Search results for ""selfmadehero""

A New York music journalist goes on a quest to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the young Brazilian piano virtuoso (and pioneer of samba-jazz), Tenório Jr.An investigation and celebration of the origins of the world-renowned Latino musical samba-jazz movement Bossa Nova, They Shot The Piano Player captures a fleeting time bursting with creative freedom at a turning-point in Latin American history in the ’60s and ’70s, before the continent was riven by totalitarian regimes. Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior, born in Rio de Janeiro, was one of the most recognized musicians of the samba-jazz movement. At 3 a.m. on March 18, 1976, after giving a concert at the Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, the 34-year-old pianist went out to get some cigarettes. He was never seen again. What happened that night? This is the question that moves the narrator of this documentary graphic novel to initiate an investigation into the fateful events that l

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An illustrated guide to help identify, understand, and manage anxiety.   In The Anxiety Club we are introduced to three characters, each with a different form of anxiety. After hearing their stories, we follow them into the therapy room, where they discover the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional tools to help free themselves from anxious thinking. Many people believe that there is no treatment for anxiety: they try to soothe their inner suffering with medication, alcohol, drugs, or binge eating. However, there are healthy ways to manage such negative thoughts and feelings.   This self-help handbook, written by leading anxiety expert and psychiatrist Dr. Frédéric Fanget and editor Catherine Meyer and drawn by Pauline Aubry, helps the reader to identify, understand, and find freedom from anxiety.  

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A charming, heartwarming, and poignant story of running and self-acceptance, Mylo Choy’s Middle Distance combines exertion and introspection in an exploration of the physical body’s connection to the human experience. An exciting graphic addition to a growing field, this sports memoir recounts Mylo’s history with running, and how their love for that famously solitary sport pushed them to grow over time. As Middle Distance grapples with themes of resilience, identity, and self-care, Mylo leads us along the middle way between motion and rest, hurt and healing, fear and joy. The result is an honest, nuanced work of subtle power that will appeal to all runners, especially those who are transgender or nonbinary.

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One morning in June 1941, a quiet village in Central Lithuania is shaken out of its slumber by the sudden arrival of the Soviet Army. Eight-year-old Algiukas awakes to the sound of Russian soldiers pounding on the door. His family are given ten minutes to pack up their things. They are not told where they’re going or for how long. An airless freight train carries them from the fertile lands of rural Lithuania to the snowy plains of the Siberian taiga. There, in the distant, dismal North, they begin a life marked by endless hunger and unrelenting cold. And yet the darkness of exile is lightened, for Algiukas, by flights of imagination. This curious, brave and adaptable child transforms hardship into adventure. Drawing on her father’s exile in Siberia, writer Jurga Vile brings to light a neglected, even suppressed, episode from the history of the Soviet Union. Beautifully drawn by Lina Itagaki, Siberian Haiku uses the child’s perspective to tell an unforgettable story of courage and human endurance.

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From the thirty-two canvas Campbell's Soup Cans to the Marilyn Diptych, Andy Warhol's silk-screen prints are the epitome of Pop Art: witty, gimmicky and unafraid of repetition. Obsessed with consumerism and the cult of celebrity, Warhol exalted the "surface of things" – and yet he was a man of deep complexity. In Andy, Typex captures the remarkable life of the king of Pop Art, from his working-class upbringing in Pittsburgh to the dizzying heights of his celebrity. Spanning a period that began with the "talkies" and ended with the advent of house music, it is also a memorable portrait of 20th century pop culture and the stars who defined it: from Elvis to Greta Garbo, Truman Capote to Lou Reed. Taking in Warhol's early career as a commercial illustrator, his relationship with the Velvet Underground and the development of his own instantly recognisable style, Typex's Andy is an exhilarating portrait of a transcendent artist and a master self-publicist. Intensively researched, this 568-page graphic novel--with silver edgestain on the pages—is the first to tell the complete life story of the iconic pop artist.

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In his graphic biography Nick Cave: Mercy on Me, Reinhard Kleist paints an expressive and enthralling portrait of the musician, novelist, poet, and actor. It is, according to Nick Cave himself, “a complex, chilling and completely bizarre journey into Cave World.” Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: An Art Book collects Kleist’s moody and expressive portraits of the musician and his band, spanning 30 years of writing, recording, and live performance. Kleist also returns readers to Cave’s imaginative world with comic book reimaginings of “Deanna,” “The Good Son,” and “Stagger Lee.” Filled with visual delights, this record-size art book is a kaleidoscopic portrait of Nick Cave’s wide-ranging career as a storyteller, musician, and cultural icon.

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In 1969, humankind set foot on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Edwin ”Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins carried the fire for all the world. Backed by the brightest minds in engineering and science, the three boarded a rocket and flew through the void—just to know that we could. In Apollo, Matt Fitch, Chris Baker, and Mike Collins unpack the urban legends, the gossip, and the speculation to reveal a remarkable true story about life, death, dreams, and the reality of humanity's greatest exploratory achievement.

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Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke: David Bowie had an extraordinary talent for reinvention. But at the beginning of his career, he made the most significant transformation of his life: from “David” to Bowie. In 1969, shortly after the release of his first hit single, David and his girlfriend Angie move into Haddon Hall, a sprawling Victorian villa in the London suburbs. Part commune, part creative hub, the house becomes home to a community of musicians, hippies, and hangers-on. As egos clash and parties get out of hand, David keeps writing: “Changes,” “Kooks,” “Life on Mars”—songs that will propel him to global fame. Charting Bowie’s personal life, the development of his music, and the transformation of his image, Haddon Hall is an evocative portrait of a young artist presiding over a musical revolution.

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Curl up by the fire and enter the sinister, supernatural world of Montague Rhodes James, the master of the English ghost story. Chillingly atmospheric, quietly terrifying, M.R. James’s stories explore the darkness just beyond the flicker of the candle or the creaking door. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Vol. 1 comprises graphic adaptations of four of James’s most compelling and unsettling stories, plunging readers into a world of pervasive, creeping disquiet – a world populated by vengeful phantoms, disturbing visions and spectral works of art. Published on the 80th anniversary of James’s death, this is a graphic novel to be read on a winter’s night, a book to curl up with – but not a book for the faint-hearted.

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For the high-flying, heavy-drinking advertising boss Tom Banbury, the art of persuasion relies on an infiltration of the consumer’s mind. In the case of his colleague and confidante Nikos Gazidis, the overdeveloped sense of empathy that makes him so well suited to the business has resulted in a strange psychiatric condition. Nick has unwittingly crashed into the consciousness of his boss. While Tom drinks to forget the troubles of his earthly life, Nick is forced to confront a past that is not his own: a childhood scarred by the small wars waged by an abusive father—and by the events that brought these battles to a close. When Nick enters the panicked silence of the Abbey, a fortress for the rich and unstable, his sister guards him from the visiting Tom Banbury. But can this peculiar bond be broken? Or has Nikos Gazidis taken an empathetic leap too far?

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Genius, eccentric, exhibitionist: there is no shortage of adjectives to describe the great surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Yet this iconic artist and controversial thinker remains a figure shrouded in mystery. Plunging into the Spanish painter’s unbridled, fantastical universe, graphic novelist Edmond Baudoin guides us on the trail of a man known as much for his talent for self-promotion as for his bold and extraordinary work. He emerges with a convincing personal vision of the man behind the artist. Commissioned by the Pompidou Centre, Paris, Dalí is a graphic novel of rare brilliance, which captures in beautifully expressive detail the life of one of the world’s most instantly recognisable painters.

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Hysteria is a graphic novel account of the first steps, errors and frustrations of Sigmund Freud’s career, which would lead to the foundation of a revolutionary new clinical therapy: psychoanalysis. The book traces Freud’s early training in neurological research and medicine; the crucial turning point of his studies with Jean-Martin Charcot at La Salpêtrière; and his establishment of a therapeutic practice in Vienna. Perfectly matching text and illustrations, Hysteri recounts Freud’s interest in his colleague Josef Breuer’s ‘Anna O’ case study, as well as giving an account of his own case histories of hysteria, particularly the treatment of Fräulein Elisabeth von R. The studies brought to life in this authoritative, beautifully illustrated graphic novel are collected in Freud and Breuer’s co-authored Studies in Hysteria, which marked the birth of psychoanalysis.

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In the distant future, Verloc Nim wakes up in the middle of nowhere suffering from complete amnesia. He remembers nothing of his former life. But when Verloc is handed his diary by a robot-monkey called Churchill, he is able to revisit his past. His life, he discovers, has been a miserable one. He lost his business, his family and his friends, simply because he refused the technological advancements pushed on him by society: the pharyngeal filter, the eye implants, the genetic modifications – Verloc went without all these. He had been astray in a society he deeply resented – until his brother, Conrad, took him to another planet to retrieve a mysterious biorobotic experiment called A MA...

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Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unite them, but their journey brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.

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Who of us could not confess to liking food, sleeping and things that shine – at least sometimes? Or dream about becoming rich? This is also true of Sniff, who is fundamentally sweet-natured and who willingly participates in everything, so long as it isn't too dangerous or tiring. This book contains many funny insights as well as support for all those in whom there lurks a little Sniff.

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Nominated for the prestigious Angoulême Festival Grand Prix, Vanistendael creates comics 'about life as it really is'. A beautiful, unexpected story, told from the heart, which reaches far beyond the love story that originally inspired it.

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Published in 1848, at a time of political upheaval in Europe, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s Manifesto for the Communist Party was at once a powerful critique of capitalism and a radical call to arms. It remains the most incisive introduction to the ideas of Communism and the most lucid explanation of its aims. Much of what it proposed continues to be at the heart of political debate into the 21st century. It is no surprise, perhaps, that The Communist Manifesto (as it was later renamed) is the second bestselling book of all time, surpassed only by the Bible. The Guardian’s editorial cartoonist Martin Rowson employs his trademark draftsmanship and wit to this lively graphic novel adaptation. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth, The Communist Manifesto is both a timely reminder of the politics of hope and a thought-provoking guide to the most influential work of political theory ever published.

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Ulysses is a 59-year-old widower who, since retiring, has been in the grip of loneliness. The former moving man is without direction or purpose. He can’t even find solace in the company of his children: his daughter is dead, his son consumed by work. Mrs. Solenza is a 62-year-old former model. Once a magazine cover star, she now runs the family business: a cheese shop owned by her late mother. She, too, is alone. Two lives drift sadly by, inching ever closer to old age. Until, one day, they collide—and an emotional earthquake happens. A unique collaboration between veteran comics writer Zidrou and rising star Aimée de Jongh, Blossoms in Autumn is a masterful exploration of growing old and falling in love.

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Its Dark in London features the work of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, David McKean, Ilya, Carol Swain, Dix, Melinda Gebbie, in tandem with the stories of London writers like Iain Sinclair, Graeme Gordon, Christopher Petit and Stella Duffy. This fusion produces a portrait of London that captures the city's fundamental essence as an exquisite mixture of lofty towers and gutter sleaze, of suburban gentility and urban depravity, of private vices and public philanthropy.

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The true story of how a famous movie star and her ex-husband director were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il and forced to revitalize North Korea’s film industry The incredible-yet-true story of celebrated South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee, abducted in 1978 by North Korean secret agents on the orders of their film-crazed future leader Kim Jong-il. Six months later, filmmaker Shin Sang-ok, Choi Eun-hee’s ex-husband, is abducted in turn. Choi and Shin remain unaware of each other’s fates until they meet again at a dinner hosted by Kim Jong-il in 1983. Kim forces Choi and Shin to make films, including the infamous kaiju cult classic Pulgasari (1985), all while convincing the world that they serve North Korea willingly. Choi and Shin’s love rekindles slowly in this reunited captivity. Only at the 1986 Vienna  Film Festival do they escape, fleeing in a daring car chase to the American embassy.  

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Author-illustrator Peter Kuper’s Eisner Award-winning graphic novel Ruins is a story of love, adventure, and politics—and two lives changed forever by Mexico and the monarch butterfly.“Kuper’s art is, page after page, astonishing.” —Jules Feiffer Samantha and George are about to launch into a sabbatical year in the quaint Mexican town of Oaxaca. For Samantha, their journey to this historic town is about fulfilling a lifelong dream; for George, it is an unsettling step into the unknown. As the couple embark on their adventure, a monarch butterfly begins its arduous migration south from the United States to Mexico . . . It is a challenging journey—a flight that requires remarkable endurance and a will to survive. Beneath Oaxaca’s picturesque and serene veneer—the 16th-century architecture, the nearby ruins—it is a town shaken to the core by political unrest. As the monarch

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Part historical narrative, part modern fiction, the book consists of two interlinked stories: the first focuses on the 18th century painter Thomas Girtin and his relationship with his friend and rival J.M.W. Turner; the second tells the tale of three amateur artists in the present day, united by a shared interest in Girtin’s art. Using this dual narrative to draw parallels between two eras of rapid technological advancement and socio-political turbulence, Oscar Zarate’s long awaited new graphic novel restores to modern eyes this unjustly forgotten figure, whose work has been almost entirely ignored despite his huge influence in British painting. At the time of death, aged just 27, Girtin had already established himself as a pioneer and a master: his expressionist approach was a significant turning point in the British watercolour tradition. But the brevity of his career, coupled with his chosen medium (compared to oils, watercolours were a humbler and less easily exhibited form) meant that his work came to be overshadowed by that of Turner. As Turner himself famously remarked, “If Tom had lived, I should have starved.”

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Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), the American artist known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes, was one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. During her lifetime, which spanned almost a century, she became widely recognized for her huge contribution to modern art. Drawing mainly from O’Keeffe’s letters that are depicted in this biography, artist María Herreros delves into O’Keeffe’s deepest self: a tireless traveller, a nature lover, a strong and emancipated woman who carved her own determined path through life and did it her way.

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Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles depicts a decisive moment in the life of the great Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel: the moment when he doubted surrealism and contemplated embracing a more social type of cinema. At this crucial turning point in his career, he wanted to change the world by showing the hidden heart of reality. Buñuel was deeply affected by the harshness of Las Hurdes and the extreme misery of the people who live in this remote region, so with his friend, the movie producer Ramón Acín, he began work on the pseudo-documentary Land Without Bread. But in the mind of the great surrealist, reality inevitably clashed with dreams and childhood memories, threatening both the film and his friendship with Acín. It is at this moment that the Buñuel of the future was born.

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Typography confronts us everywhere: in books and newspapers, on road signs, product packaging and political leaflets. It is ubiquitous to the point of mundanity. But while the typeface might be secondary to the message, it remains crucial to the way we respond. Fonts spark emotions; they evoke eras and ideologies. Some, like Edward Johnson’s for the London Underground, have become iconic. Others, like comic sans, are loathed. Each one has its own place in history. The ABC of Typography traces 3,500 years of type, from Sumerian pictographs, through Roman calligraphy, to Gutenberg, the Bauhaus and beyond. Brimming with insight and anecdote, this witty and well-informed graphic guide explores the historical, technological and cultural shifts that have defined the look of the words we read, as well as introducing the artists who have marked typography’s long history.

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In 1518, during his violent colonial campaign, Cortés introduces hemp farming to Mexico. In secret, locals begin cultivating the plant for consumption. Cannabis makes its way to the United States by means of the immigrant labour force. Once the plant has been shared with black labourers in the USA, it doesn’t take long for American lawmakers to decry cannabis as the vice of "inferior races”. Enter an era of propaganda designed to whip up fear amongst the public. Dishonest and discriminatory campaigns, spearheaded by legislators and the press, spread vicious lies about a plant that has been used by humanity for thousands of years. The result: cannabis is given a schedule 1 classification, alongside heroin. In this entertaining and expertly crafted graphic novel, Box Brown offers a rich, persuasive and eye-opening guide to the complex and troubled history of weed in America.

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“There was never a place for [Isadora Duncan] in the ranks of the terrible, slow army of the cautious. She ran ahead, where there were no paths.” — Dorothy Parker In 1899, performing in the drawing rooms of London’s elite, Isadora Duncan was already laying the foundations for modern dance. The 22-year-old’s movements were visceral, free-flowing, and expressive; she performed barefoot. She shattered the conventions of traditional ballet and, in doing so, enchanted high society. A year later, in Paris, she met the sculptor Auguste Rodin, whose work proved a revelation, and the influential dancer Loie Fuller, whose support marked the beginning of a dazzling on-stage career. In Isadora, Julie Birmant and Clément Oubrerie capture the astonishing life and scandalous times of the so-called “Mother of Modern Dance.” This extraordinary graphic novel takes in her arrival in Europe, her rise to stardom and the development of a style of dance inspired by natural forms and Greek sculpture that would become her enduring legacy.

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Paris in the 1950s: the reign of Sartre and existentialism. Daniel Brodin—bibliophile, book thief, self-proclaimed poet—enters the heated atmosphere of the Cafe Serbier, home of the Parisian literati. A poetry night is taking place and, when one luminary suggests giving the floor to an unknown, Daniel impulsively puts himself forward. Under pressure, he recites not one of his own surrealist poems but an obscure piece of Italian verse he’s certain no one will know. It’s plagiarism—but it’s a triumph. At last, success. Daniel’s recital marks his entrance into the Parisian avant-garde: a band of cultured rogues and pseudo-revolutionaries for whom life is a playground for art, and planning a robbery has as much value as writing a book. In this milieu, the wine is good and the girls are beautiful. But can success last if it is founded on plagiarism and theft?

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Somewhere in the British Isles, at the end of a neglected road, there is a village called Lip Hook. For its inhabitants, the village is more than the end of the road—it’s the end of the world. Beyond it, there is nothing but mist-shrouded marshland. Few travelers take the road to Lip Hook, but one foggy night, a car speeds perilously toward the village. The driver is a dangerously beautiful woman, the passenger a man with a gunshot wound and a suitcase containing a treasure he has risked his life for. Cash-strapped but in need of a place to hide, the two fugitives seek shelter at the Hanged Man Inn, where the woman persuades the innkeeper to accept payment in kind. As days pass and the woman extends her services to more of Lip Hook's men, among them the village priest, a false faith grips the community—and reason, logic, and humanity begin to disappear.

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Tom is the bespectacled class nerd: clumsy, introverted, and relentlessly bullied. When he leaves his lunchbox unguarded, he returns to find it inhabited by ants. When he gazes at the cute girl in class, she responds by sticking out her tongue. And when it is time to partner up on a canoeing trip, he is left to paddle on the river alone . . . At home, Tom finds solace in recordings of nature and the wild spaces of his imagination. But when he falls prey to a particularly cruel trick, this imaginative wilderness becomes rampant. It wants out. A moment of crisis marks the beginning of a gradual and disturbing metamorphosis. As his limbs turn slowly into branches, Tom is forced to confront adult life as a man transformed. Outburst is a compelling modern fairy tale and a masterpiece of magical realism—dark, imaginative, and beautifully drawn.

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It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly coloured geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams. Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once this alarmingly addictive game emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega – game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications and outright theft. New York Times bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game.

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In London, the moment two commuters, Aaron and Lilly, lay eyes on each another on a packed Monday morning tube train, everyone else around them vanishes. In Los Angeles, Ray is sitting in gridlock on the 405 Freeway when he receives a call from an LAPD officer with news about his wife. Ray fears the worst. But just as the officer is about to give Ray the news, he is cut off. The caller has disappeared, and so has everyone else around him. Everyone except for a badly beaten man tied up in the trunk of another car. In Japan, comic artist Yoshi has come to the demon-haunted Aokigahara Forest to die, but the spirits of the forest have other ideas. Taking us through the deserted streets of London, the empty freeways of Los Angeles, and the dream world of the Aokigahara Forest, Celeste is a compelling and profound graphic novel about the choices we make and the courage it takes to make them.

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Follow the entire painting career of Rembrandt, one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. This is the story about one man’s artistic vocation and the work it demands, about life and death, love and bereavement, fame and loss. This graphic novel aims at authenticity, and where there is an absence of facts, the author has drawn inspiration from the wealth of the anecdotes about Rembrandt’s life. This unique collaborative enterprise between the author, Typex, The Netherlands foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and the Rijk museum, home of the world’s largest and most important Rembrandt collection, guarantees a spectacular result – a stunning and surprising graphic novel on Rembrandt’s life.

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The protagonist, known only as K., arrives in a mountain village buried under deep snows in the middle of winter, with the looming, titular, castle above it shrouded in mist. Attempting to gain contact with the inhabitants of the castle, the officials who run the bureacracy that governs the village, K. repeatedly finds himself misunderstanding and transgressing the multitude of confusing and contradictory rules and regulations that dictate the daily life of the villagers. Kafka’s atmospheric and brooding tale of extreme bureaucracy explores themes of solitude, isolation, loss and companionship.

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This deeply atmospheric rendering of Conrad’s classic dees colonial trader, Marlow, recount his journey into the heart of Africa and his discovery of Kurtz, a company manager rumoured to have gone mad. As the details of Kurtz's dealings with the natives and his state of mind unfold, the lines between perception and interpretation of madness begin to blur. Continuing SelfMadeHero's acclaimed Eye Classics series, Heart of Darkness is revived for a new generation in a format perfect for the graphic novel genre.

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In the mid-1930s, lrmina, an ambitious young German, moves to London. At a cocktail party, she meets Howard Green, one of the first Black students at Oxford, who, like lrmina, is working towards an independent existence. However, their relationship comes to an abrupt end when lrmina, constrained by the political situation in Hitler's Germany, is forced to return home. As war approaches and her contact with Howard is broken, it becomes clear to lrmina that prosperity will only be possible through the betrayal of her ideals. In the award-winning Irmina, Barbara Yelin presents a troubling drama about the tension between integrity and social advancement. Based on a true story, this moving and perceptive graphic novel perfectly conjures the oppressive atmosphere of wartime Germany, reflecting on the complicity that results from the choice, conscious or otherwise, to look away.

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Reluctant muse and feminist champion… society heiress and rebel refugee… the last of the Surrealists: Leonora Carrington played many roles in her long and extraordinary life. Renouncing her privileged upbringing in pre-war England for the more exciting elite of Paris’s 1930s avant-garde, she comes to rub shoulders (and more) with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Salvador Dalí, after embarking on a complicated love affair with Max Ernst. But the demons that have both haunted and inspired her work are gathering, and when the world goes mad with the outbreak of war and the Nazi invasion, Leonora’s own hold on reality collapses into a terrifying psychotic episode of her own. Eventually fleeing war-torn Europe, she emerges into a new and richly creative life in Mexico City, establishing herself as a prodigious painter, writer, and advocate of women’s rights. This new work by the acclaimed partnership of Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot celebrates the life and career of a truly remarkable woman – and artist.

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One day, Sophie receives a cryptic letter posing an intriguing question: “Who are you?” A second message soon follows: “Where does the world come from?” It is the beginning of an unusual correspondence between our curious young heroine and her mysterious penpal. As the questions begin to pile up, Sophie is propelled headlong into a startling adventure through the history of Western philosophy. Her search for answers will see her explore each of the major schools of thought, as she tries to uncover the true nature of the letters, her secretive teacher… and, above all, herself! In this witty comics adaptation, ZABUS and NICOBY have reinvented JOSTEIN GAARDER’s novel of ideas – a beloved bestseller that has already won the hearts of over 50 million readers around the world – to bring Sophie’s charming exploration of meaning and existence to a whole new medium.

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Forbes Best Graphic Novel list of 2022 United States, 1937. In the middle of the Great Depression, 22-year-old photographer John Clark is brought in by the Farm Security Administration to document the calamitous conditions of the Dust Bowl in the central and southern states, in order to bring the farmers’ plight to the public eye. When he starts working through his shooting script, however, he finds his subjects to be unreceptive. What good are a couple of photos against relentless and deadly dust storms? The more he shoots, the more John discovers the awful extent of their struggles, coming to question his own role and responsibilities in this tragedy sweeping through the center of the country. A moving and unforgettable tale, inspired by real-life stories of courage and perseverance against all odds.

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The Dancing Plague tells a true story, from 1518, when hundreds of inhabitants of Strasbourg were suddenly seized by the strange and unstoppable compulsion to dance, from the imagined perspective of Mary, one of its witnesses. Prone to mystic visions as a child, betrayed in the convent to which she flees, then abused by her loutish husband, Mary endures her life as an oppressed and ultimately scapegoated woman with courage, strength, and inspiring beauty. As difficult to interpret now (as a psychological reaction to social injustice?) as it was then (as a collective demonic possession?), the story of the “Dancing Plague” finds suitably extraordinary expression in the utterly unique mixed-media style Gareth Brookes has devised to tell it. The pioneering blend of his trademark “pyrographic” technique with sumptuously colourful (and literal) embroidery perfectly reflects, in a beautiful work of art, the enduring fragility of our human condition – from “choreomania” to coronavirus.

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Love makes the world go round. It can also turn your heart as black as coal. In a series of short fictions, Krent Able, Anya Davidson, Julian Hanshaw, Cat Sims, Benjamin Marr and Kelsey Wroten explore love’s dark, twisted underbelly, and offer a much-needed antidote to everything that is sweet, cloying and conventional. Through wife-swapping, slash fiction, medieval aliens, childbirth, swamp monsters and a mysterious black balloon, I Feel Love questions the one emotion that is meant to make us feel good—but that often does the exact opposite. As unflinching as it is honest, this is the kind of book you don't take home to meet your parents.

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After two years of unemployment, Maggy Garrisson lands a secretarial job. Too bad her new boss is the shady, chaotic Anthony Wight: private detective and alcoholic. But a job is a job, and Maggy could use the cash. Five days into her new role, Wight is beaten to a pulp and Maggy is tasked with returning his wallet. With this seemingly innocuous request, Maggy enters a sinister underworld of corrupt cops, crooked businessmen, and career criminals. There’s a lot to investigate, from the disappearance of a family album to the theft of gold teeth from bodies at the crematorium. But for someone with the energy, ingenuity, and enterprising spirit of Maggy Garrison, puzzles are there to be solved—especially if there’s money to be made in the process.

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In the Middle Ages, surgery was performed by barbers, owing to their skill with sharp instruments. In the mid-19th century, a “grand exhibition” of the effects of laughing gas inadvertently led to the discovery of anaesthesia. Three decades later, Louis Pasteur enjoyed a crucial breakthrough in his search for vaccinations because his assistant decided, against his orders, to take a vacation. In Medicine: A Graphic History, surgeon and professor of medical history Jean-Noël Fabiani stitches together the most significant and intriguing episodes from the history of medicine, from chance breakthroughs to hard-fought scientific discoveries. Spanning centuries and crossing continents, this fast-paced and yet rigorously detailed graphic novel guides us through one of the most wondrous strands of human history, covering everything from blood-letting to organ donation, x-rays to prosthetics.

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In the third volume of their graphic history of US and Middle East relations, Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B. cover the tumultuous period that began with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and ended with Obama’s decision, in 2013, not to intervene in Syria. Taking in the First Gulf War, the rise of al-Qaeda, the military response to the September 11 attacks and the present conflict in Syria, Best of Enemies: Part Three is propelled by a clash between four US presidents and their Middle Eastern antagonists: on the one hand, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; on the other, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Bashar al-Assad. Covering thirty years of conflict and diplomacy, Best of Enemies: Part Three is a breezy and engaging guide to the events that shaped our current politics, from the rise of populism and the so-called Islamic State to the global refugee crisis.

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Texas, 1872. With the Civil War over, exploration has resumed in the territories to the west of the Mississippi, and the geologist Stingley is looking to capitalize. Together with photographer Oscar Forrest, who catalogues the terrain, and their young assistant, Milton, Stingley strikes out into territory that might one day support a new civilization. But this is no virgin land. As the frontiersmen move west, it becomes clear that the expedition won’t go unchallenged. Stingley has led them into a hostile region: the native Comanches’ last bastion of resistance. In a spectacular landscape, under the looming threat of attack, the boundaries between two worlds dissolve. As social conventions disappear and personal inhibitions go into retreat, an intimate relationship develops between Oscar and Milton. The Smell of Starving Boys is an intense Western about the clash of two worlds: one old, one new; one defined by rationality and technology, the other by shamanism and nature.

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In December 1913, the New York World newspaper published the first crossword in history. It appeared in their Sunday supplement, “Fun.” A century later, this absorbing puzzle continues to attract (and infuriate) millions of devotees every day. But the world’s most popular—and seemingly mundane—pastime has a surprising history, filled with intrigue and adventure. Paolo Bacilieri’s FUN transports us from turn-of-the-century New York to present-day Milan, taking in stories of ingenious puzzle makers, ardent solvers, and intellectual luminaries. Part detective story, part docudrama, and interlaced with a fiction of Bacilieri’s own imagining, FUN questions the crossword’s “harmless” status. Sure, it’s fun—but could it also be a form of resistance, of cryptic communication, of espionage?

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Shakespeare turned a tale of unrequited love, family dispute and fatal shipwreck into a miraculously evergreen Christmas favourite. At the beginning of the story, everyone is alone; by the end, everyone - well, almost everyone - has found their other half... Li reimagines Illyra as a 'steampunk' world of snowy mountain tops and lush green valleys.

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One of Shakespeare's greatest and, in recent years, most controversial plays. After borrowing a large sum of money from the Jewish money-lender Shylock, the merchant Antonio faces a devastating credit crunch when his fleet of ships is sunk in a storm. Shylock insists on the small print of his terms and conditions, seeking a literal 'pound of flesh'.

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