The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Today’s Best of the Year guest post comes from the man behind the UK Indy press which has grown significantly in stature over the last couple of years to enjoy some terrific reviews and respect for their releases, not to mention publishing some of my own favourite reading of the last couple of years, SelfMadeHero‘s Doug Wallace:

FPI: Can you pick three comics/webcomics/graphic novels which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?

Doug: There are too many to whittle it down to three. I could easily go for three heavyweight tomes like Wilson (Daniel Clowes, Jonathan Cape), Stitches (David Small, W W Norton) and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Martin Rowson, SelfMadeHero) but I thought that I’d recommend four (not three, sorry!) instead:

Meanwhile Between Two Eternities of Darkness by Gummbah (Harmonie)

This is simply the funniest, most disturbing book of one page “gags” I have read for years. The closest thing I can compare it to would be Tony Millionaire’s Maakies, Mr Tourette’s Modern Toss or the dirtier side of Gary Larson’s The Far Side. The difference with Gummbah’s humour is that his mind revolves around old people having sex and old people having sex with Smurfs. (Am I selling this well?) It is the sort of book that’s kept in the bathroom, in case you soil yourself while laughing. I’ve seen grown men and women in suits bent double while flicking through it. If you can get hold of a copy in the UK – buy it.

Hitler’s Son (Glenat)

I know Wim is also a big fan of this book (see here, Joe). I read it at manuscript stage and loved it from page one. It is by a Flemish creator called European album by Pieter de Poortere. The artwork is clean and beautifully coloured but the main attraction is Poortere’s comic timing. You are guaranteed a laugh or a groan in the last panel of every page. Like Gummbah’s humour, it is not for the faint-hearted or easily offended.

Moomin: the Complete Tove Jansson Comics Strip Volume 5 (Drawn & Quarterly)

This volume contains the final strips drawn by Tove Jansson and written by her brother Lars for the London Evening News, before Lars took over both the art and the writing. In the fifth book we meet some of the characters from the first volume and Moomin is seen to be a complete nervous wreck in one of his adventures with Too-Ticky on a little boat. Tove and Lars Jansson’s work together seamlessly in this volume and I constantly marvelled at how the slightly trippy stories managed to pan out over 20 odd pages, while sticking rigidly to a three or four panel daily strip format.

I didn’t grow up reading the strips (I wasn’t born!), for me, I came to the Moomins through the Japanese made TV series in the late eighties and early nineties. I have avidly collected the five D&Q volumes and each one has given me a deeper insight into the profoundly sad but fantastical world of Moomin Valley. I admire the high production values that the geniuses at D&Q have lavished on these volumes, in particular I love the colour and texture of each one’s exposed cloth spine. I know I’ll have these volumes proudly on display wherever I live.

Rise and Fall (Nobrow)

I have bought this six times in 2010 and given it away each time. Is there any better recommendation? It is a perfect gift for any person with a sense of taste. It is so good I might frame the next copy I buy. It is a wordless, concertina book. Everyone should have a copy and everyone should see what Nobrow produce. Another great British publisher.

Honourable mentions: Speenal – Nigel A. (Blank Slate), How to Massage a Cat – Alice Brock (Chronicle)

FPI: Can you pick three books which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?

Doug: Submarine – Joe Dunthorne (Penguin)

Joe Dunthorne is my favourite spoken word performer who knocks around London. This is his first novel and I hear that it has now been made into a film. It’s the story of loser-ish guy growing up in Wales. I was a year or so too young to be into Adrian Mole’s diaries, but this is the closest thing I’ve had to discovering an amazing book like that without being told it was a “bestseller” or a “must read”. If you ever see Joe on the bill of a spoken word night, I would highly recommend you see him. He’s a brilliant wordsmith, poet and performer of his work.

The Cuckoo Boy – Grant Gillespie (To Hell With Books)

This book is from one of my favourite publishers of the year, To Hell With Books. They are a small press that is based quite near SMH HQ in Euston and they picked up the amazing Grant Gillespie’s debut and did well with it. It is another ‘disturbed childhood’ book. The unique thing about this book is that Gillespie is able to step inside the head of the main character, his mother and his father and make you really feel like he was there. It is almost as if it was his childhood that went so badly wrong. It is a story of ‘kids being cruel’, parental love gone wrong and a few deaths.

Drawings from the Gulag – Baldaev Danzig (Fuel)

I’ve been a fan of Baldaev Danzig’s Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedias since the first volume. This latest book has more of a story to it and more politics running through it too. It catalogues the horrific genocide, false imprisonment, brutal torture, self-mutilation and criminal culture that made Stalin’s forced labour camps and the Russian secret police universally feared and despised. It is a terrible subject matter, published perfectly.

Honourable mentions: Instruction Manual for Swallowing – Adam Marek (Comma Press), Legend of a Suicide – David Vann (Penguin)

FPI: Can you pick three TV shows and/or movies which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?

Doug: Chico & Rita www.chicoandrita.co.uk (2011 DVD from Icon)

Chico and Rita is an animated feature. Set in Cuba, 1948. The story follows Chico who is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. As Chico & Rita’s relationship creaks down, the action moves from Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas. It was inspired by the true story of Grammy Award-winning Cuban pianist and band leader Bebo Valdes.

We liked the film so much (when we saw it early in 2010) that we worked with its creators, Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba, to produce a graphic novel of it! We’re publishing it next April at the same time as the DVD release. Hand on heart, I can say that even if we weren’t publishing the graphic novel, this film would have been in my top three features for 2010.

The Trip (BBC)

I’ve always liked Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and I like them even more after this gem of a series. What’s the point of having the BBC if they don’t do weird things like this. This is the nearest thing that Rob Brydon has done to topping his solo series Marion and Geoff and it is Steve Coogan’s best performance since the heady days of K.M.K.Y.W.A.P.

Mad Men Season 4 (HBO/BBC)

A decadent, high gloss, candy-coated, drinking game of a drama. The writing has got better with each series. Ms Blankenship and a bigger part for Christina Hendricks’ “Joan” were the best reasons for watching it. I can’t wait for Season 5.

FPI: How did 2010 go for you as a creator? Are you happy with the way you got your work out this year?

Doug: 2010 was a busy year for SelfMadeHero and its creators. Many of them literary festival, comic con, international workshops duties

We kicked off the year with the truly exciting commission of Glyn Dillon for his debut graphic novel,The Nao of Brown. This won’t be out until Spring 2012 (by then it will be the third title in our original fiction series), but I’ll tell you this now – if there is one graphic novel you buy from any publisher in any country in 2012, then make it The Nao of Brown. If you get hold of a signed first edition, never lend it to a friend, as you you’ll never see it again.

We’ve had a bumper year of foreign editions from British creators with translations into French, Korean, Dutch, Turkish, Czech, Arabic and co-editions in America. That is just list the contents of a random pile of books here.

We invited our second European creator, Judith Vanistendael to Britain for her launch; published a beautiful edition of Martin Rowson’s Tristram Shandy; had a awesome time with Moomintroll and his cookbook; saw Reinhard Kleist get Eisner and Harvey Award nominated; had two ‘graphic novels of the month’ in The Observer courtesy of I.N.J. Culbard and Ian Edginton; signed up the cream of European graphic novels for 2011; watched in awe as Catherine Anyango’s debut Heart of Darkness went ballistic and wrapped the year up with Anthony-Hope Smith and Will Bingley’s tour de force, GONZO (reviewed just last week, see here – Joe).

FPI: What can we look forward to from you in 2011?

Doug: We’re sponsoring the Comic Heroes previews supplement, Sidekick. We felt this was a good way to support what’s going on here at the moment. (The UK needs a decent quarterly magazine with features and previews that’s widely and regularly available. Full credit to Jes Bickham and the guys at Future Publishing for what they are doing. Good luck to all the other amazing comic magazines in 2011 too!)

2011 will have an increased international roster with big titles coming from Paris (KIKI de Montparnasse – Catherine Muller), Hamburg (Baby’s In Black – Arne Bellstorf) and Barcelona (Chico & Rita – Javier Mariscal). We have a new David B (coming out in July, details to follows but for the moment under wraps).

(artwork from Baby’s In Black, a story of the ‘fifth Beatle’ by Arne Bellstorf, to be published by SMH nexy year)

The first volume of our hotly anticipated H.P. Lovecraft anthology hosts an impressive roster of British talent. This’ll be out in May in time for Bristol. We conclude the hugely successful Sherlock Holmes series adapted by Ian Edginton and I.N.J. Culbard with The Valley of Fear, where the Holmes and Watson meet Prof. Moriarty. You’ll have to wait to January to see where Edginton and Culbard go once they’ve vacated Baker Street.

We’ve not announced our titles for July – December 2011 and you’ll have to wait until February for a full line up. We like surprises! All is decided and the line up will make some people very happy. One thing we’ve already announced is that we’re thrilled to be publishing Rob Davis’ adaptation of Don Quixote in late 2011. It is a definitive, evergreen work in the making. Look out for it.

FPI: Anyone you think is a name we should be watching out for next year?

Doug: I’m going to stick to artists here and I make no apologies for – Alice Duke, Kate Brown, Swava Harasymovicz, Emma Vieceli, Catherine Muller – SelfMadeHeroines past, present and future with big plans for 2011. Rob Davis, David B, Patrick McKeown, Will Sweeney, JAKe, Arne Bellstorf – just a few incredible SelfMadeHero debuts for 2011

From outside SelfMadeHero, I’d single out Isabel Kreitz in a flash (good work Kenny!)

And since I’m here, can I urge people to join our Facebook Page or follow us on Twitter @SelfMadeHero as this is the best way to get invited to our launches, meet the creators and win our books next year!

You can catch up with all the Best of the Year guest posts to date here on the blog