“Armed with Madness”, new graphic novel from Bryan Talbot and Mary M Talbot, focus of teaser trailer from Jordan Smith

Armed With Madness Book by Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot (SelfMadeHero, 2023)

A two-minute trailer has been released to promote the new graphic biography by Mary M Talbot and Bryan TalbotArmed With Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington. Directed and edited by designer Jordan Smith, it features music composed by Gary Lloyd.

The video is available to watch here on YouTube: please note it includes age-restricted content.

Jordan has collaborated with Bryan before, notably producing the cover to Alice in Sunderland, based on Bryan’s pencil rough.

Gary, who in the past has worked on projects with Alan Moore and Iain Banks, also composed the music for the modern dance performance piece When You Light a Candle You Also Cast a Shadow, featuring a poetry cycle written by Mary, which has been performed by Company Carpi in Lancaster and at Chester Cathedral.

The trailer soundtrack includes a specially recorded cameo by composer-musician Gary Carpenter, playing the same Nordic Harp that he used for Willow’s Song in the film The Wicker Man (1973). The vocals are by Isabelle Mohan.

Reluctant muse and feminist champion… society heiress and rebel refugee… the last of the Surrealists. Leonora Carrington played many roles in her long and extraordinary life. Renouncing her privileged upbringing in pre-war England for the more exciting elite of Paris’s 1930s avant-garde, she comes to rub shoulders (and more) with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Salvador Dalí, after embarking on a complicated love affair with Max Ernst.

But in Armed With Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington, the demons that have both haunted and inspired her work are gathering, and when the world goes mad with the outbreak of war and the Nazi invasion, Leonora’s own hold on reality collapses into a terrifying psychotic episode of her own. Eventually fleeing war-torn Europe, she emerges into a new and richly creative life in Mexico City, establishing herself as a prodigious painter, writer, and advocate of women’s rights.

Armed with Madness by Bran Talbot and Mary M Talbot - Trailer
Armed with Madness by Bran Talbot and Mary M Talbot - Trailer

Mary M. Talbot is an academic turned graphic novelist. Her first graphic novel, Dotter of her Father’s Eyes (with Bryan Talbot), won the 2012 Costa Biography Award. Her most recent, Rain (2019, also with Bryan), is a rallying cry to protect the planet. Her previous graphic novels are Sally Heathcote, Suffragette (2014, with Kate Charlesworth and Bryan Talbot) and The Red Virgin (2016, with Bryan Talbot). Her most recent academic book is Language and Gender (3rd ed, 2019). She is currently Visiting Professor of Graphic Narrative at Lancaster University.

Multiple award-winning artist Bryan Talbot has been working in comics for over forty years. He’s produced underground, fantasy and superhero stories such as Batman and (with Neil Gaiman) Sandman, and graphic novels including The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, The Tale of One Bad Rat, Alice in Sunderland, the Grandville series, as well as illustrating the books written by Mary.

Bryan was awarded a Doctorate in Arts and another in Letters and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

They are both founding patrons of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

Bryan and Mary will be signing copies of Armed With Madness on Saturday 13th May 2023 at a special launch event for the graphic novel Gosh Comics, London: full details on the Gosh events page. They will also be appearing at a special event to talk about the project in Lancaster on Tuesday 23rd May.

The preview video is available to watch here on YouTube: please note it includes age-restricted content

 • Armed With Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington will be published in April in the United States and May in the UK by SelfMadeHero | Pre-order it from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) | Pre-order it from Bookshop.org (Affiliate Link)

Bryan Talbot is online at bryan-talbot.com

Mary M Talbot is online at mary-talbot.co.uk

Jordan Smith is online at darkview.artstation.com



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