How to Create Graphic Novels

Topffer, Rodolphe

ISBN 10: 0995715300 / ISBN 13: 9780995715301

Published by LICAF Publishing, 2017

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: How to Create Graphic Novels
• Publisher: LICAF Publishing
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0995715300
• ISBN 13: 9780995715301
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

First published in 1845, it was the first ever book on creating graphic novels, which has been translated, edited, and introduced by John McShane and designed by Festival patron Sean Phillips.

Born in Geneva in 1799, Töpffer was a schoolmaster, university professor, polemical journalist, art critic, landscape draughtsman and writer of fiction, travel tales, and social criticism. Within two years of the first appearance of the world’s first regularly published comics magazine, The Glasgow Looking Glass (11th June 1825), Rodolphe Töpffer single-handedly started creating what became the world’s first graphic novels.

At first he resisted publishing what he called his "little follies". When he did, they became instantly popular, plagiarised, and imitated throughout Europe and the United States.

In 1845, he wrote "How to Create Graphic Novels", the world’s first book about this new art of the graphic novel.

This new edition has been endorsed by Benoît Peeters, the UK’s only Professor of Graphic Fiction and Comic Art (at Lancaster University) and comics artist and illustrator Dan Berry, Programme Leader for the BA/MDes Illustration, Graphic Novels and Children’s Publishing degree courses at the School of Creative Arts, Wrexham Glyndwr University, who will both be guests at this year's Festival in October.

"Many people who read Will Eisner's A Contract with God in 1987, or Art Spiegelman's Maus in 1980-9, or Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen in 1986-87 probably felt that they were witnessing the first examples of a new form of literature," notes John McShane. "But the truth is that these books were part of a rebirth of the form, a renaissance indeed, that Rodolphe Töpffer created in 1827 – all by himself."

"So, what is this 'little book' which you now hold in your hands all about?

"It is Töpffer’s demonstration of the advantages of the graphic form over prose novels – and how to go about creating your own," John explains. "Töpffer’s theories are still influential to this day, and still worth studying."

“This is where the history of comics as an art form really begins!” enthuses Dave Gibbons, who was Britain's first Comics Laureate, and acted as an ambassador for comic books and their potential to improve literacy.