We’re hosting a party at Gosh! Comics on Friday 7th March – and everyone’s invited! Quite aside from the free booze, there’ll be signings from three of our finest creators: Reinhard Kleist (The Boxer), ILYA (Room For Love) and Mark Stafford (The Man Who Laughs).

Mark Stafford will be signing copies of The Man Who Laughs, his British Comic Award-nominated collaboration with David Hine. An adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic, it was lauded as “absolutely stunning and grotesque” by Cory Doctorow. ILYA will be signing his brilliant original graphic novel Room For Love, which made the Independent‘s list of 2013’s best comics and was heaped with praise elsewhere. Fresh from his talk at the Goethe-Institut the night before, Reinhard Kleist will be signing copies of his brand new book, The Boxer, a multi-award-winning graphic biography of Holocaust survivor and champion boxer Harry Haft. Kleist is well known for his previous biographies, which include the Eisner-nominated Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness.

The event takes place at Gosh! Comics, 1 Berwick Street, Soho, London, W1F 0DR, 7-9PM.

It’s happening as part of Gosh!’s British Comics Month – a celebration of British comics artists, writers and publishers. You can join the event on Facebook here.

To launch his brand new graphic novel, The Boxer, Reinhard Kleist will be in conversation with Paul Gravett at the Goethe-Institut in London on Thursday 6th March (from 7pm). Hosted jointly by SelfMadeHero and Comica, this event is your only chance to hear Kleist speak about his award-winning biography of the Holocaust survivor and champion boxer Harry Haft. The event is completely free, but guests are asked to RSVP to [email protected].

The Boxer tells the true story of Hertzko Haft, a Polish Jew who was plunged into the horror of the concentration camps at sixteen and found himself forced into life-or-death boxing matches by his SS captors. His battles took him to the end of the Second World War and – against all the odds – liberation.  After the war, having emigrated to America, Haft (now “Harry”) established a career as a heavyweight prizefighter, which began with ten straight wins and ended with a defeat to the great Rocky Marciano in 1949.

Reinhard Kleist is a multi-award-winning graphic novelist. His books include Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, Castro and Havana: A Cuban Journey. In January 2013, he became the first comic book artist to be awarded the B. Z. Kulturpreis for his contribution to Berlin’s cultural scene. Kleist will be in conversation with Paul Gravett, Director of Comica, author of Comics Art, and curator of the upcoming British Library exhibition Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK.

The event takes place from 7pm at the Goethe-Institut, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2PH. Admission is free but RSVP to [email protected].

It’s Australia Day – and, fittingly, we’re celebrating the publication of our first title of 2014, Terra Australis. Written by LF Bollée and illustrated by Philippe Nicloux, this brilliant, ambitious graphic novel charts the epic voyage of the First Fleet from London to Port Jackson, Australia.

The book is being published to coincide with the bicentenary of its central character, Admiral Arthur Phillip, Captain of the First Fleet and founder of the settlement that would later become Sydney. Terra Australis follows Phillip’s journey, but it also charts the lives of the men and women, mostly convicts, who were crammed aboard 11 ships and transported 24,000km to the other side of the world. Having endure mutiny, disease and extreme weather, the Fleet reached Australia early in 1788, raising the Union Jack in Sydney Cove on 26th January, Australia Day.

Terra Australis is a meticulously researched dramatisation of a fascinating period of history. Drawing on the lives of real historical figures, from the thief John Hudson to the diarist Ralph Clark, the book takes in the festering squalor of Newgate Prison, the claustrophobic confines of the ships, and the outstanding natural beauty of Australia’s east coast.

LF Bollée is a journalist and the author of over 40 graphic novels. Fascinated by Australia, he began working on Terra Australis in December 2007. He is also the author of XIII Mystery, a spin off from the world-renowned VIII saga.  He lives in Versailles, France.

Philippe Nicloux is from Nice, France.  He has illustrated three graphic novels for the French publishing house Les Enfants Rouges.

Everyone knows that the best resolution to make – and to keep – in January is to create a graphic novel. With this in mind, SelfMadeHero is teaming up with The Guardian to host a one-day masterclass in graphic novel creation.

Taking place on Sunday 26th January, this in-depth full-day event covers everything you need to know, from the history of the art form to the mechanics of getting published. Following an introduction by comics expert Paul Gravett (Comics Art), there will be workshops led by some of the country’s top writers and artists, including graphic novelist Karrie Fransman (The House that Groaned), Guardian cartoonist and author Martin Rowson (Tristram Shandy) and acclaimed novelist and comics writer Toby Litt (King Death, Dead Boy Detectives). To end the day, a panel of graphic novel experts will discuss how creators can progress their art, offering practical advice to those looking to get their work in front of an audience.

The masterclass takes place on Sunday 26th January at The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, 9.30am-5.30pm.

To find out more about the event – and to book tickets – click here.

We’re thrilled to be revealing our catalogue for spring 2014, which is now available here in all its glory. It’s a wonderfully varied and impressive list of books, perhaps our strongest to date.

As you may already have heard, May sees the release of a brilliantly original book by Pixies frontman Black Francis. Illustrated by The Guardian’s Steven Appleby, and co-written by the band’s biographer Josh Frank, The Good Inn is an inventive and vividly imagined illustrated novel set in early twentieth-century France.

We’ll also be introducing English speakers to Abel Lanzac and Christophe Blain’s bestselling satire of Franco-American relations, Weapons of Mass Diplomacy (retitled from the French Quai D’Orsay). Penned by Dominique de Villepin’s former speechwriter, this won the Grand Prix at Angoulême in 2013 and was recently adapted into an acclaimed French film (under its original title). The film is expected to reach English speaking audiences in 2014. Here’s the trailer:

The release of Reinhard Kleist’s The Boxer, a moving biography of Holocaust survivor and champion prizefighter Harry Haft, adds to our list of prize-winning books in translation, as does LF Bollée and Philippe Nicloux’s masterful history of the founding of Australia, Terra Australis.

Spring also sees the release of I. N. J. Culbard’s first original graphic novel, Celeste; the second in our Art Masters series, Vincent by Barbara Stok; and The Cigar that Fell in Love with a Pipe, a collaboration between the French novelist David Camus and Eisner-winning graphic novelist Nick Abadzis.