SelfMadeHero
Parent company | Metro Media Ltd |
---|---|
Founded | 2007 |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Distribution | Abrams Books (US) Canadian Manda Group (Canada) Abrams & Chronicle Books (UK) Thames & Hudson (Australia)[1] |
Key people | Emma Hayley |
Fiction genres | Graphic novels |
Imprints | Manga Shakespeare Eye Classics Crime Classics Graphic Biography |
Official website | www |
SelfMadeHero is an independent publishing house which specialises in adapting works of literature, as well as producing ground-breaking original fiction in the graphic novel medium.
SelfMadeHero's books are distributed in the U.S. by Abrams Books.
History[]
SelfMadeHero was founded in October 2007 by Emma Hayley, and launched with two lines: Manga Shakespeare,[2][3] featuring works based on the Bard but with different settings - mainly Japan in the past and future, and Eye Classics, which are adaptations of great classic works, such as those of Poe and Kafka. In 2008 she won the UK Young Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards.
In 2009 SelfMadeHero expanded to include graphic adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, including Hound of the Baskervilles and Study in Scarlet, and later At The Mountain of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft. It also began publishing the Graphic Biography series with Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, which has further expanded to tell the fascinating life stories of era-defining pop-culture icons such as Hunter S. Thompson and Nick Cave.
Since 2010 SelfMadeHero has been publishing original material, notably Glyn Dillon's The Nao of Brown, The Motherless Oven trilogy by Rob Davis, and LOVECRAFT by I.N.J. Culbard. In 2011 the company received the Kitschies Black Tentacle award.[4]
Bibliography[]
Manga Shakespeare[]
The adaptations of Shakespeare's plays were made by Richard Appignanesi (who previously worked on Icon Books' Introducing... series), with the art created by UK-based manga artist who have come to prominence via Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga (United Kingdom & Ireland) competition, their work for Sweatdrop Studios or London manga collective Umisen Yamisen.
Title | Artist | Released | ISBN | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hamlet | Emma Vieceli | March 2007 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-1-5 | [5][6] |
Romeo and Juliet | Sonia Leong | ISBN 978-0-9552856-0-8 | ||
The Tempest | Paul Duffield | September 2007 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-0-8 | |
Richard III | Patrick Warren | ISBN 978-0-9552856-3-9 | ||
A Midsummer Night's Dream | Kate Brown | February 2008 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-4-6 | |
Julius Caesar | Mustashrik | June 2008 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-5-3 | |
Macbeth | Robert Deas | ISBN 978-0-9552856-6-0 | ||
As You Like It | Chie Kutsuwada | January 2009 | ISBN 978-0-9558169-0-1 | |
Othello | Ryuta Osada | ISBN 978-0-9558169-5-6 | ||
Henry VIII | Patrick Warren | May 2009 | ISBN 978-1-906838-02-7 | |
King Lear | ILYA | ISBN 978-0-9558169-7-0 | ||
Much Ado About Nothing | Emma Vieceli | ISBN 978-0-9558169-6-3 | ||
The Merchant of Venice | Faye Yong | September 2009 | ISBN 978-0-9558169-1-8 | |
Twelfth Night | Nana Li | ISBN 978-0-9558169-9-4 |
Eye Classics[]
The creators are drawn from a British comic background (in particular Nevermore) but also include screenwriters and more traditional artists.
Title | Author | Adaptation | Artist | Released | ISBN | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nevermore (anthology) | Edgar Allan Poe | various | October 2007 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-8-4 | [7] | |
The Master and Margarita | Mikhail Bulgakov | Andrzej Klimowski | Danusia Schejbal | May 2008 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-7-7 | |
The Trial | Franz Kafka | David Zane Mairowitz | Chantal Montellier | March 2008 | ISBN 978-0-9552856-9-1 | |
The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | Ian Edginton | I. N. J. Culbard | September 2008 | ISBN 978-0-9558169-3-2 | |
At the Mountains of Madness | H. P. Lovecraft | I. N. J. Culbard | October 2010 | ISBN 978-1-906838-12-6 | ||
The Castle | Franz Kafka | David Zane Mairowitz, | Jaromir99 | November 2013 | ISBN 978-1-906838-67-6 | |
The Shadow Out of Time | H. P. Lovecraft | I. N. J. Culbard | ISBN 978-1906838683 | |||
The Man Who Laughs | Victor Hugo | David Hine | Mark Stafford | ISBN 978-1-906838-58-4 |
Crime Classics[]
The Crime Classics line began with a set of four adaptations of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, adapted by Ian Edginton, with art by I. N. J. Culbard:
Title | Author | Artist | Released | ISBN | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Hound of the Baskervilles | Ian Edginton | I. N. J. Culbard | May 2009 | ISBN 978-0-9558169-7-0 | |
A Study in Scarlet | ISBN 978-0-9558169-6-3 | [8] | |||
The Sign of the Four | September 2009 | ISBN 978-0-9558169-1-8 | |||
The Valley of Fear | ISBN 978-0-9558169-9-4 |
Rachel Cooke reviewed A Study in Scarlet for The Observer and concluded:
Culbard and Edginton are adept at concision, leaving out nothing that is crucial and excising much that isn't. I relished every page and thought how this book would be the perfect primer for any child whose parents feel them to be just on the cusp of potential Holmes worship.[9]
Graphic Biography[]
Title | Author | Artist | Released | ISBN | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness | Reinhard Kleist | October 2009 | ISBN 0-8109-8463-6 | [10] | |
A Chinese Life | Li Kunwu & Philippe Ôtié | Li Kunwu | July 2012 | ISBN 978-1906838553 | [11] |
Nick Cave: Mercy on Me | Reinhard Kleist | September 2017 | ISBN 978-1910593363 | [12] |
Awards and Nominations[]
Year | Award | Category | Book | Creator(s) | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2013 | Angoulême International Comics Festival | Special Jury Prize [13] | The Nao of Brown | Glyn Dillon | Won |
2015 | British Comic Awards | Best Book [14] | The Motherless Oven | Rob Davis | Won |
2016 | Eisner Award | Best Graphic Album [15] | Ruins | Peter Kuper | Won |
2020 | Angoulême International Comics Festival | SNCF Polar Prize 2020 [16] | Tumult | John Harris Dunning & Michael Kennedy | Nominated |
See also[]
- Classical Comics, another new British company producing graphic novel adaptations of great works, including some of the same Shakespeare plays
- Classics Illustrated, a similar venture from the 1940s to 1960s
- Pendulum Press, a similar venture from the 1970s
- Marvel Classics Comics, a similar venture from 1976–1978
- Marvel Illustrated, Marvel Comics imprint adapting classic literature
- Graphic Classics
- The Manga Bible, an adaptation by Siku
Notes[]
- ^ "SelfMadeHero". Retrieved 2018-02-11.
- ^ Manga Hamlet by The Bard?, BBC Radio Cambs, March 9, 2007
- ^ Shakespeare gets comic treatment, BBC, May 11, 2007
- ^ "The 2011 Kitschies, presented by The Kraken Rum". 4 February 2012. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
- ^ Manga Hamlet by The Bard?, BBC Radio Cambs, March 9, 2007
- ^ Shakespeare gets comic treatment, BBC, May 11, 2007
- ^ Review of Nevermore, The Guardian, November 17, 2007
- ^ Cooke, Rachel (March 28, 2010). "A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard". The Observer. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
- ^ Cooke, Rachel (March 28, 2010). "A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard". The Observer. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
- ^ Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist, The Guardian, October 24, 2009
- ^ A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu & Philippe Ôtié, The Guardian, October 12, 2012
- ^ Nick Cave: Mercy on Me by Reinhard Kleist, The Guardian, September 21, 2017
- ^ "Dillon wins Best Book at Comic Awards". 28 Nov 2013. Retrieved 28 Nov 2013.
- ^ "British Comic Awards announces 2015 winners". 14 Nov 2015. Retrieved 14 Nov 2015.
- ^ "John Lewis's 'March', Peter Kuper's 'Ruins' Win Eisner Awards". 23 July 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
- ^ "Prix SNCF du Polar 2020". 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
References[]
- Self Made Hero at the Grand Comics Database
- Self Made Hero at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
External links[]
- Comics based on fiction
- Comic book publishing companies of the United Kingdom
- British graphic novels
- Original English-language manga
- Privately held companies of the United Kingdom
- 2007 establishments in the United Kingdom
- Companies established in 2007