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Nominated for the 2007 'Quills Awards' artist and author Bryan Talbot's latest comics work is a delightful flight of fantasy.

Bryan Talbot’s latest graphic novel paints a rich tapestry of styles and stories taking in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass to the real Alice Liddell, the story of the city of Sunderland and the very art of storytelling and cartooning.

Sunderland

Thirteen hundred years ago - so Talbot tells it - Sunderland was the greatest centre of learning in the whole of Christendom and the very cradle of English consciousness. In the time of author Lewis Carroll it was the greatest shipbuilding port in the world. To this city that gave the world the electric light bulb, the stars and stripes, the millennium, the Liberty Ships and the greatest British dragon legend (in the form of 'The Lambton Worm') came Carroll in the years preceding his most famous book, Alice in Wonderland, and here are buried the roots of his surreal masterpiece.

Talbot explodes the myths about the creation of Alice In Wonderland. He also delves into the city’s history, from the Venerable Bede to George Formby, from its heyday as the greatest shipbuilding port in the world to its present multicultural mix. He shows how local history is national history in microcosm, and how one story begets another. It’s a book is about storytelling, myth and history - so the look reflects this.

Here - as ever - the artist’s work is detailed and meticulous. Choosing on this occassion to employ a spectacular mixture of different styles: black and white ink line and pencil drawing, watercolour, collage and digitally manipulated photographic artwork - the story unfolds from the stage of the Sunderland Empire theatre, an Edwardian music hall, and the book is a genuine variety performance. The result is a landmark book in the graphic field that will entrance fans new and established alike.

From Bryan Talbot, the acclaimed creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and The Tale of One Bad Rat, comes Alice in Sunderland, a graphic novel unlike any before. Funny and poignant, thought-provoking and entertaining, traditional and experimental, whimsical and polemical, Alice in Sunderland is a heady cocktail of fact and fiction, a sumptuous and multi-layered journey that will leave you wondering about the magic that's waiting to be unlocked in the place where you live.

"Trying to describe Alice in Sunderland in a Hollywood high-concept blurb is impossible. Alice is wonderful riot of fantasy, history, philosophy, and commentary. Bryan Talbot hasn't just broken new ground - he may have broken through to an entirely new dimension of storytelling." - Dark Horse Senior Editor Chris Warner.

"Alice in Sunderland is parochial in its focus-but not in content. I believe anyone interested in the way history is formed and, in itself, forms culture, character, and a sense of place will be entranced by it." - John Tufail, Carrollian scholar.

Hard Work?

A long-standing talent on the British comics scene artist Bryan Talbot has been writing and drawing comics for twenty-eight years. Aside from creating The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (winner of four Eagle awards in 1988), the 'silent' 12-page comic strip Momento and the chilling The Tale of One Bad Rat he has illustrated The Nazz for DC Comics, drew most of book four of Nemesis The Warlock - as well as numerous one-offs and covers - for Britain's flagship weekly science fiction comics anthology 2000AD and produced the lavish full-colour 'Arkwright sequel Heart of Empire. Bryan - a man born in Wigan, but who now lives in Sunderland - has held six one-man comic art exhibitions in Lancashire, Tuscany, Finland, Sweden and New York - as well as his present one in London (see below for details).

In 2000, he received the annual San Diego Comicon Inkpot Award for 'Outstanding Achievement in Comic Arts'. In Adult Comics by Roger Sabin he is cited as one of the creators of the 'graphic novel' form and his early underground comics creation (for Brainstorm Comix) - the hippy Chester P. Hackenbush - was the direct inspiration for one of Alan Moore's most well-loved character 'Chester' in his classic reinvention of DC's Swamp Thing in the 1980s.

Praise for Bryan Talbot’s work:

Peter Wild, reviewing Alice In Sunderland for online reviews site Bookmunch, had this to say: "There are times during Alice in Sunderland when it all gets a bit local news. On page 111, one of the incarnations of Bryan Talbot yawns - but just knowing that Bryan Talbot recognises that parts of the book are on the dull side doesn't stop parts of the book from being on the dull side...If truth be told, it's a little hard work, in places, and a little parochial...but there is much to like, if you're prepared to wade..." Read the full Bookmunch review here.

“The narrative and artwork are magic and the structure is magisterial” - Leo Baxendale, ‘the father of British comics’.

“It is wonderful; fascinating story, virtuoso artwork” - Iain Banks (The Crow Road, The Wasp Factory, Canal Dreams) on The Adventure’s of Luther Arkwright.

"Here is something far more original and idiosyncratic than anyone has attempted before...an alternative history of modern times. And of course, because Talbot uses a popular form to do this it is also a very good, romantic, inventive, fast-paced yarn" - Michael Moorcock (Elric of Melnibone, Stormbringer, A Cure For Cancer) on The Adventure’s of Luther Arkwright.

“An ingenious, intertextual narrative that interweaves the charming and whimsical. Thoroughly excellent." - Alan Moore (Swamp Thing, Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) on The Tale of One Bad Rat.

“...a lovingly crafted story about in the end, the meaning of fiction and art, about what we take from the past, and what we bring to the future...A story of pain and survival” - Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, DC Comics' The Sandman, Stardust) on The Tale of One Bad Rat.

The following links may be useful for further reading:

For more information on Bryan Talbot visit his official website: www.bryan-talbot.com

Dark Horse Comics website

As well as Alice in Sunderland the other 2007 'Quills Awards' nominees in the graphic novel category are:

Making Comics, Scott McCloud (HarperCollins)
Ode to Kirihito, Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
Exit Wounds, Rutu Modan (Drawn & Quarterly)
Aya, Marguerite Abouet, illustrated by Clement Oubrerie (Drawn & Quarterly)

Founded by Reed Business Information to honour the "most entertaining and enlightening titles" each year, the Quills celebrate the best books of the year in nineteen popular categories, ranging from romance to biography to graphic novel. This year's pick is made up of books published between July 1 last year and June 30 this year with the winners in 19 categories being selected by a voting board comprised of over 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians.

Much of Talbot's original artwork for Alice in Sunderland recently appeared at London's Cartoon Museum (35 Little Russell Street, a stone's throw from The British Museum). The Cartoon Museum - which is well worth a visit in it's own right for anyone interested in graphic art - exhibits the very finest examples of British cartoons, caricature and comic art from the 18th century to the present day (currently showing: the superlative Heath Robinson).

Alice In Sunderland is in the shops now in hardback only, published by Jonathan Cape (or Dark Horse Comics in the US), priced £16.99.

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