The New World: Comics from Mauretania

The New World: Comics from Mauretania

Chris Reynolds’s enigmatic and evocative comics are unlike any others. Reynolds has been drawing his self-published comics series Mauretania since the 1980s, building a world full of rolling hills and sleepy villages, strange forces and troubling mysteries. The earth has fallen under the control of alien forces, and his characters can’t escape the turmoil: new religions appear, family photos inexplicably change, businesses suddenly shut down, and vague conspiracies fill everyday life.

Beautiful, unnerving, and strangely moving, Reynolds’s stories depicted richly in art that Ed Park in his foreword describes as “black and white and black.” This collection, designed and selected by the acclaimed cartoonist Seth, includes a selection of short stories, the novella “The Dial,” and the full-length 1991 Mauretania graphic novel. Presented in an elaborate hardcover with foil stamping, debossing, full-colour endpapers, and extra-thick paper, featuring new scans of the original artwork, this collection finally gives this cult classic its due.

“Original, well-executed and creative in a way that few comics come close to.”

—Marc Sobel, author of Brighter Than You Think

“Imagine Edward Hopper’s paintings and Andrei Tarkovsky’s films transposed to a rural Wales occupied by benign aliens. Yet Reynolds’ visions remain uniquely his own, gently sinister and insinuating.”

—Comics International

About the Author:

Chris Reynolds was born in Wales in 1960 and studied fine art at the North Staffordshire Polytechnic. He has worked as a filmmaker, publicist, and art teacher but now devotes his time to drawing comics. He lives in Poole.

Seth is the cartoonist behind the comic book series Palookaville, and his comics have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Best American Comics, and McSweeney’s. His illustrations have appeared in numerous publications, including on the covers of The New Yorker, The Walrus, and Canadian Notes & Queries. He is also Lemony Snicket’s partner for the new young-adult series All the Wrong Questions. Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario, with his wife, Tania, and their two cats in an old house he has named Inkwell’s End.

Ed Park is a founding editor of The Believer and a former editor of the Voice Literary Supplement and for the Poetry Foundation. His debut novel, Personal Days, published in 2008, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. He lives in New York City.