The Jonathan Cape graphic novel list was launched in 1998 and has since gone on to publish classics from all over the world – Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Charles Burns’ Black Hole, Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, Joe Sacco’s Palestine, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Posy Simmonds’ Gemma Bovery and Chris Ware’s Building Stories to name but a few. In 2007 we launched the Cape/Observer/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize in a deliberate attempt to find new home-grown British talent. Many of the authors who have entered the competition – Julian Hanshaw, Isabel Greenberg, Joff Winterhart, John Broadley, Stephen Collins – have gone on to write full-length books for the list. Jonathan Cape is one of the foremost literary publishers in the UK, and the graphic novels on our list reflect this. They are of exceptional quality and can be challenging, dark, witty, complex, shocking, cool, heartbreaking.
NICK HAYES
WOODY GUTHRIE
A VISUAL BIOGRAPHY OF WOODY GUTHRIE, PERHAPS THE GREATEST, MOST ENDURING SINGER-SONGWRITER TO EVER LIVE
Forged in the Dustbowl of the 1930s, in an America crippled by the Great World Recession, this humble man found solace in song, and soon those songs became the voice of the People – men and women who had seen their lives deracinated and destroyed by the vicissitudes of global economic forces beyond their control. Guthrie’s influence lives on, a touchstone for Bob Dylan, The Clash and the protest singers of the Occupy movement today. With a delighted eye, and an ear for a tune, Nick Hayes’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Rime of the Modern Mariner brings a legend to life with a generous spirit and crackling moral force its subject would have been proud of. NICK HAYES is the author of The Rime of the Modern Mariner, an updating of Coleridge’s famous poem and among the most highly regarded of recent British graphic novels. He has also published two collections of his short comics, Lovely Grey Day and 11 Folk Songs. He is the founding editor of Meat magazine, a periodical which has been showcasing new writing, comics and illustration for the last six years – and has won two Guardian Media awards.
SEPTEMBER 2014 • £20.00 • HARDBACK • 9780224097314
CHARLES BURNS
SUGAR SKULL
IT’S HERE: THE CONCLUDING VOLUME IN THE EPIC TRILOGY THAT BEGAN WITH X’ED OUT AND THE HIVE.
The long strange trip of Doug reaches its mind-bending, heartbreaking end, but not before he is forced to deal with the lie he’s been telling himself since the beginning. The fragments of the past collide with the reality of the present, nightmarish dreams evolve into an even more dreadful reality, and when you finally find out where all of this has been going, and what it means...well. I won’t spoil it here, but it will make you go right back to page one of X’ed Out and read it all again with new eyes. Just like Doug. CHARLES BURNS grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman’s Raw magazine in the mid-1980s and took off from there, for an extraordinary range of comics and projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to the latest ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris’s delightful restaging of The Nutcracker. He’s illustrated covers for Time, the New Yorker and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He is the official cover artist for The Believer magazine. Black Hole received Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards in 2005. Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.
OCTOBER 2014 • £12.99 • HARDBACK • 9780224096744
EMMA CHICHESTER CLARK
PLUMDOG
A DOG’S DIARY – WITH WORDS AND PICTURES THAT ARE IRRESISTIBLY FUNNY AND MOVING.
Hello. My name is Plum and I’m a whoosell – that’s whippet mixed with Jack Russell and poodle. I especially like swimming, leaping, catching, and croissants, and my favourite fragrance is fox poo. I live with Emma, an illustrator, and Rupert. My sister, Liffey, lives nearby. Over the last year I’ve been keeping a diary. Emma has helped with the pictures, but the words are all mine. Since 2012 Emma Chichester Clark has been delighting thousands of followers with her blog Plumdog, which records the day to day life of Plum, her dog, in Plum’s own words and Emma’s irresistible illustrations. This book collects Plum’s best pages in book form. It will bring cries of delighted recognition from anyone who has ever owned a dog and, dare one say it, charm the pants off even those who strongly prefer cats. EMMA CHICHESTER CLARK is one of Britain’s best loved children’s authors and illustrators. She is the author of the immensely popular Blue Kangaroo series and many other books, and has illustrated books by Roald Dahl, Kevin CrossleyHolland, Peter Dickinson and Michael Morpurgo.
OCTOBER 2014 • £16.99 • HARDBACK • 9780224098403
STEPHEN COLLINS
SOME COMICS
THE BEST STRIPS (SO FAR) FROM THE BEST NEW CARTOONIST (MAYBE)
Here are some comics by Stephen Collins. Or, to be precise, a little over 100 comics by Stephen Collins. They constitute your opportunity to a) discover what plastic bags really think about b) learn the true identity of Kim Jong-Un’s life coach c) have everything ruined by the internet Enjoy! STEPHEN COLLINS is a cartoonist and illustrator. His first book, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil, was published by Cape in 2013. Praised by the likes of Raymond Briggs and described as ‘a future classic’ by the Observer, it became the first graphic novel to be shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and won the Edinburgh Festival’s inaugural 9th Art Award. Stephen previously won the Jonathan Cape/Observer Graphic Short Story Prize. His work has appeared in many publications worldwide, and he contributes regular comics to the Guardian Weekend and Prospect magazine. He lives near Hertford with his wife and son. For up-to-date news and work, visit www.colillo.com
OCTOBER 2014 • £12.99 • HARDBACK • 97802240996
JOE SACCO
BUMF
A COLLECTION OF ALL-NEW SATIRICAL SHORT FICTIONAL COMICS BY THE GREAT JOE SACCO
Joe Sacco is renowned for his books of comics journalism like Palestine, Safe Area Goražde and Footnotes in Gaza. Now in Bumf he returns to his early days as a satirist and underground cartoonist. In the vein of the old underground comix like ZAP or Weirdo, Bumf will be puerile, disgusting, and beyond redemption. It will go where it wants to go, and do what it wants to do. It will also be very funny. JOE SACCO, one of the world’s greatest cartoonists, is widely hailed as the creator of war reportage comics. He is the author of, among other books, Palestine, which received the American Book Award, and Safe Area Goražde, which won the Eisner Award and was named a New York Times notable book and Time magazine’s best comic book of 2000. His books have been translated into fourteen languages and his comics reporting has appeared in Details, New York Times Magazine, Time, Harper’s and the Guardian. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
NOVEMBER 2014 • £12.99 • TRADE PAPERBACK • 9780224101981
WALT WHITMAN, VICTOR ALLEN CRAWFORD
WHITMAN ILLUMINATED THE EPIC TEXT OF ONE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST POETS, REIMAGINED IN STUNNING ILLUSTRATIONS.
Walt Whitman’s iconic collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, has earned a reputation as a sacred American text. Whitman himself made such comparisons, going so far as to use biblical verse as a model for his own. So it’s only appropriate that artist and illustrator Allen Crawford has chosen to illuminate – like medieval monks with their own holy scriptures – Whitman’s masterpiece and the core of his poetic vision, ‘Song of Myself’. Crawford has turned the original sixty-page poem from Whitman’s 1855 edition into a sprawling 234-page work of art. The handwritten text and illustrations intermingle in a way that’s both surprising and wholly in tune with the spirit of the poem – they’re exuberant, rough and wild. WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. Although controversial upon publication, Whitman’s great work, Leaves of Grass, is considered one of the most influential works in the American canon. ALLEN CRAWFORD is an artist, illustrator, designer, and writer. Under the pseudonym ‘Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy’ Allen wrote, designed, and illustrated The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Volume One, which was optioned for film by Johnny Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil. Allen has appeared in the New York Times, Interview, Orion, Frieze, Vice, Tin House, and Art in America. He lives in a small Quaker town in central New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia. www.allencrawford.net
NOVEMBER 2014 • £20.00 • HARDBACK • 9780224101943
BRYAN TALBOT
GRANDVILLE NOEL THE BADGER IS BACK!
With his trusty adjunct, Detective Sergeant Ratzi, away for Christmas, there’s no holiday for Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard as he embarks on an investigation into the disappearance of his housekeeper’s niece, Bunty Spall. The trail leads to a growing religious cult, where a charismatic unicorn messiah and his conmen cronies, already responsible for mass murder in the United States, are about to lead a crusade for the ethnic cleansing of the French Empire’s doughfaces – the derogatory nickname for humans used by the majority, animal-headed population. Teaming up with Chance Lucas, a gun-slinging operative of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and reigniting his steamy love affair with the voluptuous Parisian badger prostitute Billie, LeBrock clashes with both cult fanatics and doughface terrorists, uncovering in the process a centuries-old religious conspiracy that threatens to plunge the world into bloody civil war. BRYAN TALBOT was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and Grandville, Grandville Mon Amour and Grandville Bête Noire.
NOVEMBER 2014 • £16.99 • HARDBACK • 9780224098069
ANDY HIXON
LUCIA
A STUNNING GRAPHIC NOVEL BY ONE OF THE UK’S MOST ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATORS
Lucia is a hard town, full of hard people. It stands looking out across the unforgiving sea that is slowly swallowing it. Its people are all unemployed, with nothing to live for but a pint and fight. Among them are Brick and Morty, one a disabled, heartbroken divorcee and aspiring writer, the other his best friend and protector, a fantasist and aspiring Ultimate Fighting Welterweight Champion of the World. ANDY HIXON lives in Sheffield. He works with clay, photography, digital media and animation.
JANUARY 2015 • £6.99 • HARDBACK • 9780224099301
KARRIE FRANSMAN
DEATH OF THE ARTIST
A GROUNDBREAKING, MIXED-MEDIA GRAPHIC NOVEL BY ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING YOUNG WRITERS IN THE FIELD
On 13 August 2013 graphic novelist Karrie Fransman invited four old friends from university to an isolated cottage on the misty moors of the Peak District to join her for a week of hedonism and creativity. Like Shelley and Byron before them, they would use the retreat to tell stories. Except these would be comics, collected together in this very book. The theme? The Death of the Artist. None of the five friends realised how appropriate this theme would become. The book weaves a single narrative across watercolour, digital art, photography, collage and illustration, exploring the themes of creation, destruction, and how we kill our inner artists as we grow up. It takes the graphic novel into entirely new realms. KARRIE FRANSMAN studied Psychology and Sociology at university and began writing her first graphic stories after reading Ghost World. She’s created comics for the Guardian, The Times, the Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Time Out and Psychologies Magazine. Her first book, The House that Groaned, was published by Square Peg in 2012. www.karriefransman.com
MARCH 2015 • £14.99 • TRADE PAPERBACK • 9780224099431
STEVE BELL
IF: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
A NEW COLLECTION BY BRITAIN’S FINEST POLITICAL CARTOONIST, COVERING THE LESS THAN GLORIOUS DAYS OF THE CAMERON–CLEGG COALITION GOVERNMENT
In his daily cartoon for the Guardian and his longrunning strip, IF, in the same paper, Steve Bell has proved that he is without equal in Britain as a political cartoonist. Savage, funny, rude, constantly transgressing the rules of good taste, and of course beautifully drawn, his cartoons are hated by those they lampoon and loved by everyone who likes to see authority subverted. In his new collection he covers the years of the Conservative– Liberal Democrat coalition government, 2010–2015 – fertile ground for Bell’s genius. From George Osborne in his bondage gear, the ‘Quiet Man’ zombie Ian Duncan Smith, Cable the elephant, Cameron the talking condom and Clegg the butler to Kipling and the IF penguins, every awful moment of the coalition years is re-run before your eyes...but Steve Bell style: ‘outrageous, anarchic, brilliant, sometimes inexplicable and a bit mad (not really)’ to quote John Pilger. STEVE BELL was born in 1951. He began to work for the Guardian in 1981 and his cartoons have appeared in the paper ever since. He is the author of seven previous collections, most recently IF... Bursts Out (2010).
APRIL 2015 • £18.99 • HARDBACK • 9780224102124
Antonio Altarriba?
You have to come with us…”
Let me put on my espadrilles… Those shoes are no good for this terrain…
They handcuffed me and treated me like a criminal… I never felt so much shame… Nor so much rage…
Maybe…
I spent the night in the commissary in Guéret… I couldn’t stop asking myself why someone who was just trying to work in order to live had ended up in a jail cell like a common criminal…
The next day the same two gendarmes accompanied me on the train to Limoges where they handed me over to the Germans… Antonio Altarriba He doesn’t have papers… Neither Spanish or French…
It was a dumping ground for trembling human flesh… More than a thousand people were piled up waiting for a destiny they knew nothing of but nevertheless feared. Poles, Jews, and, most of all, Spaniards…
102
ANTONIO ALTARIBBA (ILLUSTRATED BY KIM)
THE ART OF FLYING
AT LAST IN ENGLISH, ONE OF THE GREAT SPANISH GRAPHIC NOVELS OF RECENT YEARS
When published in 2009, The Art of Flying was hailed as a landmark in the history of the graphic novel in Spain for its deeply touching synthesis of individual and collective memories. A deeply personal testament, Altarriba’s account of what led his father to commit suicide at the age of ninety is a detective novel of sorts, one that traces his father’s life from an impoverished childhood in Aragon, to service with Franco’s army in the Civil War, escape to join the anarchist FAI, exile in France when the Republicans are defeated, to return to Spain in 1949 and the stultifying existence to which Republican sympathisers were consigned under Francoism. ANTONIO ALTARRIBA, who was born in 1952, is a Spanish essayist, novelist, critic and short story writer, who began working in comics in the 1980s. He is currently a lecturer in French literature at the Universidad del Pais Vasco. KIM is a comics artist, best known for his humorous strip Martinez the Fascist in the satirical weekly El Jueves.
MAY 2015 • £16.99 • HARDBACK • 9780224099370
AYA Marguerite Abouet & Clément Oubrerie 9780224081849
AYA OF YOP CITY Marguerite Abouet & Clément Oubrerie 9780224087476
THE ART OF FLYING Antonio Altaribba 9780224099370
EPILEPTIC David B 9780224079204
WHAT IT IS Lynda Barry 9780224087872
HARK! A VAGRANT Kate Beaton 9780224094146
ARE YOU MY MOTHER? Alison Bechdel 9780224093521
FUN HOME Alison Bechdel 9780224080514
THE ESSENTIAL DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR Alison Bechdel 9780224087063
IF... BURSTS OUT Steve Bell 9780224087629
IF... THE GRAPHIC NOVEL Steve Bell 9780224102124
BRITTEN AND BRULIGHTLY Hannah Berry 9780224077903
ADAMTINE Hannah Berry 9780224089081
ETHEL AND ERNEST Raymond Briggs 9780224048743
GENTLEMAN JIM Raymond Briggs 9780224085243
JOHN BROADLEY’S BOOKS John Broadley 9780224089579
FATHERLAND Nina Bunjevac 9780224098342
BLACK HOLE Charles Burns 9780224077781
X’ED OUT Charles Burns 9780224090414
THE HIVE Charles Burns 9780224096737
SUGAR SKULL Charles Burns 9780224096744
PLUMDOG Emma Chichester Clark 9780224098403
GHOST WORLD Daniel Clowes 9780224060882
DAVID BORING Daniel Clowes 9780224063234
ICE HAVEN Daniel Clowes 9780224077798
WILSON Daniel Clowes 9780224090612
MISTER WONDERFUL Daniel Clowes 9780224085342
THE DEATH RAY Daniel Clowes 9780224094115
THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL Stephen Collins 9780224096287
SOME COMICS Stephen Collins 9780224099691
AN ALPHABET OF AUNTS C. M. Dawnay & Mungo McCosh 9780224081160
FREDDIE & ME Mike Dawson 9780224081931
ALIAS THE CAT Kim Deitch 9780224084864
PYONGYANG Guy Delisle 9780224079907
SHENZHEN Guy Delisle 9780224079914
BURMA CHRONICLES Guy Delisle 9780224087711
JERUSALEM Guy Delisle 9780224096690
THE WRONG PLACE Brecht Evens 9780224094207
THE MAKING OF Brecht Evens 9780224097338
DEATH OF THE ARTIST Karrie Fransman 9780224099431
VIGNETTES OF YSTOV William Goldsmith 9780224090360
LIGHTER THAN MY SHADOW Katie Green 9780224090988
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EARLY EARTH Isabel Greenberg 9780224097192
THE ART OF PHO Julian Hanshaw 9780224089845
I’M NEVER COMING BACK Julian Hanshaw 9780224096447
EUSTACE S. J. Harris 9780224093583
THE RIME OF THE MODERN MARINER Nick Hayes 9780224090254
WOODY GUTHRIE Nick Hayes 9780224097314
MY BRAIN IS HANGING UPSIDE DOWN David Heatley 9780224085380
I LIKE MY JOB Sarah Herman 9780224085762
LUCIA Andy Hixon 9780224099301
WALKING THE DOG David Hughes 9780224082297
BYE BYE BIRDIE Shirley Hughes 9780224080750
TANGLES Sarah Leavitt 9780224094221
FLUFFY Simone Lia 9780224080484
PLEASE GOD, FIND ME A HUSBAND! Simone Lia 9780224096225
99 WAYS TO TELL A STORY Matt Madden 9780224079259
3" Marc-Antoine Mathieu 9780224097307
MY DIARY Mio Matsumoto 9780224084437
THE POOR BASTARD Joe Matt 9780224081955
ASCENT Jed Mercurio and Wesley Robins 9780224090797
EXIT WOUNDS Rutu Modan 9780224081665
JAMILTI AND OTHER STORIES Rutu Modan 9780224087704
THE PROPERTY Rutu Modan 9780224093736
DROWNTOWN Robbie Morrison and Jim Murray 9780224085878
THE THREE INCESTUOUS SISTERS Audrey Niffenegger 9780224076869
THE ADVENTURESS Audrey Niffenegger 9780224080057
THE NIGHT BOOKMOBILE Audrey Niffenegger 9780224089524
RAVEN GIRL Audrey Niffenegger 9780224097871
JUST SO HAPPENS Fumio Obata 9780224096638
COLTRANE Paolo Parisi 9780224094108
TATE TO TATE Tommy Penton 9780224085151
MONTAGUE TERRACE Warren and Gary Pleece 9780224090629
PENTTI AND DEATHGIRL Emma Rendel 9780224085069
THE VICAR WOMAN Emma Rendel 9780224091398
FUCK: THE HUMAN ODYSSEY Martin Rowson 9780224084413
FOOTNOTES IN GAZA Joe Sacco 9780224071093
JOURNALISM Joe Sacco 9780224097321
THE GREAT WAR Joe Sacco 9780224097710
THE FIXER Joe Sacco 9780224073820
BUMF Joe Sacco 9780224101981
PERSEPOLIS Marjane Satrapi 9780224064408
PERSEPOLIS 2 Marjane Satrapi 9780224074407
CHICKEN WITH PLUMS Marjane Satrapi 9780224080453
EMBROIDERIES Marjane Satrapi 9780224087407
WIMBLEDON GREEN Seth 9780224079198
IT’S A GOOD LIFE, IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN Seth 9780224079181
GEORGE SPROTT Seth 9780224089982
LITERARY LIFE Posy Simmonds 9780224072694
TAMARA DREWE Posy Simmonds 9780224078160
MRS WEBER’S OMNIBUS Posy Simmonds 9780224096836
ALICE IN SUNDERLAND Bryan Talbot 9780224080767
THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT Bryan Talbot 9780224084703
GRANDVILLE Bryan Talbot 9780224084888
GRANDVILLE MON AMOUR Bryan Talbot 9780224090001
GRANDVILLE BÊTE NOIRE Bryan Talbot 9780224096249
GRANDVILLE NOEL Bryan Talbot 9780224098069
DOTTER OF HER FATHER’S EYES Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot 9780224096089
SALLY HEATHCOTE Mary M. Talbot, Bryan Talbot and Kate Charlesworth 9780224097864
THE TALE OF BRIN AND BENT AND MINNO MARYLEBONE Ravi Thornton 9780224093743
5 IS THE PERFECT NUMBER Igort 9780224073875
A TASTE OF CHLORINE Bastien Vivès 9780224090964
POLINA Bastien Vivès 9780224096935
JIMMY CORRIGAN Chris Ware 9780224062107
QUIMBY THE MOUSE Chris Ware 9780224072656
THE ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY Chris Ware 9780224077026
BUILDING STORIES Chris Ware 9780224078122
WHITMAN ILLUMINATED Walt Whitman 9780224101943
DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER Joff Winterhart 9780224090841
SMELLING A RAT Paul Wright 9780224073882
BYE BYE BABYLON Lamia Ziadé 9780224096195
NOTES
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JONATHAN CAPE capegraphicnovels.tumblr.com capegraphicnovels.co.uk facebook.com/capegraphicnovels capegraphicnovels@randomhouse.co.uk @JonathanCape
ARE YOU AN ASPIRING GRAPHIC NOVELIST? Check our website for news on the Jonathan Cape Short Story Prize, awarded yearly. The winner will see their work in print and receive ÂŁ1,000.
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