About Comics Brings Bryan Talbot’s Brain Storm Comix Back Into Print

Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: about comics, Brian Talbot

Nat Gertler’s About Comics is bringing back to print the earliest works of Dr Bryan Talbot with BrainStorm.

Nat Gertler is a comic book-and-related hero, an Eisner Award-winning comics history writer, putting work back into print that had been unduly forgotten, missed out from the canon or in urgent need of archiving. From religious-themed cartoons to superhero comic The Factor, from Stephen Weiner’s analysis of Jeff Smith‘s Bone, to a facsimile of The Green Book, his work as About Comics is always worthy of note. And now he is bringing back to print the earliest works of Dr Bryan Talbot with BrainStorm.

An early central influence on both Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, who would use characters and concepts in Swamp Thing and Animal Man respectively, Brain Storm Comix was an alternative comic book published in the UK back when “alternative” meant something,

Back before he became a respected high-profile graphic novelist, earning his way into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame through such diverse works as The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, and the Grandville books, Dr Bryan Talbot launched his comics career as an underground artist. He produced the lead serial about Psychedelic Alchemist Chester P. Hackenbush for Brain Storm Comix, as well as various short pieces. Now these works, which have not seen print during this century, are coming back in the About Comics edition of BrainStorm!, from Diamond to arrive in comic shops in August and then coming to Amazon and bookstores a month after that.

In the four-page introduction (updated somewhat from the 1999 edition of this material) Bryan explains how he got his chance to start drawing comix from the one of the suppliers for the White Rabbit headshop he worked at in his college days. The work proved time-intensive, but an education by doing and led him down the path he still follows today.

In addition to the Hackenbush material (which was inspiration for the character “Chester” in Swamp Thing), the book includes a noir story of hardboiled rock reporter Ace Wimslow, Talbot’s pothead strip “Smokey Bears”, and more. The large 8.5-inch by 11-inch size displays the art, with Talbot often bringing the same level of detail that he brought to later work, with a freer, looser hand that fits the counterculture material.

BRYAN TALBOT’S BRAINSTORM GN (MR)
ABOUT COMICS
JUN241252
(W) Bryan Talbot (A/CA) Bryan Talbot
Before Luther Arkwright, One Bad Rat, and Grandville, 2024 Eisner Hall of Fame inductee Bryan Talbot brought his energy and love for detail to underground comics. Here is the complete “Chester P. Hackenbush: The Psychadelic Alchemist” graphic novel, his pothead strip “Smokey Bears”, and more, back in print for the first time in decades.In Shops: Aug 07, 2024
SRP: $20.00

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