book review
Internationally renowned for directing anime under the banner of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki has been responsible for classics of animation such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro – films that are without parallel in their evocation of a reality infused with the gently fantastic.
And yet, in his native Japan, he is equally revered for his first (and only) manga, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
Straddling the divide between children’s picture book and adult graphic novel to splendid effect, The Arrival, by Australian illustrator Shaun Tan, is one of those rare beasts: a wholly graphic fiction, that dispenses with the use of words entirely.
Read More‘The world is bound by secret knots’ – Athanasius Kircher
The Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) is one of history’s more intriguing figures. Possessed of a profound erudition, he achieved great renown in his own time, and yet has now slid into a near-total obscurity.
Suffused with a painterly quality, and a deft, deeply observant touch, The Way of the World is a remarkable account of a meandering, eighteen-month journey from Geneva to the Khyber Pass, undertaken by the writer Nicolas Bouvier and the artist Thierry Vernet in 1953.
Read MoreA wordless pean to water in all its fluid variants, and to the old warehouse district in the port city of Hamburg, Vortex is a story that celebrates – and is driven by – the drawn image. First published by Arrache Coeur in 1997, it is one of the quieter milestones in the development of graphic fiction; breaking wholly new ground in terms of the form that a story told in pictures can take.
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