The very fine Indy comics press crew at Avery Hill Publishing have announced their slate of planned releases for autumn of 2023, and those of us who have been following this publisher since the early days will be delighted to hear that this schedule includes some familiar creators who have published through that press before, with work coming from Owen D Pomeroy, Claire Scully and George Wylesol.
As commissioning editor Ricky Miller commented:
“It’s one of the most visually striking lineups we’ve ever had, three creators with very different art styles, but all brilliant at what they do. They’re creators we’ve worked with several times before and we were the first people to publish books by them, and it’s great to have been able to help them along in their development and also for us to develop with them.”
Owen D. Pomeroy, an architectural artist by day, last wowed us with the visually ravishing Victory Point, in which landscape and architecture became as much characters in the story as the people. It was one of my favourite releases of 2020 – you can read my review here on downthetubes. Owen is returning with a full colour hardback, The Hard Switch, a science fiction graphic novel due in late October. From the description:
“Ada, Haika, and Mallic are on a mission . . . one last mission, before everything, everywhere shuts down. They’re raiding old, abandoned spaceships and wrecks for the (sometimes-expensive) parts – and they make just enough money to get by. But living their nomadic, exploring life isn’t sustainable when they can’t afford fuel any more.
The time is coming when the mineral that makes inter-system jumps possible runs out. When it does, the scattered inhabitants of the vast galaxy will be stuck where they are. Everything will be different . . . unless the discovery in the latest wreck Ada, Haika, and Mallic are scavenging can unlock a whole new kind of interstellar transit.”
George Wylesol also offers up a full-colour work, in paperback, due early October, with Curses, following his well-received earlier collections, Ghosts, Etc and 2120, again showcasing his unusual take on short form with a horror tinge. From the publisher’s description:
“Sometimes I think I see things. Out of the corner of my eye, behind a door, I catch a glimpse of something. It’s like a curtain caught in the wind, and then it’s gone.”
From hospitals to hell to the wilderness, George Wylesol’s short stories take place in liminal spaces where nothing is as it seems; the surreal becomes real; and something is lying in wait around every corner. As our main characters navigate through corridors, passageways, and highways, they sink deeper and deeper into everyday strangeness that slips into peculiarity, creating an internal journey from normalcy to the supernatural.
With surprising twists and turns, cleverly combining the strange and realism, smart, surprising, and sometimes terrifying – these stories make it clear that George Wylesol is like no one else in short comics-format fiction.”
Due out in mid-September, Claire Scully, whose work has been seen on the pages of a number of publishers, including Penguin, HarperCollins and the New York Times, has The Wilderness Collection. It will use her fascination for the natural world – I’m intrigued to see one of her influences is the rather wonderful nature writer Robert MacFarlane, who is one of my personal favourites (one of those writers who doesn’t just describe places and environments, he conjures up a magical sense of wonder about the world).
From the description supplied by the publisher:
“A gorgeously illustrated journey through emotional, resonant landscapes – from personal, internal spaces to the far reaches of outer space.
What is our relationship with physical and emotional environments? How do we react to and live in the world around us? This book explores the dimensions of how geography affects the psyche, from the known to the unknown.
In colourful, gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations, the transformation of landscapes from immediate and personal to fantastical and nostalgic captures the sense of place. Viewing each image creates your own personal experience of space. Starting with more immediate spaces and ending with faraway planets, this book is an emotional, creative journey.”
Joe Gordon
• Avery Hill Publishing is online at averyhillpublishing.com | Shop | Twitter
• Owen D. Pomeroy is online at owenpomery.com
• George Wylesol is online at wylesol.com
Joe has been a bookseller since the early 1990s, with a special love for comics, graphic novels and science fiction. He has written for The Alien Online, created & edited the Forbidden Planet Blog and chaired numerous events for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He’s more or less house-trained.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Current British Publishers, British Comics - Graphic Novels, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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