Wide VercnockeMy Muse Lies On The Settee

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

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.