Comics

8 SelfMadeHero Books to Get Excited About for Autumn 2016

I love me some SelfMadeHero, I really do. Being a part of A Place To Hang Your Cape gives me a fly-on-the-wall perspective of the comic book industry, and with publisher’s like SelfMadeHero constantly on the march, I’d say its thriving.

SelfMadeHero themselves are one of the big guns of the scene. They publish beautifully crafted visual narratives that a fearless, genre-bending, and above all, great reads! We currently have reviews of Munch and Agatha in the works, and after that, we’ll have eight more titles to look forward to before the year is out.

Fiction, biographies, anthologies and more are on the menu, all drizzled in some sizzling flavours, including comedy, drama, and the supernatural. With that in mind, let’s look ahead to what titles we can tuck into for later this year!

September

The Trial of Roger Casement

roger

Biographies are hot on SelfMadeHero’s tongue at the moment. Munch, Agatha, An Olympic Dream and Hysteria show the diversity in how SelfMadeHero approaches producing work of this nature, and this latest graphic biography by writer/illustrator Fionnuala Doran looks to be one of their more tender works.

Roger Casement was a human rights campaigner, Irish patriot and a British traitor, if history is to believe. He was knighted for his efforts after exposing human rights abuse in Congo and South America, only to be hung for treason and exposed as a homosexual in 1916.

I don’t pretend to know of Casement’s identity or his impact on history, but like many SelfMadeHero books, it promises to be a great education.

One Year Wiser: A Gratitude Journal

oyw

Ooo, now this looks fun! Mike Medaglia‘s One Year Wiser has been one of the unexpected highlights of SelfMadeHero of this year. It’s a compact compilation of 365 meditations from life’s boldest souls, all brought to life thanks to Medaglia’s spellbinding illustrations.

This journal, the third after Illustrated Meditations and One Year Wiser: The Colouring Book, is set to make Medaglia’s One Year Wiser series an immensely handsome trilogy of visual pleasure. Medaglia’s concise style of art blended with One Year Wiser‘s small presentation extremely well, meaning that his artwork will be a pleasure to see return in comic form.

The Return of the Honey Buzzard

buzzard

When we began working with SelfMadeHero all those books ago, it was their fiction work that resonated with me the most. When it comes to original fiction, there appears to be no boundaries as to what the writers and artists of SelfMadeHero will create. The Return of the Honey Buzzard looks as though it will stand alongside Ruins, Seconds and Irmina as yet another work of powerful emotion.

Aimée de Jongh‘s debut graphic novel tells the story of a down-on-his-luck bookseller, Simon Antonisse, who’s witnessing of a suicide bring sup uncomfortable memories. It’s only when he meets Regina that his past and his future become more than he could have imagined. A stirring-sounding work.

Stardust Nation

stardust

Behind the Curtain‘s Andrzej Klimowski teams up with playwright, poet and novelist Deborah Levy to deliver this adaptation of her short story, Stardust Nation, in which Nikos Gazidis appears to have crashed into the consciousness of his own boss.

A most surreal sounding bit of graphic fiction, Stardust Nation sounds as though it’s set to match The Motherless Oven, Seconds, and The King in Yellow in its robust sense of weirdness. Stardust Nation was originally published in Levy’s Black Vodka collection of short fiction back in February 2013.

October

TETRIS: The Game People Play

tetris

A biography on the classic arcade game? I’m sold! Writer and artist Box Brown will give us the definitive story of how TETRIS took hold of the world. From its origins during 1980s Cold War, TETRIS: The Game People Play is a tale of bidding wars, backroom deals, miscommunications and copyright theft. Sounds like a good’n! In a world where we’re still recovering from Pixels and Hardcore Henry, TETRIS: The Game People Play looks to be a refreshing tonic as to how video games are transferred to other media forms.

Dali

dali

Yet another addition to SelfMadeHero’s biography portfolio, renounced French comics artist Edmond Baudoin has produced this biography of that master of surrealism, Salvador Dali. Capturing the eccentricities of both Dali and his work, Dali looks to be a challenge for anyone hoping to match the idiosyncratic nature of Dali’s own work. However, given Baudoin’s reputation, is a challenge worth taking.

When it comes to SelfMadeHero’s odder titles, I’ve been less than impressed with the bulk of their offerings. The Motherless Oven is sublime, but Klaxon proved to be somewhat lacklustre. Baudion’s artwork looks riveting however, with a true 2000 AD feel to it. Here’s hoping it lives up to expectations.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Vol. 1

ghosts

A fine group of adaptors and artists, including John Reppion and Leah Moore, are bracing themselves for a graphic re-imagining of the works of ghost story maestro M. R. James. This won’t be the first time SelfMadeHero has taken works of literature and given them the comic book treatment – I found The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and The King in Yellow, both adapted from the works of I. N. J. Culbard, to be riveting interpretations of already-established fiction.

SelfMadeHero haven’t let me down with graphic fiction that’s based on literary works. They’ve always been full of striking concepts and imagery, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary looks like another fine addition to that line of books!

November

The Can Opener’s Daughter

can

Oh my sweet ba-jeezus, SelfMadeHero may well have saved the best for last! The Can Opener’s Daughter is the sequel to The Motherless Oven, one of the weirdest books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading from these guys. The Motherless Oven is set in a world where children construct their own parents, where it rains knives, and where Harper Lee is forced onto a life-changing journey to find his dad.

Along the way, he meets Vera, who is the protagonist of this follow-up. The Can Opener’s Daughter sees her hatching a plan to save Harper from the events of The Motherless Oven. Problem is, Vera is the most unlikely hero you could meet.

I found The Motherless Oven to be such a deliciously individual read, one where a sequel felt like am impracticality, despite the open-ended nature of the finale. However, when I interviewed author Rob Davis, he did confirm that a sequel was in development. Now that sequel is in the can! (Sorry…).

Are you excited for all these lovely titles from SelfMadeHero? Let us know in the comments section or send us a Tweet!

About the author

Fred McNamara