It’s our favourite time of year. We’ll soon be packing up our bags and heading to Toronto for Canada’s foremost comic book extravaganza. TCAF takes place on 13th, 14th and 15th May, with exhibitors laying out their wares in the Toronto Reference Library on the Saturday and Sunday.
Joining us at the festival this year will be Barbara Yelin (Irmina), Edward Ross (Filmish) and Mike Medaglia (One Year Wiser). They’ll be signing on SelfMadeHero’s stand throughout the weekend, as well as taking part in events (of which more next week).
Set for the most part in the Berlin of Hitler’s Germany, Barbara Yelin’s award-winning graphic novel Irmina is a troubling drama based on the life of the author’s grandmother. Conjuring the oppressive atmosphere of Nazi Germany,Irmina explores the tension between integrity and social advancement, reflecting with compassion and intelligence on the complicity that results from the choice, conscious or otherwise, to look away.
Barbara Yelin is a Munich-based comics artist. She received the Bavarian Art Award for Literature for Irmina, which also won the Best German Graphic Novel prize at the PENG Awards. She’s also the author of Gift (with Peter Meter) and Riekes Notizen.
On Thursday evening, Yelin will speak alongside Balak, Manuele Fior, Francisco Sousa Lobo and Bastien Vivès at the Alliance Française Toronto (“Comics Around the World”, 19:00-21:00).
On Friday, she leads a workshop as part of TCAF’s creator-focussed “Word Balloon Academy” (“Drawing as Exploring”, 11:30-13:00, Mariott Bloor-Yorkville)
And on Saturday, Yelin again joins Manuele Fior for a free-to-attend festival event (“Lost Loves”, 14:45-15:45, Marriott Bloor-Yorkville).
In Filmish, Edward Ross takes us on an exhilarating ride through the history of cinema, using comics to uncover the magic and mechanics behind our favourite movies. Exploring everything from censorship to set design, he spotlights the films and film-makers that embody this provocative and inventive medium, from the pioneers of early cinema to the innovators shaping the movies of today, from A Trip to the Moon to Inception and beyond. For further info, preview material and more, visit www.filmish.co.uk.Filmish_Edward-Ross_new-blog_1.jpg 90.78 KB
Edward Ross will be discussing Filmish with Nathalie Atkinson on Saturday morning (“Spotlight: Edward Ross”, 10:00-11:00, 11:30-13:00, Mariott Bloor-Yorkville).
Mike Medaglia is the creator of oneyearwiser.com, where he posts regular illustrated meditations. A practicing Zen Buddhist, Medaglia also tackles subjects from presentness to self-doubt in a Meditation Comic for The Huffington Post and a weekly strip, “The Mindful Life”, for The Elephant Journal.
One Year Wisercollects 365 of Medaglia’s illustrated meditations, bringing the wisdom of the world’s great thinkers to life through beautiful hand-drawn illustrations. From Rumi to Roosevelt, the Buddha to Martin Luther King Jr., the meditations that fill this book will help you beat stress, be positive and appreciate the moment. Plus, for readers who like a more hands-on experience, there’s One Year Wiser: The Coloring Book.
Mike Medaglia will lead a hands-on workshop on Saturday afternoon (“Draw Your Favourite Quote”, 12:00-13:30, Toronto Reference Library), which is free to attend.
As if that weren’t enough, Steffen Kverneland’s Munchand Anne Martinetti, Guillaume Lebeau and Alexadre Franc’s Agatha will make their Canadian debuts at the festival. What’s more, we’ll be giving away signed, limited-edition prints with a bunch of new titles and backlist favourites, including Frederik Peeters’ Aama, Reinhard Kleist’s An Olympic Dream, Rob Davis’s The Motherless Oven.
So, stop by early and get your hands on some fabulous printed goods, some of them cheap, some of them free, and all of them beautiful.
To celebrate the release of Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie, co-authors Anne Martinetti and Guillaume Lebeau visit the Institut Français in London to discuss their lively and surprising graphic biography of the Queen of Crime. The event takes place at 7pm on Wednesday 11th May. Tickets are available here (£8, conc. £6).
Crime fiction experts Anne Martinetti and Guillaume Lebeau worked alongside artist Alexandre Franc to create Agatha, whichuses the novelist’s enigmatic disappearance in 1926 as a gateway to explore her life and character.
Taking in her childhood in Torquay and her early attempts at writing, the authors chart Christie’s development into a free-spirited and thoroughly modern woman who, among other things, enjoyed flying, travel and surfing.
Anne Martinetti has been an Editor at French crime publisher Éditions du Masque for more than ten years. She is the author of an Agatha Christie-inspired cookbook – the fabulously titled Creams and Punishments – among many other books.
Guillaume Lebeau is the author of more than fifteen books, novels and graphic novels, among them a biography of Stieg Larsson. Together, Martinetti and Lebeau have created a cookbook inspired by Scandinavian crime fiction, Crimes on Ice, and the encyclopedia Agatha Christie from A to Z.
Join both authors at the Institut Français, where they’ll uncover the real Agatha Christie – funny, fallible and full of life.
Big news: in October, we’ll be bringing Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown to UK readers. This hotly anticipated – and, we can confirm, brilliant – graphic novel is a dramatic and surprising history of the most ubiquitous and addictive video game of all time. We bagged UK & Commonwealth rights from our friends at First Second, who’ll be publishing the book in the States.
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.
Of course, you’ll know Box Brown as the creator of Andre the Giant: Life andLegend, which tells the story of another pop culture icon. He’s also the founder of the fabulous alt-comics publisher Retrofit Comics.
Be the first to hear what we’ll be doing to celebrate the release of Tetris by signing up to our newsletter. It’s going to be a fun autumn!
We’ll soon be making our annual pilgrimage to the MoCCA Arts Festival, where the first three books on our spring list make their US debuts. The event takes place on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd April (11am-6pm) at Metropolitan West, 639 W 46th St, NY 10036.
We’ll be joined by Reinhard Kleist, who’ll be signing copies of An Olympic Dream. Find him sketching and scribbling on the SelfMadeHero stand (G237-238) throughout the weekend. Kleist will arrive fresh from a live drawing event at the Goethe-Institut on Friday evening, of which more here.
Irmina is an award-winning wartime drama based on the life of the author’s grandmother. Conjuring the oppressive atmosphere of Nazi Germany, Yelin’s graphic novel explores the tension between integrity and social advancement, reflecting with compassion and intelligence on the complicity that results from the choice, conscious or otherwise, to look away. Read the Library Journal‘s review of the book here.
Steffen Kverneland’s extraordinary and inventive graphic biography explores the relationships and obsessions that drove the artist behind ‘The Scream’. Using text drawn from the writings of Edvard Munch and his contemporaries, this extensively researched and beautifully drawn graphic novel debunks the familiar myth of the half-mad expressionist painter – anguished, starving and ill-treated – to reveal the artist’s neglected sense of humour and optimism. The Comics Journal has said of the book, “Munch is a dazzling use of sequential storytelling… Rarely have I read a more entertaining biography.”
If you’re lucky enough to be in New York City, we look forward to seeing you there!
On Friday 1st April Reinhard Kleist will draw live to music at the Goethe-Institut New York (30 Irving Place, NY 10003). The event, which includes an author Q&A, starts at 7pm and admission is free.
Kleist’s appearance at the Goethe-Institut coincides with the release of his latest graphic novel, An Olympic Dream, which tells the remarkable true story of Somali Olympian Samia Yusuf Omar. In 2008, the 17-year-old Yusuf Omar overcame conflict, poverty and discrimination to run in the 200m at the Beijing Olympics; this moving and politically charged graphic novel is an account of her ill-fated attempt to compete at London Games in 2012.
Publishers Weekly said of the book, “Kleist’s treatment of [Yusuf Omar’s] quest is heartbreaking and inspirational, putting a human face to Europe’s current migration question.”
An Olympic Dreamdebuts at the MoCCA Arts Festival, which takes place on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd April (11am-6pm) at Metropolitan West, 639 W 46th St, New York, NY 10036. Reinhard Kleist will be signing on SelfMadeHero’s tables throughout the weekend.
