Buy Bryan Talbot original artwork

Buy Bryan Talbot original artwork

This is the only place you can buy original Bryan Talbot artwork - except from Bryan in person at a convention.


The Legend of Luther Arkwright

The Legend of Luther Arkwright collates all details about Bryan's latest graphic novel.

The Legend of Luther Arkwright page collates all details about Bryan's latest graphic novel.


Heart of Empire - Directors Cut

Buy the Heart of Empire Directors Cut

 

This labour of love from Bryan and myself contains every single page of Heart of Empire in pencil, ink and final full colour format - as well as over 60,000 words of annotation, commentary and explanation from Bryan... - as well as the whole of the Adventures of Luther Arkwright!

 

 

Or see the Heart of Empire Directors Cut page for more details.


Join us on
social media

Follow the Bryan Talbot fanpage on FacebookJoin the Facebook group for Bryan Talbot fans for lots of discussions and special offers announced on Facebook first.

 

Follow the Bryan Talbot fanpage on TwitterThe Bryan Talbot fanpage is also on Twitter - so give us a follow and join in the conversation!

 

Bryan Talbot fanpage on InstagramWe are also on Instagram: give us a like and a follow.

 

The Bryan Talbot fanpage on RedditWe've also just launched a Bryan Talbot fanpage subreddit.

 


Bryan Talbot t-shirts


Also see the Bryan Talbot t-shirt shop! - we've got a vast array of Bryan's images on lots of different t-shirts, as well as other items like mugs and fine art prints: - but if there's anything else you'd like just let us know on Twitter or at the Facebook group.


The Grandville Annotations

The annotations for Grandville Force Majeure by Bryan Talbot

Bryan and myself have created a series of annotations for the Grandville graphic novel series, explaining references and homages to other works, how the pages are drawn, inked, coloured and put together.

All of the annotations are now complete and online for:

- Grandville

- Grandville Mon Amour

- Grandville Bête Noire

- Grandville Noël

- Grandville Force Majeure



This is the new version of the Bryan Talbot fanpage
But the whole of the original Bryan Talbot fanpage is still online.


A review of the Tale of One Bad Rat by Popimage

The harrowing but optimistic story of a girl's battle with child abuse

Writer and Artist: Bryan Talbot
Graphic Novel Published by Dark Horse Comics 1995
$14.95

Reviewed by Alasdair Watson

This is a book that ought to change the way you look at comics. If you do not own it, or have not read it at least twice, then stop reading this review and go out and buy it now. If you cannot buy it right now, have your retailer order it in for you. If they cannot or will not, change retailer instantly, because they are clearly too stupid to be human beings, and certainly do not deserve your money.

If you're still here, then obviously you must have read this book. If you haven't, then fuck off and buy it now. I'm not saying this for emphasis, or to get a laugh. Fuck off and buy it. I mean it. Now. This comic alone justifies the years of god-awful spandex-clad dross that Marvel and DC have inflicted on their readers.

This comic alone is reason to put up with the spotty-faced overweight 15 year olds who slavishly drool over the latest superheroine to run around in a thong with her tits hanging out. If that's what's required to support an industry that can produce THE TALE OF ONE BAD RAT, then hell. It's all worth it.

This is a remarkable story, on several levels.

Purely technically, as a comic, this is shining stuff. I thought I had a good grasp of the techniques required to put a comic together. But within the first 5 pages, Talbot showed me enough new tricks to make my hair stand on end. Just look at the way he goes from the idyllic scene that opens the book across to the London underground, then makes use of that same scene in subtly different ways later on to bring home the changes that have occurred since. Now tell me that's not dead clever, and find me a mainstream American comic that uses techniques like that. Stylish, visually lovely, and beautifully effective.

Look at the fades into and out of flashback, so utterly natural, an elegant depiction of how most of us wind up wandering down memory lane. It comes within an inch of carrying the reader with it, with just a few subtle clues that this isn't the present any more.

The story is a very real journey around England, from its cold concrete and green hills, through rain-soaked motorways, to pleasant leafy city streets and high rise hellholes. If you want to get a feel for what Britain looked like in the early 90s, this is the place to look. In his afterword, Talbot says he spent ages obtaining reference materials, basing everything on real people and real locations. It pays off in spades. Being a Londoner, I was able to identify the Tube station the story opens in straightaway. Hell, if they hadn't refurbished the place I could probably have picked out the exact spot on the platform that Helen is sitting on. Suddenly I know I'm not reading some frivolous little tale, but a very serious and very real book. That atmosphere is maintained right the way through, seemingly effortlessly. Not once does suspension of disbelief fail. Not even when confronted with a giant invisible rat.

Despite its realism, this is not photo-realistic art like the Alex Rosses of this world churn out. I suspect it has very carefully stayed away from photo-realism; the more iconic nature of the art serves to better bring us into the story and see ourselves in the place of Helen. An extension of this is that when we first meet Helen it's not very easy to decide on her gender, or even her age beyond "young," and it's some pages before she's finally clearly marked out as female. It's touches like this that work so well to build the story, the horror and the hurt later on, while keeping it so clearly in the real world. We've all seen kids sleeping rough, and been unable to tell what age or gender they were. They were just one more face in the crowd to us. So is Helen and her story. And there's the horror of it.

Pay attention, because here's the best bit. What we have here is a comic tackling an Important Subject, in a credible adult manner. It does it better than some of the "proper" literature I've read on the subject of child abuse. And certainly a sight better than the endless parade of emotional chatshows and public scab-picking exercises. In fact it does it so well that there are an increasing number of places recommending it as a resource for dealing with child abuse. Christ, I know people it has helped. I don't think it's possible to pay the work a higher compliment than that.

And yet, I don't see comic shop owners pushing this on their customers. Why the hell not? This is the perfect comic to open some 15 year old eyes to the fact that there's more to comics than Psylocke's latest near-transparent piece of arse-floss. And they might even learn a thing or two. In juxtaposition to the serious, cold and hard fact of child abuse, the book contains a warm sort of storytelling magic, through the Beatrix Potter elements that are worked into it so beautifully, a very British feeling that chimes beautifully with Potter's style of work. Potter's work isn't to my taste, but I can see its warmth and beauty, and Talbot does a fine job of catching it.

I said this book would change the way you looked at comics. It will have you wondering why every comic you read isn't as good as this. It will have you disgusted and sickened that this isn't being made into a lucrative movie, while drivel like X-MEN gets the full treatment. That's OK. That's a good attitude.

I tried very hard to find something bad about this comic. I really did. And while it's true other works are as good as The Tale of One Bad Rat because they have excellent art, or a firm grasp of structure, or because they too tackle a serious issue in a credible and useful manner, I know of no other that does all of them at once. Not as well as this book.

Strongly Recommended

Alasdair Watson is Technical Editor of PopImage


Also take a look at the One Bad Rat homepage where I have grouped together all of the content I could find that relates to the Tale of One Bad Rat.