The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia


Book Description

The creative partnership of acclaimed writer and academic Mary M. Talbot and graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot has produced some of the most challenging and entertaining graphic novels in recent memory, including 2012's Costa Award medalist Dotter of Her Father's Eyes. The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia explores the life of revolutionary French feminist Louise Michel, a visionary teacher, poet, and radical who took up arms against a reactionary regime that executed thousands. Even deportation to a distant penal colony could not stop Michel from taking up the cause of the indigenous population against French colonial oppression.




The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia


Book Description

From acclaimed writer Mary M. Talbot and graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot comes The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, a portrait of revolutionary feminist Louise Michel, who took up arms against a French regime that executed thousands. Deported to a penal colony, Michel joined the cause of the indigenous population against colonial oppression. * Mary M. Talbot, writer of Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes and Sally heathcote Suffragette is a scholar of international acclaim who has published widely on language, gender, and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. * Artist Bryan Talbot is one of the pioneers of the graphic novel, whose works include The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, The Tale of One Bad Rat, Alice in Sunderland, and the Grandvilleseries.




Critical Directions in Comics Studies


Book Description

Contributions by Paul Fisher Davies, Lisa DeTora, Yasemin J. Erden, Adam Gearey, Thomas Giddens, Peter Goodrich, Maggie Gray, Matthew J. A. Green, Vladislav Maksimov, Timothy D. Peters, Christopher Pizzino, Nicola Streeten, and Lydia Wysocki Recent decades have seen comics studies blossom, but within the ecosystems of this growth, dominant assumptions have taken root—assumptions around the particular methods used to approach the comics form, the ways we should read comics, how its “system” works, and the disciplinary relationships that surround this evolving area of study. But other perspectives have also begun to flourish. These approaches question the reliance on structural linguistics and the tools of English and cultural studies in the examination and understanding of comics. In this edited collection, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine comics by addressing materiality and form as well as the wider economic and political contexts of comics’ creation and reception. Through this lens, influenced by poststructuralist theories, contributors explore and elaborate other possibilities for working with comics as a critical resource, consolidating the emergence of these alternative modes of engagement in a single text. This opens comics studies to a wider array of resources, perspectives, and modes of engagement. Included in this volume are essays on a range of comics and illustrations as well as considerations of such popular comics as Deadpool, Daredevil, and V for Vendetta, and analyses of comics production, medical illustrations, and original comics. Some contributions even unfold in the form of comics panels.




Isabellae Volume 2


Book Description

In this epic conclusion to the series, Isabellae battles against ancient Celtic beasts and deities that threaten the destruction of humanity. Curious about her origins and in search of long-lost Celtic relatives, Isabellae travels to Ireland. But when the ancient druids of the Emerald Isle make a deal with the monstrous Formorian gods, Isabellae finds herself battling in a war for control with her English and Irish allies! From the innovative minds of Spanish creators Raule and Gabor, Dark Horse Books is excited to present Isabellae Volume 2, which collects the final three volumes of the original French series, available in English for the first time. Collects French albums 4-6.




Abraham Stone


Book Description

Western noir from legendary comic book creator Joe Kubert! After the murder of his family and being left for dead by robber barons, Abraham Stone travels to New York, California, and Mexico in search of a fresh start in life. In his travels, he gets involved in the criminal underworld, the movie business, and even becomes an ally of Pancho Villa.




Rain


Book Description

From acclaimed writer/historian Mary M Talbot and graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot comes Rain, a chronicle of the growing relationship of two young women, one an environmental activist, set against the backdrop of the disastrous 2015 floods in northern England. The wild Brontë moorlands are being criminally mismanaged as crops are being poisoned, and birds and animals are being slaughtered. While the characters are fictional, the tragedy is shockingly real. Rain is the fourth graphic-novel collaboration between Mary M Talbot and husband Bryan Talbot, a partnership that has produced the award winning Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, Sally Heathcote: Suffragette (with Kate Charlesworth), and The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia.




Framing the Penal Colony


Book Description

This book examines the representation of penal colonies both historically and in contemporary culture, across an array of media. Exploring a range of geographies and historical instances of the penal colony, it seeks to identify how the ‘penal colony’ as a widespread phenomenon is as much ‘imagined’ and creatively instrumentalized as it pertains to real sites and populations. It concentrates on the range of ‘media’ produced in and around penal colonies both during their operation and following their closures. This approach emphasizes the role of cross-disciplinary methods and approaches to examining the history and legacy of convict transportation, prison islands and other sites of exile. It develops a range of methodological tools for engaging with cultures and representations of incarceration, detention and transportation. The chapters draw on media discourse analysis, critical cartography, museum and heritage studies, ethnography, architectural history, visual culture including film and comics studies and gaming studies. It aims to disrupt the idea of adopting linear histories or isolated geographies in order to understand the impact and legacy of penal colonies. The overall claim made by the collection is that understanding the cultural production associated with this global phenomenon is a necessary part of a wider examination of carceral imaginaries or ‘penal spectatorship’ (Brown, 2009) past, present and future. It brings together historiography, criminology, media and cultural studies.




Luther Arkwright


Book Description

"In a swirling multiverse of endless possibilities and incalculable dangers, malign forces manipulate history through countless timelines and act to wreak destruction across universes"--




Grandville Integral


Book Description

"The acclaimed steampunk series from graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot explores an alternate, art-nouveau world populated by intelligent animals, a human underclass, and wondrous technology"--




Comics and Stuff


Book Description

Considers how comics display our everyday stuff—junk drawers, bookshelves, attics—as a way into understanding how we represent ourselves now For most of their history, comics were widely understood as disposable—you read them and discarded them, and the pulp paper they were printed on decomposed over time. Today, comic books have been rebranded as graphic novels—clothbound high-gloss volumes that can be purchased in bookstores, checked out of libraries, and displayed proudly on bookshelves. They are reviewed by serious critics and studied in university classrooms. A medium once considered trash has been transformed into a respectable, if not elite, genre. While the American comics of the past were about hyperbolic battles between good and evil, most of today’s graphic novels focus on everyday personal experiences. Contemporary culture is awash with stuff. They give vivid expression to a culture preoccupied with the processes of circulation and appraisal, accumulation and possession. By design, comics encourage the reader to scan the landscape, to pay attention to the physical objects that fill our lives and constitute our familiar surroundings. Because comics take place in a completely fabricated world, everything is there intentionally. Comics are stuff; comics tell stories about stuff; and they display stuff. When we use the phrase “and stuff” in everyday speech, we often mean something vague, something like “etcetera.” In this book, stuff refers not only to physical objects, but also to the emotions, sentimental attachments, and nostalgic longings that we express—or hold at bay—through our relationships with stuff. In Comics and Stuff, his first solo authored book in over a decade, pioneering media scholar Henry Jenkins moves through anthropology, material culture, literary criticism, and art history to resituate comics in the cultural landscape. Through over one hundred full-color illustrations, using close readings of contemporary graphic novels, Jenkins explores how comics depict stuff and exposes the central role that stuff plays in how we curate our identities, sustain memory, and make meaning. Comics and Stuff presents an innovative new way of thinking about comics and graphic novels that will change how we think about our stuff and ourselves.