Coming April 2012

Now on Sale

Now on Sale

• More reviews of
African-American Classics

• from Library Journal, Nov 2011, review by Martha Cornog
“By turns elegant, tragic, and funny, these 23 full-color adaptations lay out a mosaic of stories and poems originally published between 1891 to 1931… All the selections are compelling and evocative owing to the successful partnership between the art and the text. This collection should be enjoyed by readers familiar with the originals as well as students and their elders, teen through adult, who may be new to African American writing of this period. Strongly recommended.”

•from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Dec 10, 2011,
review by Jim Higgins
“The new anthology ‘African-American Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 22’ brings together two things not usually discussed in the same conversation: early 20th-century African-American literature, and high-end comics and graphic illustration. While many of the writers adapted are familiar names, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and W.E.B. Du Bois, the short works featured here will be new to most readers who aren’t scholars. It’s an entertaining and delightful book that shows both the diversity of classic black writing and the storytelling quality of contemporary comics artists.”

• from Scripps News, Dec 6, 2011, review by Andrew A. Smith
“From slavery to Jim Crow to the civil-rights era, no group in America has been so harshly oppressed as African-Americans. Which makes it all the more remarkable that their literature is so full of life, love and laughter. That doesn’t mean there's no tragedy in this book, wherein today’s top African-American creators adapt stories and poems by African-Americans, 1891-1931. Several stories would break the hardest heart. But it’s hard not to laugh out loud when Zora Neale Hurston writes about two black men arguing that the other’s state has the worst white men (and their own the best), or when Leila Amos Pendleton imagines a 1922 black society’s unique take on ‘Cleopatra’… This book is a fascinating glimpse into a perspective and an era that’s largely unexplored in comics. It will be an education for many, but as school goes it’s painless and fun.”

 

 

 

What’s Happening at Graphic Classics —

February 2012

• African-American Classics editors Tom Pomplun and Lance Tooks are intervewed in the Dec 12, 2011 edition of Diamond Bookshelf. Tom and Lance are joined by cover artist Afua Richardson in a January interview for Graphic Novel Reporter.

• From recent reviews of African-American Classics:

• from Graphic Novel Reporter, Jan 2012, review by John Hogan
“One of the most striking and interesting books of the past few months is African-American Classics from Eureka. It’s a beautifully done collection that encompasses a broad range of historical and modern tales, and it features an incredible array of talent… This is an important book, and a very well done one.”

• from The Hooded Utilitarian, Jan 2012, review by Qiana Whitted
“What makes African American Classics valuable for me is how the artists and writers adapt the material; the collection’s most provocative selections make formal and aesthetic choices that deepen and complicate my understanding of each work’s potential. Ironically enough, these “graphic” adaptations elevate the visual field of representation in ways that should remind us that literary expressions of African American experience have always been deeply entrenched in the realm of social perception, spectacle, and visibility.”

• from School Library Journal, Jan 2012,
review by Francisca Goldsmith
“In a long running series of high-quality, high-concept adaptations, this volume is a standout… Vastly superior to many anthologies, and more accessible than many textbooks of literary history, this book will charm casual readers as well as students and teachers who can see its role as a study supplement.”

• from Booklist, Jan 2012, review by Eva Volin
“The stories and poems presented in this latest addition to the Graphic Classics series highlight some of America’s earliest black writers from the turn of the twentieth century through the Harlem Renaissance… taken as a whole, this volume serves as a solid introduction to an area of literature often only touched upon in school.”

• from PaulGravett.com, Nov 2011, review by Paul Gravett
“This impressive volume of adaptations of short stories and poems stands as both a celebration of the gifted wordsmiths from America’s heritage and the current flourishing of black comics creators. Assigned to texts that entirely suit their specific visual vocabulary, all the artists respond with some of their finest work here. Recovering these writings, mostly unfamiliar to me and I suspect to many, and bringing them to graphic life makes their wit and power vital and accessible to new modern readers. This may well be about the most important, eye-opening, mind-expanding compendium in the Graphic Classics series to date.”

• Scheduled for April 2012 is a revised edition of the long-out-of-print Graphic Classics: Robert Louis Stevenson. Many readers have asked for a Graphic Classics adaptation of Stevenson’s Treasure Island, so we are including the adventure in this edition, adapted by Alex Burrows and Scott Lincoln. Scott has inked stories for Graphic Classics in the past, but this is his first full art assignment for the series. Returning will be “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Simon Gane and Michael Slack, plus “The Bottle Imp” by Lance Tooks, with a collection of short “Verses and Fables” illustrated by Joe Ollmann, Maxon Crumb, Cynthia Martin, and eleven other great artists.

illustrations ©2012 Scott Lincoln

illustrations ©2012 Roger Langridge

• August 2012 is the release date for Halloween Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 23. The book will feature an EC-style introduction by Mort Castle and Kevin Atkinson, with adaptations of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air”, Mark Twain’s “A Curious Dream’, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Lot No. 249”. Also, in a first for Graphic Classics, we adapt the screenplay for the silent film classic “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, with art by Matt Howarth. Cover art is by Simon Gane.