Centrala 2021 Catalogue

Centrala 2021 CATALOGUE Stay in touch with Europe Check our wide selection of titles from across the old continent, from the west to the east.

#lovelifedeath #graphicliterature #centralabooks

#Life Quarks, Elephant & Pierogi _ Mikołaj Gliński, Matthew Davies, Adam Żuławski, Magdalena Burdzyńska _ p. 3 Amazing Athletes _ Till Lukat _ p. 6 Panic! Pandemic diary from Italy - Franceska Colombara _ p. 9 Single _ Jiří Franta _ p. 12 So Far So Good _ Jan Novak, Jaromir 99 _ p. 15 My Muse Lies On The Settee _ Wide Vercnocke _ p. 18 Jarmil in India _ Marek Rubec _ p. 21 Bad Dreams _ Janek Koza _ p. 24 Hello Adventure _ Alexis Nolla _ p. 27 Strange Blood _ Sergi Puyol _ p. 30 Zenith _ Maria Medem _ p. 33 Next Time Everything Will Be All Right _ Lene Ask _ p. 36 Dromedaries _ Marta Frej _ p. 39 The Sisters Dietl _ Vojtěch Mašek _ p. 41 Fat Princess Petronia _ Katharina Greve _ p. 44 The Silence _ Bruce Mutard _ p. 47 It’s Good We Talked About That _ Julia Bernhard _ p. 50 Trinity _ Wide Vercnocke _ p. 53 #Love Puppet, Plum Pit, Plum, Log and Back to Puppet _ Vojtěch Mašek, Chrudoš Valoušek _ p. 56 Impossible _ Catarina Sobral _ p. 59 Not All Cacti Have Spines _ Joana Mosi _ p. 62 Lonely Journey _ Ida Rørholm Davidsen _ p. 64 Backlist title _ p. 67 About Centrala _ p. 69

Quarks, Elephant & Pierogi Co-published with Adam Mickiewicz Institute

Mikołaj Gliński, Matthew Davies, Adam Żuławski, Magdalena Burdzyńska An eye-catching new book introducing Polish culture to English-language readers Can you distil the essence of a country into just 100 words?

This book will make you fall in love with a country with one of the most unusual histories out there. It’ll also show you how languages intersect and whole cultures arise, and make you realise just how interwoven our world is. Along the way, you’ll find out why quarks are made from curd cheese, learn what elephants have to do with a Central European country, and discover how pierogi saved an entire town. The book, addressed to foreign readers and people of Polish origin living abroad, is an invitation to travel around the country and in time. Thematic scope of entries referring to tradition, history, and nature, he acquaints readers with the Polish mentality and language.

The book consists of one hundred articles written by the editors of Culture.pl, Mikołaj Gliński, Matthew Davis and Adam Żuławski, who use words - keys to outline the landscape of Poland, show its history and cultural achievements recorded in language. The painting completes the series of illustrations by Magdalena Burdzyńska.

Series Published Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life 2018 240 pp; 169 x 241 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-16-9 27 GBP / 34,99 USD/ 33 EUR Title list

Mikołaj Gliński, Matthew Davies and Adam Żuławski are on the editorial team of Culture.pl, the world’s premiere online source for Polish culture.

Magdalena Burdzyńska is a painter, graphic designer and illustrator. She has designed several highly-lauded books for Polish art house publishers.

Title list

Amazing Athletes

50 Remarkable Athletes of History

Till Lukat

A unique comic book on sports and it’s most outstanding characters.

Ready... Steady... Go!!! And we’re off. 50 amazing Athletes pushing their minds and bodies in the great competition of sports. Who will win the medal and who will win the hearts? On the way through the ages, the reader discovers what real sportsmanship is made off.

Whether the athletes stick out through their godlike physical ability or their incredible willpower, all of them have one thing in common: The courage to go a step beyond the finish line.

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life January 2021 120 pp; 148 x 200 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-13-8 13.99 GBP / 20 USD / 17 EUR Title list

Till Lukat was born on Valentine’s day 1991 in Berlin, Germany. After living in Portugal for a year he has now moved back to Berlin, Germany where he lives in a Camper van in which he thankfully doesn’t have to work anymore after renting a separate studio space. He has studied Illustration and Visual Communication at the University of Arts in Berlin and at the University of the West of England in Bristol. He finished his studies in 2015 with the Bachelor degree. Since then he has published two Books, which have been translated into four languages, won the Ligatura Pitching, appeared in Publications such as Stripburger, Kuš!, Off Life and Schnösel Mösel, Published a webcomic on electrocomics.de and had an exhibition at the Fumetto International comix-festival, Luzern in 2016.

Title list

Panic!

Pandemic Diary from Italy Francesca Colombara

’Quirky drawn quarantine story’

’Panic!’ tells the story about the three months quarantine of Diego and Viola, in a little flat in the suburbs of Bologna.

Diego is afraid of everything and he wants to lock himself in his house for ever. Viola only wears pajamas and she’s afraid that her family will become infected. They have a dog named Panic that will grow exponentially during lockdown, and they clean the grocery with the disinfectant gel. This comic is a magnifying glass on Viola and Diego’s ecosystem: their home. It’s the story of their anxiety. Panic is an autobiographical story, and it tells that even a home can be a crowded place.

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life February 2021 96pp; 220 mm x 170 mm PB full-colour 978-1-912278-24-4 17 GBP / 24 USD / 21 EUR Title list

Francesca Colombara is 26 a years old illustrator, 2D animator and author based in Bologna (Italy). Her short story „I hate drawing” won the second place of the FRAME’s 2019 best short comic.

Her illustration was selected for the AIB exhibition (Italian Libraries Association) during the Children’s Book Fair 2019 and artworks have been published in Cicla 2019 exhibition, in Shanghai for the International Children Illustration Bookfair. She collaborated with many independent magazines like Akulka, Capek, Mulieris and also co-founded a self-publishing project called CIANG, in collaboration with the illustrator Matteo Dang.

Title list

Single

Jiří Franta

This existential graphic novel draws us into the world of a Prague thirty-something who’s just been dumped by his longtime girlfriend. What does it mean to be single at a time when everyone around you is starting families? Is it a blessing or a curse? And what to do now? Think about the past, seek yourself, try to redefine your existence? A lot of questions, not a lot of answers. The single is free, but against his will. And it’s this very freedom which brings him stories and experiences which he’d never go through otherwise.

A strange trip to Rome with a friend that didn’t go as planned.

A brief but nonetheless intense relationship with a racist football fan. And many other scenes which play out in his head as memories during a purgative voyage across the Arctic Ocean. The single is like an iceberg waiting for a fateful Titanic to strike.

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life March 2021 200 pp; 225 x 318 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-19-0 25 GBP / 35 USD / 30 EUR Title list

Jiří Franta is a Master of Fine Arts, visual artist and illustrator based in Prague.

He has been drawing and painting all his life. Devoted to painting, he is also involved with installation art, objects or video productions. He is a member of the Rafani art group and partner in the Franta-Böhm art duo as well as founder of the comics magazine KIX. He has exhibited in the Czech Republic and abroad and has been the finalist for the prestigious Jindřich Chalupecký Award several times, won Magnesia Litera Award for best Children Book in 2015.

Title list

So Far So Good

Jan Novák & Jaromír 99 Visually arresting graphic novel in a unique noir style!

The true story of three Czech men whose daring exploits of antiCommunist resistance and 1953 flight to West Berlin set off the largest manhunt in the history of the Eastern Bloc.

The story of the Mašín brothers and their band waging guerilla war against the Communist regime in the early 1950s could be the most dramatic Czech tale of the 20th century. After their activities in Czechoslovakia, these young men headed west – facing off against twenty thousand East German Volkspolizei and shooting their way to freedom. In the novel So Far, So Good, Jan Novák wrote the story like a thrilling Czech Western and won the Magnesia Litera prize for Best Book of the Year. After the runaway success of the previous collaboration with an illustrator Jaromir 99, Zátopek, the authors return with an even more explosive comic book.

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life March 2021 256 pp; 160 x 230 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-22-0 25 GBP / 35 USD / 30 EUR Title list

Jan Novák (b.1956) is a Czech- American novelist, dramatist, scriptwriter, translator. His family escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1969, first going to an Austrian refugee camp and finally moving to US in 1970, now he lives in Prague, though he often returns to America. His books have been translated into several languages and he is the recipient of major literary prizes both in Czechia and States. In 2020 he published a controversial literary biography, entitled Kundera, His Czech Life and Times.

Jaromír 99 is a Czech singer, songwriter, and artist who divides his time between the worlds of music and comics. He collaborated with Jaroslav Rudiš on the comics trilogy Alois Nebel (2003).

He also worked as a co-screenwriter and artist on its film adaptation (2011), which was awarded Best Animated Film by the European Film Academy. He won a Muriel Award for his comic strip Bomber (2007) and he adapted Kafka’s The Castle (2013) as a graphic novel for SelfMadeHero, and received the nomination for the prestigious Eisner Award. © Dušan Tománek

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My Muse Lies On The Settee Wide Vercnocke

Poetry from the comfort of your couch...Every chapter of ‘My Muse Lies on the Settee’ opens with a short poem that is depicted in an accompanying illustration. This is followed by a comic strip, usually wordless, of a few pages, which builds on the same theme. Wide Vercnocke does not opt for adventurous themes, but instead explores the world of the couch potato. Although the idle protagonist wallows comfortably in the security of his lazy existence, the repeated and powerful depiction of his biceps suggests that his passivity is only a temporary phase, the silence of a resting volcano.

Wide Vercnocke’s debut ’My Muse Lies On The Settee’ surprised and astonished as a poetic graphic novel in which the line work was as fluent as the prose.

Bart Croonenborghs brokenfrontier.com

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life April 2021 97 pp; 210 x 280 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-21-3 19 GBP / 27 USD / 23 EUR Title list

Wide Vercnocke (b. 1985) studied at Sint-Lukas in Brussels, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Visual Arts, Graphic Design department. His graduation work immediately became his first published comic: „My Muse Lies On The Settee”. This was followed by „Wild meat” (2014), „Narwal” (2016) and „Drieman” (2020). His books are published by Bries. In between, he works as a freelancer, his drawings have appeared in Humo, Focus Knack and De Standaard or as large murals.

As an illustrator he is also associated with „De Sprekende Ezels”, a stage for poetry, word and music. He describes himself as a ‘writer and illustrator of tear-jerkers’. In his graphic novels, he combines a fascinating drawing style with often abstract but poetic stories, in which physicality plays an important role. Language and image are given equal weight, and Vercnocke plays deftly with both. He is building an oeuvre that is impressively unique and unconventional.

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Jarmil in India

Marek Rubec

The book captures the adventurous journey of the slacker ape Jarmil through the magical Indian subcontinent. Full of surprises and unexpected encounters, the story was inspired by the author’s own experiences. This untraditional graphic novel, told in widescreen detailed illustrations, standing somewhere on the crossroad of comics and art books will be enjoyed by younger and older readers of pictures.

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Life June 2021 68 pp; 300 x 150 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-23-7 13 GBP / 19 USD / 16 EUR Title list

Marek Rubec *1979 in Litoměřice (CZ) Studied animated film in Zlin, is freelance illustrator, graphic and comics artist. Published his comics in anthologies and magazines in Czech republic, Slovakia, Germany, Slovenia and Sweden. With Pavel Kosatik is the author graphic novel from serie ČEŠI. As an illustrator cooporate with many publishing houses and magazines.

Marek Rubec won the prize ARNAL for the best comics without words in 2013 and for years later won the comics competition on Frame festival in Prague. In 2016 he took part in residence for comics artists in Malmö, Sweden.

In his work, he is often inspired by the environment of block houses and urban peripheries.

© Veronika Brocknerova

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Bad Dreams

Janek Koza

’Bad Dreams’ is a collection of bitter stories about the desire to get away from tiresome reality.

Nine characters portrayed by Janek Koza, shivering like the author’s line, struggle with frustrating work, boredom, failed relationships, or the nightmare of insomnia. Trying to change their fate, they immerse themselves in dreams and reach their small moments of fulfillment, which illuminate the darkness of the gloomy polish daily life. However, making them come true leaves the characters in stagnation and loneliness. With his naturalistic approach, Koza outlines an image of problems and desires, grimaces, and raptures of the cross-section of our society, from twenty-something to fiftyyear-olds. One cannot know if their bad dream begins when they put their head on a pillow or when they open their eyes after night delusions.

Janek Koza looks on those that we turn our eyes from, so we’ll stop deceiving ourselves that we’re any different from them.

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life June 2021 80 pp; 170 x 240 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-17-6 15 GBP / 22 USD / 18 EUR Title list

Janek Koza paints, directs animations and films, and creates comics. He was born on 1st April, 1970 in Wrocław. Koza’s works have been presented at a wide range of exhibitions, at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Łódź Art Museum, and at the National Museum in Poznań. The artist has authored more than one hundred animated films, widely showcased in Poland and abroad, for instance at: WRO Art Center in Wrocław, Łódź Art Museum, National Museum in Poznań, Animamundi in Brazil, and Image Forum in Tokyo. BIO NA STRONĘ: Janek Koza, born 1970. In june 1987 he dreamed that he was a taxi driver. About 1994 he passed the road tractor driving exams. Thanks to his hard work he developed his own shipping company operating throughout Europe. On his way to Germany, while changing the wheel on the roadside, he met his future wife Jadwiga (got married in a year 1998). Two kids ( Anna, born 1999 and Krystyna, born 2000).

Frequent trips and absences from home led to a series of family problems in 2001 and eventually divorce in 2002.

He died alone in his home in the suburbs of Warsaw in 2019 of a stroke.

Unfortunately, this dream did not come true. After waking up, he has a neck pain for several days.

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Hello Adventure Alexis Nolla

In this short story collection, Alexis Nolla tells us of great travellers that really existed – or are totally invented, a bit like Bolaño’s style. We follow the legendary Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott; fathers and sons on a quest to find the Devil’s Island; and monsters with PTSD syndrome. Different genres combine in Nolla’s unique portrayal of dauntless explorers, solitary hunters, melancholic monsters, frozen noses and brave travellers creating a mesmerizing hymn to the beauty of discovery and the ancestral power of wilderness.

Alexis Nolla is the best artist on the planet, and when I make this statement I feel I’m still not being categorical enough: what I like most about living in the 21st century is knowing that Alexis Nolla is in his room drawing.

Conxita Herreroy Spanish comic artist and singer

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life July 2021 128 pp; 160 x 240 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-27-5 23 GBP / 33 USD / 28 EUR Title list

Alexis Nolla was born in Barcelona in 1987. Besides the three stories collected in Hello Adventure, previously published by Apa-Apa (Escondite/ La Isla del Diablo, 2012; El Polo Sur, 2014; Tre Marineros, 2015) he also published Chico del Antifaz (Diminuta, 2015) and Terra Estraña (Anti, 2012). His work has been featured in fanzines and magazines (Voltio; Perdiz), and collective books (Rubor; Hodoo Vodoo) and is the most internationally appreciated Spanish comic artist.

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Strange Blood

Sergi Puyol

‘Strange Blood’ is both a mystery thriller and psychological exploration of what triggers obsession inside the human mind.

What exactly does stranger blood stand for? Arnaldo’s life is filled with a pneumatic void. He can’t stand Fridays, can’t stand working, he can’t stand, in general, his sorry postmodern existence. Until one day something random happens. Against his will, his spirit is shaken to the core leading him into an all-consuming obsession. He goes on a compulsive hunt to find answers, and his search will lead him through Russian novels, gallons of beer and into metaphysical questions to finally realize one can escape any place on earth except his mind.

Sergi Puyol has put all his visual skills into a story that is both gripping and disturbing, in which we can never be sure of what is true and what is false. Only one thing appears to be true beyond the shadow of doubt: obsession can drag us into insanity.

Gerardo Vilches comics critic and curator

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life July 2021 120 pp; 165 x 235 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-26-8 23 GBP / 33 USD / 28 EUR Title list

Sergi Puyol (Barcelona, Spain, 1980) is a professional letterer and cartoonist.

He studied Graphic Design at Elisava School in Barcelona. He works as a graphic designer, but he mainly draws and reads comics in his free time. He is the co-owner of the Spanish comics Publishing House Apa-Apa comics together with Toni Mascaró since 2011 where he has released almost all his work, including the most recent Strange Blood. He is co-editor of Colibrí Fanzine, also has participated in loads of other fanzines and some publications as Panorama, la novela gráfica española hoy (Astiberri, 2013) or Rubor (La Cúpula, 2015) as well as in the Lithuanian publication Kûs!.

Title list

Zenith

Maria Medem Under an ever-present orange sun illuminating a desert landscape, two artisans, one for glass the other for clay, meet every day for lunch and chat. Both are sleepwalkers, but experience this phenomenon in drastically different ways. The potter hates his somnambulism, considers it an uncomfortable part of his being as if he shared a body with a stranger. The glassblower, however, is not nearly as bothered by being a sleepwalker. One night, he wakes up startled.

Taken over by insomnia, he goes to his workshop and there he will make a horrifying discovering that will trigger the conclusion of this story.

With an evocative colour palette ranging from deep blue to bright orange that will certainly remind one of George O’Keeffe’s paintings of the desert, enigmatic landscapes and atmospheres reminiscent of Giorgio De Chirico’s metaphysical paintings, Zenith is a book that gets under one’s skin and gets to the reader on a deeper, beyond rational level.

A conversation between two men about their dreams. A reality that liquefies to become inseparable from the oneiric, like two sides of a coin with which Maria Medem plays to create a unique narrative. A thriller. Maybe only a dream. Spectacular.

Alvaro Pons

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life July 2021 120 pp; 180 x 235 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-25-1 23 GBP / 33 USD / 28 EUR Title list

María Medem (Seville, 1994) began to self-publish her comics after completing her degree in Fine Arts. She published her first long comic with Terry Bleu, a small Dutch publisher. She has participated in anthologies such as NOW (Fantagraphics Books) and Cold Cube 004 (Cold Cube Press) and even created an album artwork for Bombay Bicycle Club’s ‚ Eat, Sleep, Wake’ record.

She regularly collaborates with various publications such as Medium, the New York Times, Wired or Anxy magazine.

She participated in the event The City in Comics in Madrid with a large format mural comic.

Title list

Next Time Everything Will Be All Right Lene Ask

With her previous books (including published in English ”Dear Rikard”), Lene Ask got a lot of attention, especially for her personal and humorous descriptions of her own life. ”Next time everything will be all right” is Ask’s first cartoon that is not about herself. The artist handles the transition to the new format excellently. She tells the story about the village girl Marte who has moved to Oslo to study and work at a library. When her father dies, Marte has to go home again, and among other things try to find out her relationship with the strictly religious mother. With persistent idealism, she strives to make the right choices, but throughout history gets new insights into what is important in life.

Lene Ask again shows her ability to describe people with great empathy and credibility. She glides freely between the big existential themes and the small everyday events. Her clear drawings and effective use of colour drive the story forward and support the characters’ characteristics.

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life August 2021 101 pp; 190 x 250 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-30-5 16 GBP / 22 USD / 20 EUR Title list

Lene Ask (b. 1974) is a Norwegian comics and children’s book writer.

Though initially a photographer, since the debut of her graphic novel “Hitler, Jesus og farfar” in 2006, Ask has worked extensively in the field of comics, books and illustrations.

She graduated from the Norwegian Institute for Children’s Books, studied photography at Bergen Art Academy for three years, and was an exchange student as photographer at FAMU, Prague. In addition she studied art history at the University of Bergen, and art at Rogaland College of Art, Stavanger (NO).

Ask works with both documentary and fiction and has published over 25 books, as author and/or illustrator, several of them translated to other languages. She has also published a number of articles and short stories in several anthologies.

Ask is a much sought lecturer and has exhibited her works at a wide range of venues.

Ask sees herself as a visual storyteller, both when she draws pictures and writes novels. In her graphic novels she works with the tension between words and images.

Title list

Dromedaries

Marta Frej

An important role was played in the armed struggle against the Russian authorities by women who were active within the Polish Socialist Party’s paramilitary units. In underground jargon they were known as Dromaderki, the feminine form of the Polish word for dromedaries—the one-humped Arabian camels used to transport people and goods—because they carried weapons, ammunition and explosive materials.

In the Częstochowa district alone there were several dozen of them.

Unfortunately, most of them have remained anonymous; the names or aliases of only a few of them have survived to the present day.

In “civilian” life they were students, teachers, doctors, housewives or factory workers. Active involvement in the fight for independence meant the risk of imprisonment, lengthy sentences to hard labour, or exile to Siberia.

From the afterword by Juliusz Sętowski

Marta Frej is on top form in this book, where with humour and dedication she depicts the unsung heroines who’ve been ignored by the standard textbooks.

Sylwia Chutnik

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life September 2021 36 pp; 250 x 250 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-35-0 12 GBP / 17 USD / 15 EUR Title list

Marta Frej is a painter, illustrator, and, through her role as chair of the „Kulturoholizm” foundation, an organizer of cultural events. She is well known for her feminist online memes, which combine sparkling, pointed wit and finely crafted graphics.

Marta Frej was born in Częstochowa in 1973. She is a graduate of the Łódź Academy of Fine Arts. Her creative work dedicated to the defence of gender equality and women’s rights won her the 2015 Okulary Równości („Spectacles of Equality”) prize, awarded by the Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka Foundation.

She also won the 2017 O!Lśnienia roku („Revelation of the Year”) award in the art category. Her most popular works are her captioned pictures illustrating modern women’s life in Poland, which have been exhibited in various galleries throughout the country. Dromedaries is her first solo publication in book form.

Title list

The Sisters Dietl

Vojtěch Mašek

A horror detective story about two sisters, whose world is created from the surreal visions of Vojtěch Mašek, one of the most acclaimed Czech comics authors.

When one of the Dietl sisters ends up in hospital after what appears to be a brutal attack, leaving her with a mutilated face and unable to move, Mašek leads the reader on a detective story exploring change of identity, doppelgängers, deformation, hallucination and altered states of mind in contrast with idyllic family life. This comics takes place in a fictional world woven from dreams, hazy and distorted memories of childhood fears, fear of the unknown and the desire for a safe hiding place. Reality constantly disrupted by doubts, changing points of view, the neurotic need to find objective truth. All this is contained in the story about the Dietl sisters – many theories, many possibilities but seemingly with only one solution. Mašek employs a unique multilayered art style, combining backgrounds created from various texts, newspaper cuttings and patterns with the main plot taking place in the foreground.

A multi-layered story uncovering a kind of mysterious evil hovering above two ageing sisters. Its mood is reminiscent of Charles Burns’s Black Hole, but more in a…Czech way.

Reflex

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life September 2021 248 pp; 230 x 300 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-20-6 25 GBP / 35 USD / 30 EUR Title list

With slight exaggeration it could be said that whatever discipline Vojtěch Mašek (* 1977) turns his hand to, his work always meets with incredible success: he was one of the screenwriters on the film Křižáček (The Little Crusader, 2017), which won best film at the festival in Karlovy Vary, while the children’s book Panáček, pecka, švestka, poleno a zase panáček (Puppet, Plum Pit, Plum, Plank and Back to Puppet, 2018), story by Mašek and art by Chrudoš Valoušek, won the prestigious Bologna Ragazzi Award. However, he is most at home in the world of comics, which he creates either on his own or in partnership with other artists and writers. Since 2002, he and Džian Baban have been developing the surreally farcical world of Monstrkabaret Freda Brunolda (Fred Brunold’s Monster Cabaret), which has appeared in five comic books, more than a dozen stage adaptations and in short films. They have also written two award-winning graphic novels with art

by Jiří Grus. He also recently worked with the writer Marek Šindelka on the contemporary graphic novel Svatá Barbora (Saint Barbara, art by Marek Pokorný, 2018), and his list of projects continues to grow.

© Madla Rutová

Title list

Fat Princess Petronia

Katharina Greve

The whole universe worships the Little Prince, who sees everything ‚with his heart’ – but no one pays any attention to his cousin, Fat Princess Petronia. In contrast to the angelic blond boy, she’s sullen and completely unsentimental. She just doesn’t fit the princess cliché at all: She hates pink frills and loves maths. Naturally, the Little Prince has a huge planet while Petronia is stuck on probably the tiniest and most boring planet in the whole wide universe. With the help of multi-purpose worm Mirco, she tries to pep up her dismal life by travelling the cosmos by wormhole or by attempting to meet David Bowie – usually without success.

Petronia’s absurd and funny adventures draw on the themes of The Little Prince, fairy tales, science fiction and the classics like Faust. The imagery is also packed full of allusions: Sometimes the art looks like advertising, sometimes like a board game or even like a modelling sheet.

Greve’s space comic skilfully parodies various science fiction classics such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Star Trek, Alien and the notion of parallel worlds in the multi-verse. Greve succeeds in depicting her title character’s emotional world with just a few strokes.

Holger Moose Goethe Institut

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life Oct 2021 UK / Jan 2022 US 104 pp; 189 x 238 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-37-4 17 GBP / 24 USD / 21 EUR Title list

Katharina Greve, born 1972 in Hamburg, studied architecture at the Technical University, Berlin. An artist, writer, cartoonist and comic strip creator, she lives in Berlin. In addition to drawing cartoon and comic strips for Titanic, Das Magazin, Taz, Neues Deutschland, Der Tagesspiegel etc., Greve has published several graphic novels. In 2010, she received the ICOM Independent Comic Book Prize for Outstanding Artwork and the German Comic Strip Prize for New Talent for her comic book debut. In 2013, she predicted the retirement of Pope Benedict in a comic strip and won the Sondermann Förderpreis for Humorous Art. Her webcomic ‚Das Hochhaus’ was awarded the Max and Moritz Prize for Best German-language Comic Strip at the International Comic Salon Erlangen.

In 2019, Fat Princess Petronia appeared as a humorous satire of the ”Little Prince”.

© Marcus Müller

Title list

The Silence Bruce Mutard

A provocative graphic novel about the nature of art, told through the eyes of Choosy McBride, gallery manager and curator, and her artist partner, Dmitri. When Choosy McBride discovers an extraordinary artwork she is determined to track down the unknown artist. With her partner Dmitri, an artist wrestling with his own creative demons, she follows the trail to an exhibition at an enigmatic gallery in Northern Queensland, but the creator of the mysterious artworks remains elusive. Increasingly frustrated, and resolved on a dramatic course of action, Choosy insists they make a final visit to the gallery.

But will the truth revealed there be what either of them expect?

The action is in the emotions. There is anger, politeness, selfdoubt, and white sandy beaches. A beautiful graphic novel that explores the nature and culture of art.

Bernard Caleo

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Life October 2021 188 pp; 200 x 180 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-29-9 18 GBP / 25 USD / 22 EUR Title list

Bruce Mutard is a comics maker, publisher and researcher. His graphic novels include “The Sacrifice”, “The Silence”, “A Mind of Love”, “The Bunker” and “Post Traumatic”. His latest graphic novel “Bully Me”, was published as “Souffre Douleur” in France in 2019. He is currently a PhD candidate at Edith Cowan University with his thesis “The Erotics of Comics” and makes comics as scholarship. He is director of the Comic Arts Awards of Australia and editor/publisher of the Australian Comic Annual. He has been a curator and program director at the Perth Comic Arts Festival.

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It’s Good We Talked About That Julia Bernhard

”It’s Good We Talked About That” is a manifesto on lethargy, depression and failed communication. It’s a world populated by a spiteful grandma, a doting diarrhoeal pug and a passive-aggressive house plant. Anyone who doesn’t know what do with their life will, for better or worse, likely see themselves in these pages.

Spanning ten ludicrous and laconic slices of life, Julia Bernhard reveals the world of her protagonist: a collection of everyday, caustic conversations and monologues about art projects, affairs, relationship dramas and procrastination.

The title is pure irony, because although the book contains much talking, including about highly personal matters, it seems that no one is properly listening. Over a diverse set of episodes, Julia Bernhard places her protagonist across from people who should, theoretically, be interested in her life, such as her grandma, a friend, a lover... However, no interest in her as a person is to be found. Instead, she’s lambasted with hollow words and ascriptions that make for a discomforting read.

The jury of Max & Moritz Prize 2020

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Life Nov 2021 UK / Feb 2022 US 96 pp; 205 x 245 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-36-7 17 GBP / 24 USD / 21 EUR Title list

Julia Bernhard born in Aschaffenburg in 1992, studied illustration at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. She lives and works as a freelance comic artist and illustrator in Berlin.

Her work has appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, Popular Science Magazine and in various publishing houses. Her comic debut was awarded the Max und Moritz Prize and the Rudolph Dirks Award 2020.

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Trinity

Wide Vercnocke

After the Second World War, Ferdinand Vercnocke, authors’ grandfather, was sentenced to ten years in prison for collaboration for putting his writing skills at the service of the German occupier. He was released after five years, and twenty years later he was rehabilitated..

The Vercnocke family would hardly talk about that black past, not even after his death in 1989. In 2015, Bout Vercnocke considers the time finally ripe to dig up the dark past of his father: how and to what extent his father collaborated, how big was his involvement and responsibility? Drieman is a partly autobiographical, partly magicalrealistic comic in which Wide Vercnocke sheds light on both the search for the actions of his grandfather during the Second World War and how he deals with the result of this search.

A breath-taking visualisation. A powerful and profound statement.

NRC HANDELSBLAD

A sensitive, intriguing and moving graphic novel. His best to date.

DE STANDAARD

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Life November 2021 120 pp; 215 x 270 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-31-2 20 GBP / 27 USD / 24 EUR Title list

Wide Vercnocke (b. 1985) studied at Sint-Lukas in Brussels, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Visual Arts, Graphic Design department. His graduation work immediately became his first published comic: „My Muse Lies On The Settee”. This was followed by „Wild meat” (2014), „Narwal” (2016) and „Drieman” (2020). His books are published by Bries. In between, he works as a freelancer, his drawings have appeared in Humo, Focus Knack and De Standaard or as large murals.

As an illustrator he is also associated with „De Sprekende Ezels”, a stage for poetry, word and music. He describes himself as a ‘writer and illustrator of tear-jerkers’. In his graphic novels, he combines a fascinating drawing style with often abstract but poetic stories, in which physicality plays an important role. Language and image are given equal weight, and Vercnocke plays deftly with both. He is building an oeuvre that is impressively unique and unconventional.

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Puppet, Plum Pit, Plum, Log and Back to Puppet

Vojtěch Mašek, Chrudoš Valoušek ’The story is filled with twists and turns, escapades, absurd humour and wonderful linocuts.’

Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi’s peppy impish wooden puppet, must encounter many adventures before finally coming to his senses...

But what must a plum pit endure before it can become a puppet?

This adventurous and comic tale told by a talking plank recounts the winding and capricious life story of a plum pit given to escapades.

Screenwriter, comic book creator and author, Vojtěch Mašek, exhibits a sense for lively, nearly theatrical, storytelling and returns absurdist humor and biting levity to the children’s literary scene. Abundant linocut illustrations and graphics by artist Chrudoš Valoušek are, as always, stunning.

The beloved puppet of children’s literature, a figure that has been a continuous inspiration for artists all over the world, here presents an entirely new gallery of heroes and adventures. The graphic design plays with scale. The pages are peopled with historiated initials reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts, giant page numbers, avant-garde references and a medley of geometrical characters, their neon colours boldly outlined in black. Spread after spread, the mix of different layouts and the uncommon use of line-cut technique make for a truly extraordinary picturebook.

The Jury of Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2019

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Love April 2021 94 pp; 345 x 255 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-18-3 17.99 GBP / 27 USD / 22 EUR Title list

Vojtěch Mašek is the author and illustrator of a dozen graphic novels, including Elephants in Marienbad, Look for Doc. Woman in Everything, Pandemonium, St. Barbora, Sisters Dietl, The Dragon Never Sleeps, and more. Most of these were awarded the Muriel Prize of the Czech comic festival KomiksFEST! for best story or best graphic novel. He has also written three plays and many screenplays, for which he was nominated by the Oscars for a Student Academy Award and awarded a Crystal Globe for Best feature film in the 52nd International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary.

© Madla Rutová

Chrudoš Valoušek is a unique Czech illustrator, specializing in lynocuts. His book Mix Přísloví won the prize of the Most beautiful book in the world in 2010 in Leipzig. He used to work as a night watchman, now he lives in Prague and works in National Gallery.

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Impossible

Catarina Sobral It all began when everything was in the same place. We don´t know how it appeared, but we do know that the Universe started in a very small space. It seems impossible, but it’s true: when it all began, all the big things were very little.

IMPOSSIBLE tells us the Universe’s history since the Big Bang to the birth of plants, animals and humans. Catarina Sobral’s first nonfiction book is a colorful journey through particles, stars, dinosaurs and our genealogical tree.

In this fantastic book, Catarina Sobral makes a real introduction to cosmology. New questions and statements emerge each time we turn the page, as if it was a very funny game. The magnificent illustration uses a mixture of techniques and materials - drawings, painting,s collages (gluing), pencils-color, markers, pastel - with lots of color and textures. There is space for new experiences and creations: the important thing is to imagine, (re) invent. The end pages are mark the beginning and the end of this cosmic adventure and, in the end, the characters are wrapped in stardust. We know that our DNA is present in the same fiber with which the stars are embroidered - after all, we are also made of stardust. We sparkle. And we sparkle even more after reading Impossible.

Júlia Martins, in Deus me Livro

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Love August 2021 40 pp; 215 x 280 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-33-6 12 GBP / 17 USD / 15 EUR Title list

Catarina Sobral is a Portuguese awardwining illustrator, published internationally and praised by readers and critics all over the world. Catarina is also an animation film director.

She is the author of STRIKE, ACHIMPA, MY GRANDAD, SO SO BIG and IMPOSSIBLE, all published by Orfeu Negro. Her books have been published in many countries and her work is a regular presence in editorial illustrations, album covers, posters and exhibitions around the world. Her picture books have won prizes such as the International Award for Illustration at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Best Picture Book by the International Comics Festival Amadora BD or Best Children’s Book by the Portuguese Authors’ Society. Her work was also distinguished as a finalist at the Golden Pinwheel Award, the Nami Concours or Ilustrarte, to name a few.

IMPOSSIBLE is her most recent book, which was published in October 2018, and is her first non-fiction book.

While Catarina does not attain to just one technique, her preference falls almost always on a limited palette of colors, and she explores mixing textures and patterns in full rich and bidimensional images. Catarina has illustrated thirteen books and written ten of them.

© Helena Tom

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Not All Cacti Have Spines

Joana Mosi

Just like a house plant, friendship is something that needs to be taken care of to keep it alive. Luísa and Rita have been best friends since they can remember, but as they get older, something begins to threaten their bond. What does it mean to know someone? What does it take to keep our memories true? “Not All Cacti Have Spikes” is a short story about friendship, plants, growing up but also growing apart.

“Luísa and I met in primary school and we’re best friends since then. We have always been a little different, that’s why I think we complement each other. But I like to believe that I know her better than anyone. Luísa brought a lily that day. And she wasn’t wearing earrings.”

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Love August 2021 24 pp; 177 x 246 mm HC B&W 978-1-912278-34-3 7 GBP / 10 USD / 9 EUR Title list

Joana Mosi (1994) is a visual artist, author, and educator. She graduated in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon and is currently finishing her master’s degree in Film. She has authored a number of comic books, some of which have won distinctions, including the autobiographical mini series Altemente (ComicHeart, 2016) and Spineless Cactus (Octopus, 2017).

In 2020, she was included in the international anthology Kus, with the project „Everything’s Gonna Be Okay”. In the last two years, Joana has focused a large part of her activity on initiatives and projects related to comics, education and literacy. She has collaborated with several institutions, including the National Reading Plan and the international projects ReadON and Comics for Education (KUS). She was the coordinator of the Concept Art course at ETIC, in Lisbon, for three years and is the present Comics teacher at Nextart, also in Lisbon. Since 2020 she has been collaborating with The Animation Workshop in Viborg (Denmark).

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Lonely Journey

Ida Rørholm Davidsen

In this spell-binding lon, a young girl struggles to fit in, subconsciously mimicking her mother’s lonely existence. Her interest in the computer game, Lonely Journey, becomes an obsession, but it also becomes a means to reinvent herself. In the virtual reality, she can escape and live out her dreams. Slowly reality and virtuality start to merge.

With her debut, ’Lonely Journey’, Ida Rørholm Davidsen portrays the young Anna’s loneliness and outsider status – the result is believable, heart-breaking and real.

The Ping Prize

In sensitive and playful pencil drawings, (...) (she) portrays the fundamental worries that older children struggle with in a socially demanding multi-player-everyday life.

4 hearts in Politiken

Series Release Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

Love October 2021 112 pp; 176 x 246 mm HC full-colour 978-1-912278-28-2 18 GBP / 25 USD / 22 EUR Title list

Ida Rørholm Davidsen is an illustrator and artist educated at The Royal Danish Academy of Design in Copenhagen, private drawing teacher at Glyptoteket, and got a Debutant scholarship from the Danish Arts Foundation. She works with various kinds of drawings, paintings, books and visual storytelling, and her main interests are children’s books and analogue illustration. In 2019 she won the prestigious Ping Award in the category „Best YA publication 2019” and was also nominated in the category „Best Danish Debut”.

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Wage Slaves

Blood

Daria Bogdańska

Wage Slaves is a story about union struggle when you are somebody marginalized by society.

Daria moves to Sweden to reset her life. She looks for a job and starts working under the table as a waitress in one of Malmö’s many restaurants. She soon discovers that things aren’t quite as they should be. Together with a journalist and her union, she starts to investigate the employment practices at her workplace – and many things in her life change.

Wage Slaves is a story about union struggle when you are somebody marginalized by society. But also the story of a journey to a new country. Daria tries to get a new life and make new friends. She parties falls in love, works, learns the new language and starts a band.

Daria Bogdanska tells the story of the precarious generation without employment security that she herself is a part of and the underground scene in Malmö. A tale of everyday life and politics.

About alienation in a new city, longing for love and justice and trying to feel at home far, far away from home. The book is based on true events.

Various artists

Women’s comic anthology from Poland The Blood Anthology illustrates the range of meanings that blood bears, from its mythological aspect (the magical powers attributed to menstrual blood), through the symbolism of heredity – the inevitable genealogical continuity, through revenge and violence, to strong connotations with physical pain. Blood also touches upon various layers in terms of art, not limiting itself to comics. Inside the anthology, we will find references to Frans Masereel’s and Lynd Ward’s woodcut pre-comics; subtle portraits; the simplicity of cartoon art; photomontage and psychedelic references to sciencefiction.

Supported by Swedish Art Council

Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

200 pp; 180 x 255 mm SC B&W 978-1-912278-07-7 20 GBP / 27 USD / 24 EUR

Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

108 pp; 165 x 235 mm SC full-colour 978-0-9933951-5-4 15 GBP / 22 USD / 18 EUR

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Old Farts

Sorina Vazelina

Short Stories About Aging from Romania Sorina Vazelina’s fun and poignant cartoons about ageing makes for compelling reading. She is a talented artist taking on very serious issues and subjects with a wonderfully quirky yet thoughtful approach. Very much worth thumbing through.

Ginanne Brownell Mitic insidefullofcolor.com

It is a book that straddles many styles and approaches to communicating ideas and stories. Some moments appear like sketchbook watercolours and others like clean and intellectual New Yorker Magazine cartoons. The personality on display changes from story to story but retains that experimental edge throughout.

Antony Esmond downthetubes.net

Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

68 pp; 148 x 200 mm HC full-colour 978-0-9933951-8-5 13 GBP / 19 USD / 16 EUR

Elephant on the Moon Mikołaj Pasiński, Gosia Herba

Elephant on the Moon is a richly illustrated tale of courage, passion and determination. Although it is directed mainly at younger readers, it refers to serious events.

In a small town there lives a lady astronomer. Every evening she looks at the moon through her telescope. She knows it like the back of her own hand. Even in her sleep she can name all the mountains, the craters and the oceans of the silvery globe. One night she makes an amazing discovery. Can it be that there’s an elephant living on the moon? The members of the Moon Society refuse to believe her.

Elephant on the Moon is a richly illustrated tale of courage, passion and determination. Although it is directed mainly at younger readers, it refers to serious events. Sir Paul Neal in the seventeenth century – one of the astronomers of the Royal Society – is supposed to have been the first to observe an elephant on the moon. At the time, his discovery provoked much confusion and fired the imaginations of many writers. Thanks to Samuel Butler’s satirical account, the story reached France. Fontaine himself wrote a tale about it – “Un animal dans la lune.” Almost 350 years later Gosia Herba and Mikołaj Pasiński have come back to this story of the moon, and out of it they have spun a new tale full of adventure.

Extent Binding Illustrations ISBN Price

48 pp; 250 x 250 mm HC full-colour 978-0-9933951-2-3 12 GBP / 17 USD / 15 EUR

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Centrala is an independent publishing house championing engaging and inspirational graphic novels and comics.

Our offerings include a wide variety of books meant to be enjoyed by children and adults alike.

We are proud to present Life - Love - Death, Centrala’s new series of exceptionally drawn literature.

Centrala’s books are distributed by: UK and Western Europe: turnaround-uk.com Worldwide: Consortium cbsd.com Eastern Europe: centrala.org.uk Poland: motyleksiazkowe.pl Czech Republic: kosmas.cz Sales Manager: Kamila Przychodzka kamila@centrala.org.uk Follow us on: instagram: centrala_books facebook: Centrala twitter: centrala_books