Tag Archive | Graphic Novels
Frans Masereel – The City, The Idea, The Sun, Story Without Words – A Review
The City: A Vision in Woodcuts (Dover Books on Art, Art History) Dover, 112pg The Sun, The Idea & Story Without Words: Three Graphic Novels Dover, 224pg Frans Masereel was an early proponent of the graphic novel and the sub genre the wordless novel. Most of his famous wordless novels which use the wood cut [...]
Blazing Combat – A Review of Banned War Comics
Blazing Combat Fantagraphics Books, 210 pg (Download a 3 story excerpt from the publisher) I have a penchant for reading these things, especially if it was banned in some way or another as Blazing Combat was when it was published in 1966. Of course I wanted to see what would get it banned, but also [...]
Magdy al-Shafee’s Metro to be Published in English in 2012
Arabic Literature in English is reporting that Magdy al-Shafee’s Graphic Novel Metro which has been baned in Egypt will be coming out in English in 2012. I don’t have too much more information on the book, but I have been waiting for this to get published into English or Spanish so I could give it a [...]
Words Without Borders Graphic Novel Edition for 2011 Up Now
The ever interesting Words Without Borders has published its annual graphic novel edition. French and Chinese works predominate, but there is one from Israel and Italian. February brings our annual celebration of the international graphic novel. From bomb shelters in Gaza to prisons in Greece, surviving famine in Ukraine and negotiating high school in Paris, these [...]
It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi – A Review
It Was the War of the Trenches Jacques Tardi Fantagraphics Books 10pg excerpt from Fantagraphics. Some books about war want to shock you, throw every image and arbitrary decision at you, and hope somehow that you’ll remember at least just a moment of savageness the next time you think war is interesting or good for [...]
Lynd Ward – Six Novels in Wood Cuts, Vol I – A Review
Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts (Library of America, Nos. 210 & 211) Vol I: God’s Man, Madman’s Drum, Wild Pilgrimage Lynd Ward Library of America 2010, 839pg I have written about Lynd Ward several times (Vertigo review, Wordless Books review) and will be doing again when I read volume II, and every time I [...]
Lynd Ward’s Wood Cuts Collected by Library of America
Library of America is releasing a two volume set of Lynd Ward’s wood cuts. I’m looking forward to them as they are some fascinating early to mid 20th century art. I’ve read Vertigo which is called his best work and it has left me wanting more. The NPR review was unimpressive, but it will give you [...]
I Remember, Beirut (Me acuerdo, Beirut) by Zeina Abirached – A Review
Me acuerdo Beirut (I Remember Beirut) Zeina Abirached Sinsentido, 2009 I Remember Beirut (Me acuerdo, Beirut) is a short graphic novel that forms a kind of addendum to Zeina Abirached’s excellent The Swallow’s Game. Where Swallows told a complete story and interspersed the stories of the war, creating a large work that feels complete, large, [...]
The Swallows Game (El juego de las golondrinas) by Zeina Abirached – A Review
El juego de las golondrinas Zeina Abirached Sinsentido, 2009 I have a rule about what I read in Spanish: no translations. It makes little sense to me to read something translated into Spanish if you can read it in English, especially if it was written in English in the first place. But I have one [...]
Seattle’s Fantagraphics and Rosebud Archives reclaim vintage comics Via Seattle Times
The Seattle Times’ book blog has a good article about Fantagraphics new series of reprints of the Rosebud archives, which contains many early American works that helped define the genre. The drawings are beautiful and have an attention to detail that seemed to disappear during the golden age of comics. There is a reason I [...]
Comics and Graphic Novels Emerge in the Middle East
Publishing perspectives has an article called Undiscovered Art: Comics and Graphic Novels Emerge in the Middle East. It is interesting overview of graphic novels in the middle east, few of which make it into English. While comics have long been popular among children in the Arab world (two of the biggest series are the venerable [...]
Cecil and Jordan In New York by Gabrielle Bell – A Review
Cecil and Jordan in New York: Stories by Gabrielle Bell Gabrielle Bell Drawn & Quarterly, 148 pg Gabrielle Bell’s Cecil and Jordan in New York is an inventive and funny collection of short comics that is able to take youthful angst and not dwell on its difficulties, but expand the experience into stories that read [...]
Logicomix – The History of Analytical Philosohy as Graphic Novel A Review
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou Bloomsbury USA, 352 pg Perhaps before reading Logicomix one should ask oneself do you believe that logic and rationality exist among human beings, and if it does not could you perfect it and, thus, bring humankind into some sort of new way thinking? If you [...]
Manga Legend Yoshihiro Tatsumi Interviewed by Adrian Tomine
Graphic novelist Adrian Tomine interviewed Manga legend Yoshihiro Tatsumi at the PEN World Voices festival. Tatsumi wrote some of the first serious Manga, in other words, Manga that isn’t about superheros and samurais, but real people and events. Several of his books are available in English and I reviewed Good-bye a couple years ago.
Vertigo – A Graphic Novel In Woodcuts by Lynd Ward – A Review
Vertigo: A Novel in Woodcuts Lynd Ward Dover, 320 pg Lyn Ward’s Vertigo is a beautiful work of wood block artistry and wordless story telling, and is hailed by many as his master work not only because of its sheer size (over 200 wood block) but its ambition. Set during the Great Depression it tells [...]
Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco – A Review
Footnotes in Gaza: A Graphic Novel Joe Sacco, 432 pages, Metropolitan Books Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza is his most ambitious work to date, both in page size and in the depth of his reporting. It is not only a book about current events as all of them are, but a detailed examination of events [...]
Vertigo’s Unkown Soldier – A Review
For the past year and a half Vertigo has been publishing an updated edition of DC Comic’s Unknown Soldier that takes place in Uganda during 2002 -2004 when the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was terrorizing the country. The Unknown Soldier is a man whose face is always in bandages, the characters in the story never [...]
Wordless Books – A Review
Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels David Beronä, Abrams 255 pg. Wordless Books is a collection of excerpts from graphic novels that were drawn in the first half of the 20th century. Despite the range of styles and themes they all have one thing in common: they do not use dialog or narration to tell [...]
Samandall – Graphic Novel from Beirut on-line
The blog Arabic Literature (in English) tipped me off to the Beirut based Samandal magazine of “Picture Stories from here and there.” While they don’t require the art to be from Lebanon or in Arabic or French, most of the writers and artists from the first four issues are from that region of the world. [...]
On-line Graphic Novel About Iranian Election and Aftermath
The excellent blog Arabic Literature (in English) turned me on to this site. It is a graphic novel about the aftermath of the Iranian election in 2009. Written by a Persian (American) writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor it and “Zahra’s Paradise weaves together a composite of real people and events.” It comes [...]
