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Tachyon has done a lovely job – nice paper, nice cover – on this whimsical volume, printed with full color illustrations. A November book, it would make a nice stocking stuffer for fans of Bantock’s work.
Locus
Each story survives well on its own, whether a mystery, romance, sci-fi or more. A taste of the macabre is served fresh in “Halloween” as experienced by a curmudgeonly senior. The accompanying art is fitting; you can will it to be so as the smile on the object’s face begins to look sinister. In “A Fool’s Kiss”, unrequited love finds resolution, at a cost. Another favourite is the lead up to murder in “Double-Crossed”. There is the sense that there could be more to each, but they appear perfect on the page, much like watching a festival of short films.
The Miramichi Reader
I liked the range of stories on offer and how no two pieces were the same. I like the stories that verge on the fantastic featuring all manner of fantastical creatures, myths and monsters and I liked the stories more seeped in reality. This book is an excellent example of just how powerful so few words can be.
The Book Lover’s Boudoir
Each of Bantock’s illustrations is printed in colour, which I think is a first for the publisher. Given the time of year, THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH is an ideal gift for any visitors to Calvino’s invisible cities.
feuilleton
Bantock’s illustrated, epistolary novel Griffin and Sabine was an international sensation. His latest book, THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH, recaptures all of its idiosyncratic charm. The book comprises 100 stories, each 100 words itself, and the cryptic invitation for the reader to add one of their own to the collection. Complete with whimsical illustrations, THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH is a unique and magical curio to get lost in.
Nuvo
[STARRED REVIEW] Readers will find themselves delighted, intrigued, and often moved by the love, pain, and wonder of these finely written drabbles
—Kirkus
I have always been fascinated by artists who manage to invent imaginary creatures and worlds, and Nick Bantock does it with extreme elegance and a unique freshness of sign, managing to combine cave paintings with Flemish art in a contemporary key.
—Daniele Serra, three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist
ISBN: 978-1-61696-407-8 (print); 978-1-61696-408-5 (digital)
Available Format(s): Trade hardcover, digital formats
The internationally bestselling author of Griffin & Sabine returns with his newest literary mystery—a charming assemblage of his own illustrated stories. Each of the invitingly strange tales is paired with its own glyphic creature (perhaps created by Sabine herself?). Each accompanying story, the origin of which is unknown, totals exactly one-hundred words. These delightful “drabbles,” enjoyable in any sequence, allow the reader to bask in them—or even to solve the conundrum they imply.
Tachyon has done a lovely job – nice paper, nice cover – on this whimsical volume, printed with full color illustrations. A November book, it would make a nice stocking stuffer for fans of Bantock’s work.
—Karen Haber, Locus
Little is known of the fascinating manuscript that Nick Bantock has come to possess. It was discovered in an attic in North London, stuffed into a battered cardboard box, and unceremoniously delivered directly to Nick’s doorstep. Inside the package lay one hundred evocatively absurd stories, one hundred humorous drawings of strangely familiar, quirkish glyphs, plus a cryptically poetic note signed only as “HH.” (Possibly the well-known, eccentric billionaire, Hamilton Hasp?)
In these stories-each consisting of precisely 100 words-strange creatures slip through alleyways, and eerie streets swallow people whole. Taken altogether, they may constitute a puzzle that no one has been able to solve thus far. Could there be one missing story?
A tapestry of exquisite miniatures, the kind of stories you might hear told in one of Calvino’s invisible cities. Microfictions are seldom this inventive or persistently pleasurable.
—John Coulthart, World Fantasy Award-winning graphic artist, illustrator, author, and designer
Funny how in all the years I’ve been creating books, in all the interviews and with all the audience questions, no one has ever asked me the fundamental question, “What is it you’ve been trying to achieve with your work?”
Maybe it’s just as well, because, in the early days I wouldn’t have known how to reply.
In hindsight, here’s my response:
With Griffin and Sabine, I was trying to bring together words and images in a way that united opposing aspects of our perception…I badly needed to form a dialogue between my logical and intuitive sides.
Purely in terms of the fiction, I wanted to use the intimacy of correspondence to express the longing that most of us experience. The longing to be seen and accepted. *Ironically the envelopes which became the books trademark, were simply devices to magnify the reader/viewer’s sense of participation.
In The Venetian’s Wife, as in G and S, I tried to continue the theme of linked text and art. Back then (1993) email was in its infancy, and I wanted to create a modern story, that showed the potential for electronic correspondence. To do this I borrowed Arthur Koestler’s term, ‘A Ghost in the Machine’, as a way of honouring wisdom from the past, and showing that new technology without meaningful content was pretty hollow.
The Egyptian Jukebox. Was a puzzle played with stories and shadow boxes. In some ways it was a continuation of the theme that each of us needs to balance our visual and cerebral capabilities if we are to solve our problems.
In The Forgetting Room I was hoping to show the bridge between our ancestors and our current lives. I was also making a plea for the importance of art, trying to show that it is often the glue that binds our civilization. As it happens, I wrote the book at a really difficult time of my life, and the act of creating it probably kept me glued together.
Urgent 2nd Class and The Trickster’s Hat, were both give-backs. I wanted to share what I’d learned in my career as an artist and writer. I don’t believed in the notion that artists need to protect their methods, in fact I believe the opposite. I’ve been highly privileged to have lived an artist’s life and, as I see it, part of my job is to pass-on what I’ve learned.
The Pop-up books were different, they were more specific. Jabberwocky, Wings and Kubla Khan all had different agendas. Jabberwocky was a homage to nonsense made 3D. Wings was an active tool to show kids and adults the mechanics of flight. (I made the book because I couldn’t find anything out there that explained basics aerodynamics). And Kubla Khan, that was an indulgence. Having been told that pop-ups and literature didn’t mix, I wanted to prove that they could, if a publisher willed it.
And so to my latest offerings, and why I’ve made them. THE CORSET & THE JELLYFISH is a response to our short attention spans, the lack of succinct storytelling in our culture, and the inevitable demise of precise articulation that texting has brought to us. The Corset is a series of one hundred, 100 word stories, that try to use language as short, fine-tuned entertainments. In other words, writing a tale with a beginning, a middle and an end, inside a single soundbite.
As for The River, it’s a Jungian card deck that follows on from The Archeo. The Archeo was a tool to tease-out our archetypes, so that they were available to help us navigate our daily lives. The River is also a practical tool, but this time, a device to help us develop our visual intuition, rather than rely on language and (patriarchal) logic. The deck is meant to help us grow our internal landscape, which in turn helps us maintain a healthy psyche.
And there you have it, the circle, the thing that ties all my books together, is my desire to show that we gain nothing from shrinking our horizons, and gain everything from expanding our peripheral vision and widening our self-expectation.
[STARRED REVIEW] Readers will find themselves delighted, intrigued, and often moved by the love, pain, and wonder of these finely written drabbles
—Kirkus
I have always been fascinated by artists who manage to invent imaginary creatures and worlds, and Nick Bantock does it with extreme elegance and a unique freshness of sign, managing to combine cave paintings with Flemish art in a contemporary key.
—Daniele Serra, three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist
The internationally bestselling author of Griffin & Sabine returns with his newest literary mystery—a charming assemblage of his own illustrated stories. Each of the invitingly strange tales is paired with its own glyphic creature (perhaps created by Sabine herself?). Each accompanying story, the origin of which is unknown, totals exactly one-hundred words. These delightful “drabbles,” enjoyable in any sequence, allow the reader to bask in them—or even to solve the conundrum they imply.
A tapestry of exquisite miniatures, the kind of stories you might hear told in one of Calvino’s invisible cities. Microfictions are seldom this inventive or persistently pleasurable.
—John Coulthart, World Fantasy Award-winning graphic artist, illustrator, author, and designer
Little is known of the fascinating manuscript that Nick Bantock has come to possess. It was discovered in an attic in North London, stuffed into a battered cardboard box, and unceremoniously delivered directly to Nick’s doorstep. Inside the package lay one hundred evocatively absurd stories, one hundred humorous drawings of strangely familiar, quirkish glyphs, plus a cryptically poetic note signed only as “HH.” (Possibly the well-known, eccentric billionaire, Hamilton Hasp?)
In these stories-each consisting of precisely 100 words-strange creatures slip through alleyways, and eerie streets swallow people whole. Taken altogether, they may constitute a puzzle that no one has been able to solve thus far. Could there be one missing story?
For those perceptive readers with a curious mind, the celebrated author of Griffin & Sabine cordially invites you to find your own path through his beguiling conundrum of drabbles—or even to contribute one of your very own.
[STARRED REVIEW] Readers will find themselves delighted, intrigued, and often moved by the love, pain, and wonder of these finely written drabbles
—Kirkus
A tapestry of exquisite miniatures, the kind of stories you might hear told in one of Calvino’s invisible cities. Microfictions are seldom this inventive or persistently pleasurable.
—John Coulthart, World Fantasy Award-winning graphic artist, illustrator, author, and designer
The internationally bestselling author of Griffin & Sabine returns with his newest literary mystery—a charming assemblage of his own illustrated stories. Each of the invitingly strange tales is paired with its own glyphic creature (perhaps created by Sabine herself?). Each accompanying story, the origin of which is unknown, totals exactly one-hundred words. These delightful “drabbles,” enjoyable in any sequence, allow the reader to bask in them—or even to solve the conundrum they imply.
I have always been fascinated by artists who manage to invent imaginary creatures and worlds, and Nick Bantock does it with extreme elegance and a unique freshness of sign, managing to combine cave paintings with Flemish art in a contemporary key.
—Daniele Serra, three-time winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist
Little is known of the fascinating manuscript that Nick Bantock has come to possess. It was discovered in an attic in North London, stuffed into a battered cardboard box, and unceremoniously delivered directly to Nick’s doorstep. Inside the package lay one hundred evocatively absurd stories, one hundred humorous drawings of strangely familiar, quirkish glyphs, plus a cryptically poetic note signed only as “HH.” (Possibly the well-known, eccentric billionaire, Hamilton Hasp?)
In these stories-each consisting of precisely 100 words-strange creatures slip through alleyways, and eerie streets swallow people whole. Taken altogether, they may constitute a puzzle that no one has been able to solve thus far. Could there be one missing story?
For those perceptive readers with a curious mind, the celebrated author of Griffin & Sabine cordially invites you to find your own path through his beguiling conundrum of drabbles—or even to contribute one of your very own.
[Bantock] is a highly imaginative and ebulliently romantic illustrator and storyteller.
—Booklist
ISBN: 978-1-61696-407-8 (print); 978-1-61696-408-5 (digital)
Published: November 2023
The internationally bestselling author of Griffin & Sabine returns with his newest literary mystery—a charming assemblage of his own illustrated stories. Each of the invitingly strange tales is paired with its own glyphic creature (perhaps created by Sabine herself?). Each accompanying story, the origin of which is unknown, totals exactly one-hundred words. These delightful “drabbles,” enjoyable in any sequence, allow the reader to bask in them—or even to solve the conundrum they imply.
Little is known of the fascinating manuscript that Nick Bancock has come to possess. It was discovered in an attic in North London, stuffed into a battered cardboard box, and unceremoniously delivered directly to Nick’s doorstep. Inside the package lay one hundred evocatively absurd stories, one hundred humorous drawings of strangely familiar, quirkish glyphs, plus a cryptically poetic note signed only as “HH.” (Possibly the well-known, eccentric billionaire, Hamilton Hasp?)
In these stories-each consisting of precisely 100 words-strange creatures slip through alleyways, and eerie streets swallow people whole. Taken altogether, they may constitute a puzzle that no one has been able to solve thus far. Could there be one missing story?
For those perceptive readers with a curious mind, the celebrated author of Griffin & Sabine cordially invites you to find your own path through his beguiling conundrum of drabbles—or even to contribute one of your very own.
