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A Fine Mess #2
By Matt Madden, For Mature Readers, 32 pages, B&W, Oversized 7-3/4" x 9-1/4", $3.50;
ISBN: 1-891867-75-X; DCD: APR04 2243; June 2004
Matt Madden returns with exciting and challenging new short stories that invite the reader to explore new vistas of comics structure and storytelling. "Prisoner of Zembla" tells the tale of Alina Zek, an exiled philologist who makes a doomed last stand to save the written alphabet of her native language. The concern with the alphabet leaks beyond the story and into the very structure of the comic: the careful reader will find a hidden layer to the story, the "prison" which holds Professor Zek captive. "The Envoy" is the tale of four hardy seamen who accompany an eminent scientist and his young daughter on a perilous mission to uncharted Arctic waters. "La Mulata de Córdoba" is a retelling of a legend from colonial Mexico about a witch who conjures magic from a source we are all close to: the drawn line. Rounding off the issue will be another installment of Madden's acclaimed "Exercises in Style."
"Madden's comics can offer the reader a sense of comic irony, a surprising, often moving poignancy and a playful, thoughtful rearrangement of the elements of comics style." Publishers Weekly
Available June 2004.
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| A Fine Mess #1 | A Fine Mess #2 |
Matt Madden (NYC, 1968) has been doing comics for over 10 years now. He started self-publishing minicomics while living in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 1990s, where he co-edited the anthology title, 5 O'Clock Shadow with Matt Feazell and Sean Bieri. After having a number of short pieces published in more established publications, Madden published his first graphic novel, Black Candy, with Black Eye Books in 1998. In 1996 Madden began writing reviews for The Comics Journal and other publications, which he continues to do, if infrequently. He is a founding member of the American chapter of the formalist comics group, Oubapo. Madden lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, Jessica Abel. He works in illustration and comics coloring and also teaches comics at the School of Visual Arts. His most recent graphic novel, Odds Off, was published by Highwater Books. He is currently working on several new projects, including a comics adaptation of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style; and the new periodical series collecting new work, A Fine Mess, published by Alternative Comics
Images, characters and likenesses © and TM Matt Madden
