fantagraphics, which has published all of my favorite artists.”

Van Sciver is fast becoming a peer. The arrival of “Saint Cole” will be celebrated at Capitol Hill’s Kilgore Books on Feb. 18, along with the latest issue of Van Sciver’s “Blammo” series. Both are landing after months of steady buzz thanks to Van Sciver’s habit of serializing his work on Facebook and Tumblr — as it’s created.

A Mad, Wired world

Other high-profile credits include a regular column for Mad Magazine (the mischievous, scatalogical “Brown Bear”), cartoons in Wired and The Believer, and his panels for The Expositer — a site he co-founded with Joseph Remnant to build interest in their new work.

“Crumb once said there are two kinds of comic artists: one who’s a really good artist and one who’s a really good writer,” said Van Sciver, who became obsessed with alternative comics after seeing the 1994 documentary “Crumb.” “There are a few exceptions, like Daniel Clowes (‘Ghost World’), but after I read that I was like, ‘How do I be both?’ I’m still learning.”

A New Jersey native, Van Sciver moved with his mother and siblings (he’s the second-youngest of eight) to Arizona after his Mormon parents divorced. He enjoyed drawing cartoons while growing up, but as a product of home-schooling, he was slow to realize the “weird rules” of the traditional art world until he pursued a painting degree at Red Rocks Community College in 2003.

“With paintings, you’re not supposed to be too literal,” said Van Sciver, who dropped out after only two semesters. “You’re not supposed to have too many lines, because those are a crutch, and you’re not supposed to have words in your painting because then they just become signs. I wanted to tell stories.”

Encouraged by his brother Ethan, a successful DC Comics artist who has worked on marquee superhero franchises such as Green Lantern, Batman and Wonder Woman, Van Sciver switched back to drawing cartoons, instantly finding himself more at home.

He befriended and learned from nationally acclaimed, Denver-based comics artist John Porcellino (now living in Illinois) and doggedly promoted and distributed his self-published zines.

Drawing Denver

Eventually, Van Sciver’s work began gaining attention in local print publications like Westword as he found a loose-knit scene of area cartoonists at weekly events such as Denver Drink and Draw.

“It’s a weird life,” Van Sciver said. “I just feel so disconnected when I wake up in the morning. All I want to do is hang sheets over the windows so I can pretend it’s night and get some work done.”

Van Sciver makes a full-time living now as a cartoonist, having once worked a series of food-service jobs to pay the bills. Still, being full-time requires constant hustle.

At Pablo’s, he was finishing a page for his forthcoming nonfiction comic “Johnny Appleseed,” with a story by veteran nonfiction writer Paul Buhle. In August, Fantagraphics will publish his graphic novella “Fante Bukowski: Struggling Writer,” a satire of a self-important hipster scribe, which will be published in three languages.

Before his Feb. 18 Kilgore book release, Van Sciver is also visiting Los Angeles to apply for a storyboard-artist job at an animated series he wishes to remain nameless.

“I love Denver so much that it would be heartbreaking to leave, but at the same time this city’s changing so much and it’s pushing me out,” he said. “At what point do the opportunities here dry up and I’m a fool not to leave? At a certain point it might be too late.”

“SAINT COLE” AND “BLAMMO” RELEASE PARTY

Graphic-novel signing with Noah Van Sciver. 6-8 p.m. Feb. 18 at Kilgore Books, 624 E. 13th Ave. Free. 303-815-1979 or kilgorebooks.com.