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Grandville
Grandville
Nov 16, 2024 10:01 PM

Author:Bryan Talbot

Grandville

In Grandville, the first volume in the series, Talbot brings us a steampunk masterpiece. IIt tells the story of detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard as he stalks a gang of murderers through the heart of Belle Epoque Paris. In this alternative reality France is the major world power and its capital throngs with steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons and flying machines. The characters are mostly animals, though there is an underclass of humans, often referred to as 'dough faces'.

Visually stunning, Grandville is a fantastical and audacious rollercoaster ride that will add to Talbot's reputation as one of the best graphic novelists in the world.

Reviews

A solid conspiracy caper with bursts of Tarantino-like mayhem...a witty romp in a vividly realised topsy-turvy world.

—— Times Literary Supplement

Utterly delightful...It's a playful, allusive book in which there's a witty touch or deliciously knowing in-joke on almost every page...beautifully rendered, throughout, the glossy gorgeousness fills your eyes.

—— The Times

A gorgeously coloured steampunk fantasy.

—— Metro

Think Wind In The Willows meets 1920s film noir, a combination you never knew you needed… From political conspiracies to serial killings, this is all set in an alternate present day where Britain lost the Napoleonic Wars and the entire Royal Family were executed... It’s a really compelling setting for any story, but the detective mystery element brings it all together. To me, this is perfect fodder for a Wes Anderson-style stop-motion film series. It’s funny, eerie, and altogether very surreal.

—— Megan McGill , Den of Geek

As absorbing as it is graced with a deceptive lightness of touch, it is clever, brilliantly pieced together, and utterly unusual.

—— Robert Collins , Sunday Times

One of the chief pleasures of this book is how the words and pictures collaborate to gesture at a territory that neither might reach alone.

—— Tim Martin , Telegraph

Many of us are living out the unlived lives of our mothers. Alison Bechdel has written a graphic novel about this, sort of like a comic book by Virginia Woolf. You won't believe it until you read it - and you must!

—— Gloria Steinem

Pure bliss.

—— Lisa Appiganesi , Observer

Bechdel’s engaging, original graphic memoir explores her troubled relationship with her distant mother.

—— New York Times

A complex, fascinating and intellectually rich memoir.

—— Larushka Ivan-Zadek , Metro

Very original and arresting.

—— Cressida Connelly , Spectator

Throughout, there are magnificent feats of connectivity, startlingly complex internal monologues that unfold with perfect simplicity… I haven’t encountered a book about being an artist, or about the punishing entanglements of mothers and daughters, as engaging, profound or original as this one in a long time.

—— Rev’d Katie Roiphe , Scotsman

Lively, fresh and expressive…humane, complex and beautiful.

—— Anna Carey , Irish Times

Don’t let the cartoons fool you, this is an exciting and intelligent book and, at many points, highly moving. It doesn’t just tell Alison’s story, Are You My Mother? allows to you to think about your own.

—— Emerald Street

Find everything this author has written. Every jot she makes on the paper enriches the baroque, painful, exhilarating story she has to tell.

—— Candia McWilliam , Scotsman

It’s first and foremost funny, using graphical and verbal tricks to express the psychological dramas of an American household.

—— MacUser

[Sacco’s] ability to cram in detail is extraordinary. And it is the details that linger.

—— The Economist

When stretched to its 24ft length in the Saga Magazine office, we pored over it for ages. We predict you will want to do the same.

—— Saga Magazine

About Joe Sacco’s The Great War, one can write only essays or short, ecstatic sentences... A beautiful accordion-book, it unfolds on the Western Front, with all its monotony and misery: simple, but intricate; wordless, but vocal; brutal, but beautiful. A masterpiece of quietly affecting numbers, the thousands of lines, dots, and crosses that demarcate the thousands of lives, deaths, and crises.

—— Reggie Chamberlain-King , Quietus

The detail in this work is phenomenal, capturing the aloof generals, death in the trenches, and the wounded... [Sacco] makes visceral one of the bloodiest days in history.

—— Socialist Review

Wordless and brilliant.

—— Donal O'Donoghue , RTE Guide

Sometimes words and photographs are not enough… [An] astounding book.

—— Michael Hodges , Mail on Sunday

A unique and unforgettable experience.

—— Matthew Turner , Ask Men

A meticulous visual depiction.

—— Observer
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