The Complete Grandville Series, with an introduction by Ian Rankin

Grandville L'Intégrale

I have greatly enjoyed the Grandville books. I think they're superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific.

I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring.

Bryan Talbot is the most important comic creator in Great Britain.

These ingeniously plotted fantasies will make you bark with laughter.

The bastard child of Conan Doyle and Beatrix Potter, it's a gripping feast for the eyes.

Utterly delightful... There's a witty touch or deliciously knowing in-joke on almost every page... Beautifully rendered, throughout, the glossy gorgeousness fills your eyes.

I've never made a secret of my belief that Bryan Talbot is a genius... So I was always going to like Grandville Mon Amour. Even so, my passion for it took me by surprise: I can safely say that this is, by several miles, my favourite graphic novel of the last 12 months.

A solid conspiracy caper with bursts of Tarantino-like mayhem... A witty romp in a vividly realised topsy-turvy world.

For over a century children have loved getting a Rupert or Beano annual as part of the season's largesse. This year a lot of grown-ups should feel similar delight when Grandville Mon Amour turns up under the tree.

This ripping yarn of mystery, murder and the machinating arms tycoon Baron Krapaud of Toad Hall is both irresistibly exciting and sumptuously designed.

Grandville is a favourite of ours.

Bryan Talbot (Author) 
 Bryan Talbot was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and the Grandville series.

'I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring' IAN RANKIN 
 
Beware the Badger! The acclaimed steampunk series from graphic-novel pioneer Bryan Talbot explores an alternate art-nouveau world populated by intelligent animals, a human underclass, and wondrous technology. Within this rich fantastical milieu, the relentless Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard pursues shadowy death squads, psychotic killers, dark political conspiracies, ruthless crime lords, and bloodthirsty cults through the streets of London and the center of the greatest empire on earth, the Belle Epoque Paris known as Grandville. 
 
Grandville L'Intégrale collects all five Grandville novels in one deluxe hardcover volume accompanied by voluminous author notes never before in print. 
 
*WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY IAN RANKIN* 
 
'I have greatly enjoyed the Grandville books. I think they're superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific' PHILIP PULLMAN 
 
'These ingeniously plotted fantasies will make you bark with laughter' METRO 
 
'Utterly delightful' THE TIMES 
 
'Bryan Talbot is a genius' OBSERVER

The Tale of One Bad Rat

After Cape's publication of Bryan Talbot's extraordinary Alice in Sunderland, we are delighted to bring back into print Talbot's 1994 classic.

'It would be easy to simply categorise The Tale of One Bad Rat as a fine fiction about overcoming the effects of abuse. And it is that, but it is more than that: it's a lovingly crafted story about, in the end, the meaning and value of fiction and art, about what we take from the past, and what we bring to the future. With it, Bryan Talbot moves into the front rank of writer/artists.'

An ingenious, intertextual narrative that interweaves the charming, whimsical and, above all, the English vision of Beatrix Potter with a vision of England as it has become; the soft juxtaposed with the savage; Peter Rabbit lost in Cardboard City. Thoroughly excellent.

Bryan Talbot was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and the Grandville series.

Winner of the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album Reprint, The Tale of One Bad Rat is the story of a young girl, Helen Potter, who runs away from home to escape an uncaring mother and a sexually abusive father. Eventually she finds her way to the Lake District, drawn there by her love of the work of Beatrix Potter, and in that beautiful landscape she at last finds peace.

Grandville Force Majeure

I have greatly enjoyed the Grandville books. I think they’re superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written – everything about them is terrific. They really show what the form can do. A graphic novel built on the solid foundation of a strong story.

The latest and last in the sequence Grandville Force Majeure is an epic of anthropomorphised sex and violence featuring a huge cast of badgers (including our hero Detective Inspector LeBrock), lizards, rats and even a Dalmation. It’s a heady mix of Holmesian ratiocination and SF steampunk technology straight out of a Jules Verne novel, lashed to a story that takes in gang violence, freemasons and secret identities. And it’s so slick. Talbot’s great facility as a comic artist gives his narrative extra oomph. The result is fast-moving and hugely entertaining.

Exceeds the standards… Of all in its league.

In the middle of a gang war, wanted for murder, truly alone and outside the law, Detective Inspector LeBrock is on the run from both the police and gangster assassins, the victim of a diabolical scheme to annihilate himself and everyone he holds dear, engineered by mastermind crime lord Tiberius Koenig, one of the most despicable villains in the history of detective fiction. 
 
A fiendishly ingenious story of love, tenacity, treachery and tragedy, this fifth, final and longest stand-alone volume of the Eisner and Hugo Award-nominated Grandville series by master storyteller and graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot is a veritable rollercoaster of a detective thriller, featuring Grandville’s trademark high-octane excitement, humour and deduction on a Holmesian scale as we finally meet LeBrock’s mentor, Stamford Hawksmoor, and discover LeBrock’s untold backstory. Fan-favourite characters Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi and LeBrock’s vivacious fiancée, Parisian prostitute Billie are joined by a new badger in town! Enter Tasso, an Italian badger who’s bigger, meaner and uglier than LeBrock – but is he a force for good or evil? A battle royale ensues as LeBrock fights against truly outrageous odds. How can he possibly survive? 
 
Prepare to be royally badgered!

The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia

An anarchist tale of an extraordinary woman, from the Costa Prize-winning authors of Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes

A fascinating story…the stark illustrations match the story well… A fascinating piece of graphic biography, and it’s certainly a daring piece of work.

A work of consummate mastery… The work is deftly done… If you’ve read their previous books, you’ll know the level of professionalism being brought to bear here and you’ll know they are just about cornering the market on intelligent, historical retellings of pivotal feminist characters. It’s a great read and we highly recommend.

[A] gripping, unforgettable account… [The Red Virgin is] a moving example of how a book can become an emotional experience as you turn each page.

I highly recommend this beautiful and enjoyable read that will make you want to learn more about the Paris Commune and Louise Michel.

Bryan Talbot (Author) Bryan Talbot was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and the Grandville series. Mary Talbot (Author) Mary Talbot is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. She is the co-author of the graphic novels Dotter of her Father's Eyes and Sally Heathcote: Suffragette.

Set against the background of violence and state repression in a turbulent period of French history, The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia chronicles the incredible and outrageous life of Louise Michel, the revolutionary feminist dubbed ‘The Red Virgin of Montmartre’. A utopian dreamer, notorious anarchist, teacher, orator and poet, she was decades ahead of her time. Always a radical, she fought on the barricades defending the short-lived Paris Commune of 1871 against the reactionary regime that massacred thousands of French citizens after the Commune’s defeat. Deported to a penal colony on the other side of the Earth, she took up the cause of the indigenous population against French colonial oppression. 
 
Celebrating the utopian urge in nineteenth-century literature and politics and the origins of science fiction, The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia is the third collaboration of best-selling academic and graphic novelist Mary M. Talbot with her husband, the graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot. Their first book together, Dotter of her Father’s Eyes, won the 2012 Costa Biography Award.

Grandville Noel

There's an argument to be made for saying that Bryan Talbot is the most important comic creator in Great Britain.

The latest well-crafted and slightly strange instalment in Bryan Talbot’s Grandville series of graphic novels.

Fabulous artistic puns, stunning page lay-outs, action sequences on a sky-gondola, puffins in dinner jackets – the perfect diversion for a chilly evening.

With his trusty adjunct, Detective Sergeant Ratzi, away for Christmas, there’s no holiday for Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard as he embarks on an investigation into the disappearance of his housekeeper’s niece, Bunty Spall. 
 
The trail leads to a growing religious cult, where a charismatic unicorn messiah and his con men cronies, already responsible for mass murder in the United States, are about to lead a crusade for the ethnic cleansing of the French Empire’s doughfaces – the derogatory nickname for humans used by the majority, animal-headed population. Teaming up with Chance Lucas, a gun-slinging operative of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and reigniting his steamy love affair with the voluptuous Parisian badger prostitute Billie, LeBrock clashes with both cult fanatics and doughface terrorists, uncovering in the process a centuries-old religious conspiracy that threatens to plunge the world into bloody civil war. 
 
With Paris in the grip of the mysterious crime lord, Tiberius Koenig, and an increasingly violent backlash by human extremists, can LeBrock stop the seemingly inevitable slide into fascism? What is the secret of the legendary True Gospels? Can he rescue Bunty Spall from the clutches of the strangely hypnotic unicorn named Apollo? But does Bunty want to be saved? And will LeBrock be back in time for Christmas dinner? 
 
No badger does it better!

Suffragette

Sally Heathcote

A stunning new graphic novel from the Costa Award-winning authors of Dotter of her Father's Eyes

Thrilling… The great achievement of the book is that it manages to be both an adventure story – Sally is a wonderful heroine, brave and determined – and a superbly concise work of social history.

A potent mix of hope and brutality… Very readable.

A tale of loyalty, love and courage that brings history to life with snappy dialogue and brilliant images.

An engaging, resonant human story given an utterly gripping graphic realisation.

Sally Heathcote: Suffragette is a graphic novel for people who don’t like graphic novels, and a history book for people who don’t like history. Read it.

A comprehensive and penetrating social analysis. Illuminating and provocative, this is serious, relevant history told with heart, guts and speech bubbles.

Stunning... A visceral and deeply moving tale.

A fascinating new graphic novel… It’s a cliché to say a picture is worth a thousand words. But graphic novels remind us that it’s a cliché because sometimes it’s true.

A powerful book, a real eye opener… A triumph.

The power and passion of the campaign is vividly brought to life by the dynamic illustrations.

A fascinating graphic novel charting the rise of the suffragette movement through the eyes of a servant who embraces the cause.

Communicates elaborate ideas in deceptively simple ways

The storyline is exciting and well thought out to give a wide overview of the suffrage movement. I was very pleasantly surprised.

A seamless blend of historical fact and fiction ... The illustrations are full of energy and expression.

Mary Talbot (Author) 
 Mary Talbot is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. She is the co-author of the graphic novels Dotter of her Father's Eyes and Sally Heathcote: Suffragette. 
 
Kate Charlesworth (Author) 
 Kate Charlesworth was born in Yorkshire and studied at the Manchester College of Art and Design. Her illustrations have appeared in the Guardian, the Independent and she has worked on many books, comics and magazines. She lives in Edinburgh. 
 
Bryan Talbot (Author) 
 Bryan Talbot was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and the Grandville series.

Discover the stunning graphic novel from the Costa Award-winning authors of Dotter of her Father's Eyes. 
 
Sally Heathcote: Suffragette is a gripping inside story of the campaign for votes for women. A tale of loyalty, love and courage, set against a vividly realised backdrop of Edwardian Britain, it follows the fortunes of a maid-of-all-work swept up in the feminist militancy of the era. Sally Heathcote: Suffragette is another stunning collaboration from Costa Award winners, Mary and Bryan Talbot. Teamed up with acclaimed illustrator Kate Charlesworth, Sally Heathcote's lavish pages bring history to life.

Bryan Talbot

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific.

I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring.

Eschewing the colour of 1999's Heart Of Empire, he [Talbot] returns to the black and white art of the original Adventures of Luther Arkwright, imbuing his linework with a rugged naïveté that harks back to his roots in '70s underground comics

The Legend of Luther Arkwright... is image based storytelling, at its most entertaining, provocative and visually striking.

With an Introduction by Adrian Tchaikovsky

A new book in Bryan Talbot's award-winning science fiction graphic novels series, starring the legendary character Luther Arkwright 
 
The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, first serialised in 1978, is considered by many to be the first British graphic novel. Praised by many writers and artists, including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Jean Giroud (Moebius) and Michael Moorcock, the ground-breaking, experimental adult SF story was a seminal work, inspiring and influencing many comic creators. Its sequel, Heart Of Empire, was published in 2001. Both books have been continually in print since they were first published. 
 
Set fifty years later, The Legend of Luther Arkwright is another stand-alone story. While still maintaining total continuity with the Arkwright mythos, it is a different kind of adult adventure. Pursued across multiple historically divergent parallel worlds, both utopian and dystopian, and facing a far superior adversary, Arkwright battles to save humanity from mass destruction; his only edge is his experience and force of will. 
 
The Legend of Luther Arkwright, beautifully drawn by master storyteller and Eisner Award-winning comics creator Bryan Talbot, is a milestone in British comics history.

Bryan Talbot

Praise for The Legend of Luther Arkwright

Bryan Talbot is the most important comic creator in Great Britain.

Superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific.

**I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring.**

Bryan Talbot is the most important comic creator in Great Britain.

Superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific.

**I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring.**

Bryan Talbot is the most important comic creator in Great Britain.

Superbly designed, beautifully conceived, admirably written - everything about them is terrific.

**I've never come across a fictional world as fully-realised as Bryan Talbot's Grandville... It's a world you'll never tire of exploring.**

Books by Bryan Talbot

Series by Bryan Talbot

Grandville Series

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