Today, then; a little graphic novel publisher.
The other day, I felt like reading a graphic novel. It was, as Sod's Law would have it, three in the bloody morning. And it turns out that Comicsone.com has stopped offering online graphic novels. That manga business is booming in bookstores, and I guess they didn't want to dilute that action. Bugger, I thought. And then I recalled I wanted to check to see if Tim Truman's WILDERNESS is still in print.
And it is. On Unboundcomics.com.
Unbound is an online graphic novel publisher. Go and download the Adobe Ebook Reader first, it'll save you trouble later. And then go and see them at: http://www.unboundcomics.com. They allow you to download graphic novels in serial chunks for a nominal fee -- WILDERNESS is $1.75 per 32-page chunk. It's instant, very convenient -- and offers things the rest of the world have forgotten.
Like WILDERNESS, Timothy Truman's true history of American Western backwoodsman and "white betrayer" Simon Girty. Very deeply researched, praised by historians for its accuracy and intelligence, Truman presents Girty's story with great clarity, not allowing his dramatisations to dilute the truth of the tale. He grounds it so effectively, staying the hell away from any recognisable media portrayal of native Americans, that when Girty is first shown as an adoptive child of the tribe that killed his stepfather, he looks like an alien, pale and awful, mental damage glittering in his weird eyes. It's absolutely compelling stuff -- and not to be found on any shelf in a new printing. Aaron Thacker's Unbound Comics is entirely justified simply by carrying this one work.
They also carry Nick Abadzis' excellent HUGO TATE: O, AMERICA, a British graphic novel serialised in DEADLINE magazine some ten years ago. Abadzis is one of the brilliant "lost" figures of British comics. This was the great explosion of his talent after warming up with previous HUGO TATE serials and the children's stories MR PLEEBUS, and he faded from the sight of graphic novels following an abortive stab at the American market. O, AMERICA is a storming piece of work, the disaffected and unanchored British youth Hugo Tate giving up a sojourn in New York with nothing people for a road journey across America with, as he discovers, an authentic American monster.
These are two major works, and directing your attention to them can only make Unbound stronger, and help them in their goal of making "missing" graphic novels available again, cheaply and conveniently.
