Dandy Warhols’ frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor sets his graphic novel One Model Nation — also the name of the fictitious electronic/Kraftwerk-style band at the center of the story — in late ’70s Berlin. Originally intended as a screenplay, Taylor-Taylor hooked up with Jim Rugg of Afrodisaic and Street Angel fame to illustrate his historical fiction tale, inspired by the guerrilla mayhem connected to real-life organization, the Baader-Meinhof Group. The titular band becomes unwittingly embroiled in the hunt for the underground faction, making them public enemy number one.
Titan Books has published a new hardcover reissue of One Model Nation, complete with behind the scenes sketches and storyboards, a historical background, and loads of commentary — including from Taylor-Taylor himself. There’s a foreword written by Red Rocket 7 creator Michael Allred — who also drew the cameo of a certain ’70s music god. Pre-order a copy of One Model Nation over here (it hits stands January 31). If you want to check out the musical accompaniment that goes with it, behold the skinny tie greatness of Totalwerks Vol. 1.
In anticipation of One Model Nation‘s release, we wanted to dig into Courtney’s mind grapes a little further to uncover the inspirations of his graphic novel roots. He shared some of his favorite titles with us past the break. Check them out, and let him know what you think in the comments below.
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Some possibly exciting news for Stieg Larsson fans: Nerve reports that Vertigo, an imprint of DC Entertainment, plans to publish the Millennium Trilogy as a graphic novel. Each book from the popular series will be broken down into two volumes which will be available in both print and digital formats; and while it’s not clear at this point who will be adapting the text or working on the illustrations, given the fact that Vertigo is known for titles like Sandman and V for Vendetta, we feel like our beloved Lisbeth Salander is good hands. Look for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to hit shelves in 2012, timed to the release of David Fincher’s highly-anticipated film version, with subsequent installments of the series coming out in 2013 and 2014.
Based on a popular graphic novel, Tamara Drewe is a colorful comedy of manners that chronicles a young woman’s sexual misadventures at a bucolic writers’ retreat in England.
Posy Simmonds’ original comic was also serialized in The Guardian, with a story inspired by Thomas Hardy’s novel Far From the Madding Crowd. The big-screen version is directed by Stephen Frears, maker of modern indie classics such as Prick Up Your Ears, High Fidelity, and The Queen.
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In his graphic-novel memoir War Is Boring: Bored Stiff, Scared to Death in the World’s Worst War Zones, David Axe chronicles the unspoken ravages and less-than-romantic experience of being a war correspondent.
Loosely based on the web comic of the same name, Axe’s unconventional account is bolstered by Matt Bors’ stark illustrations. From fleeing a movie-theater mob in Somalia to hard-partying local guides in Lebanon, War Is Boring features engrossing adventures and encounters with the people and places that don’t make headlines.
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Writer and artist Belle Yang’s first foray into the graphic-novel format, Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, is a coming-of-age family saga that eschews the typical saccharine baggage of the memoir.
Yang spent more than 14 years composing and illustrating this autobiographical tale — a story that combines her own struggles as a self-doubting twentysomething Chinese-American with the legacy of struggle that her father’s family experienced in China. Rather than forcing a tidy parallel between the two tales, Yang instead presents a natural concurrence — at most a subtle complement — between her own experiences and the highly-nuanced drama of her heritage.
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With the polarizing reception of Matthew Vaughn’s foul-mouthed Kick-Ass, the superhero genre is in full swing for 2010. There’s the highly anticipated sequel to Iron Man and Seth Rogen donning green tights for Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet. On top of that, this is also when shooting ends for Thor and most likely starts for Captain America. So what’s the big deal?* According to designer Fonografiks, a ’60s dime store aesthetic-meets-comic legend is a design category worthy of singular interpretation.
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Divisive author and illustrator Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza combines hard reporting with an engrossing graphic-storytelling format to explore the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sacco uses “comics journalism” — a genre he effectively invented with his previous books Palestine
and Safe Area Goražde
— to chronicle two reportedly overlooked Palestinian massacres that took place in the ’50s. The result is a poignant portrait of the ongoing conflict through an artistic but unflinching lens.
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Underground comix icon Robert Crumb paints the Bible in a new light with his illustrated version of the entire book of Genesis.
Sex, scandal, and subtle satire abound, but with each carefully rendered detail — and the inclusion of every word from the five opening chapters — Crumb has given a new frame to one of the most widely known stories in history. Sure, he’s been under fire since the book’s release, but when has Crumb not been under fire for something or other?
Explore Crumb’s website, read Vanity Fair‘s interview with the artist, witness his personal take on the history of women, and buy the book
.
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Thirteen artists take on Bob Dylan’s most famous tunes, re-imagining them in graphic-novel style in the beautifully illustrated Bob Dylan Revisited.
Grouping together luminaries such as Neil Gaiman co-conspirator Dave McKean and Italian illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti, the book visually interprets essential Dylan, from the giddy “I Want You” to the somber “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Each song is recreated in sequential format, perfectly suiting Dylan’s folk-story songwriting.
Detached from the music, the graphic-accompanied lyrics emphasize the stark — at times unsettling — nature of Dylan’s imagery. Seeing the “black branch with blood that kept drippin’” described in “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” evokes entirely different emotions than the words alone, which are normally masked behind bright major chords.
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