front cover of Alice in Sussex
Alice in Sussex
Mahler after Lewis Carroll & H. C. Artmann
Nicolas Mahler
Seagull Books, 2022
A twist on the classic tale of Alice in Wonderland told through Nicolas Mahler’s distinctive graphic novel style.
 
Alice is back in Wonderland. Here she meets the White Rabbit, who leads her down into his rabbit hole in search of an illustrated edition of H. C. Artmann’s Frankenstein in Sussex. Over the course of the novel, Alice repeatedly runs into the Rabbit, who quotes freely from other literary works by the likes of Herman Melville and E. M. Cioran.
 
Unlike in Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice is not traveling the Wonderland we know. Rather, in Nicolas Mahler’s whimsical graphic novel retelling, she is in a house deep beneath the ground. On subsequent floors, she encounters the famous creations of Lewis Carroll: the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Mock Turtle, and many others. One after the other, these creatures address the terrors of childhood and youth. It is only when Alice reaches the ground floor of the house that we arrive at the inevitable climax: face to face with Frankenstein’s Monster.
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front cover of In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time
Mahler after Proust
Nicolas Mahler
Seagull Books, 2022
A twist on the French literary classic In Search of Lost Time told through Nicolas Mahler’s distinctive graphic novel style.
 
Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the most important works of French literature—if not the most important. Reading it can be life-changing. Nicolas Mahler’s comic is not a retelling of this classic, nor a shortened version of Proust’s monumental work. Rather, it is a surprisingly funny graphic novel, comically disrespectful of the celebrated work yet completely permeated by Proustian spirit. Complemented by his clear and sparse illustrations, Mahler’s minimal nature of text use is easy on the eye, even for those uninitiated into graphic novels. For long-time fans of graphic novels, it is a perfect entry into a beloved literary classic.
 
A compact picture stream through time and space, Mahler’s In Search of Lost Time is a brilliantly complex house of mirrors replete with Proustian motives and perceptions.
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front cover of Ulysses
Ulysses
Mahler after Joyce
Nicolas Mahler
Seagull Books, 2022
A twist on the Irish literary classic Ulysses, told through Nicolas Mahler’s distinctive graphic novel style.
 
Dublin, 16 June 1904: through a day in the life of the advertising agent Leopold Bloom and the sensations of the ordinary, James Joyce created a maximal book from a minimum of matter. Ulysses, the most important novel of modernity, is a defining book of the twentieth century. Joyce’s creation—also spectacularly innovative in form—inspired Nicolas Mahler to attempt a literary retelling that is not a mere illustration or adaption of the novel but an independent and equally as inventive work. Using comics, Mahler transforms the various literary techniques of the original. He assembles his images with humorous and philosophical verve, quoting and rambling along in the spirit of Joyce.
 
With this graphic interpretation of the modern classic, which also constitutes a homage to the golden era of the newspaper comic strip, Ulysses can be newly discovered in a delightfully unexpected form.
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