Betrayal of the Mind: The Surreal Life of Unica Zürn
English
Lugosi
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
LUGOSI, the tragic life story of one of horror’s most iconic film stars, tells of a young Hungarian activist forced to flee his homeland after the failed Communist revolution in 1919. Reinventing himself in the U.S., first on stage and then in movies, he landed the unforgettable role of Count Dracula in what would become a series of classic feature films. From that point forward, Lugosi’s stardom would be assured...but with international fame came setbacks and addictions that gradually whittled his reputation from icon to has-been. LUGOSI details the actor’s fall from grace and an enduring legacy that continues to this day.
Through Clouds of Smoke: Freud’s Final Days
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
In 1923, Sigmund Freud, 67 years old and an inveterate cigar smoker, discovers that he has mouth cancer, a truth long hidden from him by doctors. Despite his diagnosis, Freud survived 15 more years, convinced the cigars that were slowly destroying him increased his productivity and gave him control over himself. At the same time, a different sort of cancer was consuming Europe. In 1933, Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, annexing Freud's home country of Austria five years later. His books burning upon fascist pyres and his peers concerned for his life, Freud had no choice but to leave Vienna for London, his final home. With accuracy and sobriety, Suzanne Leclair and William Roy reveal a raw and nuanced portrait of the controversial father of psychoanalysis in his last days.
All Tomorrow’s Parties: The Velvet Underground Story
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
Born from the iconic NY art and music scene of the late ’60s and the brilliant, untamed minds of its founding members Lou Reed and John Cale, The Velvet Underground are now considered rock ‘n’ roll royalty...but that wasn’t always so. From surviving off oatmeal and donating blood for rent money, to the fame of being the de facto house band of Andy Warhol’s Factory and the objects of the socialite’s fleeting affection, to the unraveling of Cale and Reed’s creative partnership in a storm of jealousy and paranoia, the Velvets’ story is as bold, challenging, and fascinating as their music. - Explore the story behind the group NYT called 'arguably the most influential American rock band of our time,' through good times and bad, as captured by Eisner-nominated Koren Shadmi.
Alice On the Run: One Child's Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
Gitarama, in the Southern Province of Rwanda, 1994. Five-year-old Alice enjoys a peaceful childhood with her parents and little sisters, but life as she knows it is about to change forever as the genocide of the Tutsis erupts, forcing her to escape her village with her family. It is on the hot roads of the Democratic Republic of Congo, known then as Zaire, that Alice grows up, bouncing from one refugee camp to another, seeking some semblance of a normal life in between violent attacks, with death always lurking around the corner. With Alice, Gaspard Talmasse delivers a singular testimony, capturing with painfully real emotion a relentless world as seen thorough the eyes of an innocent child: one who grew up to become his own life partner.
Storyboarding for Wim Wenders
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
Stéphane Lemardelé traverses uncharted territory, linking the sequential art form with the often overlooked medium of a storyboarder—the two intrinsically tied but the former seen as an end in and of itself, and the latter a means to someone else's end. In this case, that 'someone else' is legendary, cult-classic filmmaker Wim Wenders (Paris Texas, Wings of Desire), and the 'end' is his 2015 film Everything Will Be Fine. With this graphic novel, Stéphane captures not only the formation of this film, but moments of artistic reflection from Wim himself: intimate interactions between the two where Wim ponders the trajectory of his career and evolution as an artist, and the meaning of film as a tool with which to examine our own humanity. Translated by the award-winning Nanette McGuinness.
Vann Nath: Painting the Khmer Rouge
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
In 1978, a young painter named Vann Nath was arrested by the Khmer Rouge, the violent and totalitarian Communist Party of Kampuchea that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Imprisoned in the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, better known as S-21, painting became synonymous with survival for him. Ordered, like many Cambodian artists and craftsmen, to put his talent to use to glorify his captors, upon his release he continued painting—this time, to remember and pay tribute to the victims of Pol Pot's regime. A story as fascinating as it is powerful.
River of Ink
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
“Why do you draw?” A simple question by a young boy moves the author to travel with him down the River of Ink, which flows from the present day back to the very first illustration drawn by a human. Along the way, they visit legendary artists of the past and encounter personal tales that explore the philosophy of communication through drawing. Why do we draw? It’s a simple question with a spellbinding and complex answer with an entirely new and entertaining look at the history of art. -
Beethoven
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
Tell the French that there is still one man in Austria who is not subject to them, and that he does not bear any title!' 1806. The great Napoleonic conquests are underway and Austria is now occupied by French troops. One fateful night, while preparing to host a group of the occupying officers, von Lichnowsky requests—and then demands—Beethoven play for his guests to show “what remains of a prince of Austria.” But Beethoven is insubordinate, not only towards the victors—these “servants of tyranny”—but towards his own protector who attempts to exploit him. By refusing to play, Ludwig van Beethoven declares himself a free man and would remain such for the rest of his life.
Psychotic
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
Jacques Mathis tells his own story—of a megalomaniacal man stuck in a body too small for his ideas. His childhood, spent in a dreary little town in Lorraine, came to a brutal end at the age of fourteen after he suffered his first episode of psychosis. Since that day, between repeated visits to psychiatric wards, Mathis had to find some way to carve out as much of a normal life as possible. With PSYCHOTIC, Jacques Mathis gives us a candid, inspirational account of his daily life, beginning with the day his disorder was first discovered and covering his many stays in psychiatric hospitals, his sessions with various doctors, his setbacks and his triumphs.
Young Katherine Johnson
Graphic Novel - Non-Fiction
Katherine Johnson grew up to be the first Black woman to work at NASA, figuring out the path for spacecrafts to go around the Earth and land on the Moon! But before she set her sights on outer space, she was busy making the Earth's surface her laboratory! Equipped with a mind for math, nothing gets past Katherine: how did Noah manage to put 48,000 animals on his ark, not to mention all that feed?! Accompanied by her brother Charlie and her chicken Lucinda, Katherine makes the world her playground and sometimes dreams of a Moon that could answer her questions... or even, growing up in the early 1900s, a more equal society where black people and white people could have the same rights...