Big news: in October, we’ll be bringing Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown to UK readers. This hotly anticipated – and, we can confirm, brilliant – graphic novel is a dramatic and surprising history of the most ubiquitous and addictive video game of all time. We bagged UK & Commonwealth rights from our friends at First Second, who’ll be publishing the book in the States.
It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly coloured geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams.
Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once this alarmingly addictive game emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega – game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications and outright theft.
New York Times bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game.
Of course, you’ll know Box Brown as the creator of Andre the Giant: Life andLegend, which tells the story of another pop culture icon. He’s also the founder of the fabulous alt-comics publisher Retrofit Comics.
Be the first to hear what we’ll be doing to celebrate the release of Tetris by signing up to our newsletter. It’s going to be a fun autumn!
We’ll soon be making our annual pilgrimage to the MoCCA Arts Festival, where the first three books on our spring list make their US debuts. The event takes place on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd April (11am-6pm) at Metropolitan West, 639 W 46th St, NY 10036.
We’ll be joined by Reinhard Kleist, who’ll be signing copies of An Olympic Dream. Find him sketching and scribbling on the SelfMadeHero stand (G237-238) throughout the weekend. Kleist will arrive fresh from a live drawing event at the Goethe-Institut on Friday evening, of which more here.
Irmina is an award-winning wartime drama based on the life of the author’s grandmother. Conjuring the oppressive atmosphere of Nazi Germany, Yelin’s graphic novel explores the tension between integrity and social advancement, reflecting with compassion and intelligence on the complicity that results from the choice, conscious or otherwise, to look away. Read the Library Journal‘s review of the book here.
Steffen Kverneland’s extraordinary and inventive graphic biography explores the relationships and obsessions that drove the artist behind ‘The Scream’. Using text drawn from the writings of Edvard Munch and his contemporaries, this extensively researched and beautifully drawn graphic novel debunks the familiar myth of the half-mad expressionist painter – anguished, starving and ill-treated – to reveal the artist’s neglected sense of humour and optimism. The Comics Journal has said of the book, “Munch is a dazzling use of sequential storytelling… Rarely have I read a more entertaining biography.”
If you’re lucky enough to be in New York City, we look forward to seeing you there!
On Friday 1st April Reinhard Kleist will draw live to music at the Goethe-Institut New York (30 Irving Place, NY 10003). The event, which includes an author Q&A, starts at 7pm and admission is free.
Kleist’s appearance at the Goethe-Institut coincides with the release of his latest graphic novel, An Olympic Dream, which tells the remarkable true story of Somali Olympian Samia Yusuf Omar. In 2008, the 17-year-old Yusuf Omar overcame conflict, poverty and discrimination to run in the 200m at the Beijing Olympics; this moving and politically charged graphic novel is an account of her ill-fated attempt to compete at London Games in 2012.
Publishers Weekly said of the book, “Kleist’s treatment of [Yusuf Omar’s] quest is heartbreaking and inspirational, putting a human face to Europe’s current migration question.”
An Olympic Dreamdebuts at the MoCCA Arts Festival, which takes place on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd April (11am-6pm) at Metropolitan West, 639 W 46th St, New York, NY 10036. Reinhard Kleist will be signing on SelfMadeHero’s tables throughout the weekend.
This Saturday, 5th March, we’ll be at the House of Illustration in King’s Cross for an event featuring three creators whose work is on display in the gallery’s brilliant exhibition Comix Creatrix: 100 Women Making Comics. Catherine Anyango (Heart of Darkness), Barbara Yelin (Irmina) and Hannah Berry (Adamtine) join co-curator Paul Gravett to discuss their work, ideas and influences. The event starts at 3pm and is completely free (just rsvp to [email protected]).
Catherine Anyango is an artist and graphic novelist. Her acclaimed graphic adaptation of Heart of Darkness was published by SelfMadeHero in 2010. Anyango’s artwork has been exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach, the National Film Theatre, The British Library and the V&A. She is currently a Tutor in Visual Research at the Royal College of Art.
Barbara Yelin is a Munich-based comics artist. She received the Bavarian Art Award for Literature for her graphic novel Irmina, which also won the Best German Graphic Novel prize at the PENG Awards. Irmina is published in English by SelfMadeHero in March 2016. Yelin is also the author of Gift (with Peter Meter) and Riekes Notizen.
Hannah Berry is a graphic novelist, writer and illustrator. She is the author of two graphic novels, Britten and Brülightly and Adamtine, both published by Jonathan Cape. She is currently working on a third, Livestock, which will be published in 2017. Her artwork has been exhibited in solo and collective exhibitions in the UK and around the world.
Paul Gravett is a London-based journalist, curator, writer and broadcaster who has worked in comics publishing and promotion for over 20 years. He is the author ofComics Art, Graphic Novels: Everything You Need To Know and Manga: 60 Years Of Japanese Comics, and co-curator of Comix Creatrix: 100 Women Making Comicswith Olivia Ahmad.
Comix Creatrix displays original artwork by 100 female comic creators working across genres and generations, from the 1800s to the present day. Read The Guardian‘s thoughts on the exhibition, with quotes from co-curator Olivia Ahmad and comics artist Una, here.
Our spring season kicks off with the launch of two brilliant German graphic novels in translation: Irminaby Barbara Yelin and An Olympic Dreamby Reinhard Kleist.
On Thursday 3rd March we’re celebrating the release of both books with a free event at the Goethe-Institut in London (50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH; tube: South Kensington). Barbara Yelin and Reinhard Kleist will discuss their work with the journalist Rosie Goldsmith. The event, which starts at 7pm, is free to attend – all you need to do is rsvp to [email protected].
Set for the most part in the Berlin of Hitler’s Germany, Barbara Yelin’s award-winning Irminais a troubling drama based on the life of the author’s grandmother. Conjuring the oppressive atmosphere of Nazi Germany, Irmina explores the tension between integrity and social advancement, reflecting with compassion and intelligence on the complicity that results from the choice, conscious or otherwise, to look away. You can read more about the book here and you’ll find a preview of the artwork on the Forbidden Planet International Blog.
You’ll already know Reinhard Kleist as the author of Castro, Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness and The Boxer. His latest prize-winning graphic biography tells the remarkable true story of Somali Olympian Samia Yusuf Omar. In 2008, 17-year-old Yusuf Omar stood alongside some of the fastest women in the world on the start line of the Olympic 200m. Four years later, she boarded a refugee boat to Europe, risking her life on the waters of the Mediterranean.
An Olympic Dream tells the remarkable story of Yusuf Omar’s attempt to compete at the London Games in 2012. Picturing her life in Mogadishu, a city ravaged by conflict, Reinhard Kleist reveals the challenges she faced both as a sportsperson and as a woman. In doing so, he shows why Omar, like so many others, would choose to flee. Following her journey through Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya to its tragic conclusion, An Olympic Dream is both a forceful statement on Europe’s response to the refugee crisis and a moving biography of an incredible woman. Read more about it here.
The event takes place at the Goethe-Institut, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH on Thursday 3rd March, from 7pm. We hope to see you there.
Can’t make it because you live in the South West? Fear not: both Reinhard and Barbara will be speaking at the Independent Bath Literature Festival the following evening, Friday 4th March, from 8-9pm. Info here.
