No Guts No Glory

Blank Slate Graphic Novels at No Guts No Glory!

Friday 29th June

We met the guys from Blank Slate Books at ELCAF a few weeks ago and are very pleased to say that a range of their truly awesome Graphic Novels are now available here at the No Guts No Glory shop!!

Blank Slate Books are a Graphic Novel publisher based right here in the UK and specialise in working with new talent from these very isles, and all over Europe! We were totally blown away by the selection of novels that they had on display at ELCAF, and after a chat with Martin (the lovely chap that was manning the BSB stall on the day), we were keen to bring a selection here to the NGNG shelves!

Here’s a little taster of the very beginnings of what is surely to be an ever-growing selection of Graphic Novels to be found at NGNG…

Hector Umbria, by Uli Oesterle, contains 212 full-colour pages that tell the story of Hector, artist-turned-detective, as he sets out to uncover the mysterious vanishing of his best friend. Think Sci-Fi meets Noir, we can’t wait to get stuck into this one!

Edited by Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix, Nelson is a collaboration of no less than 54 of the UK’s most exciting comic creators! This collective Graphic Novel tells the story of the life of Nel Baker, in yearly Snapshots; each chapter records the event of a single day, weaving one continuous ribbon of pictures and text that takes us on a 43-year journey from Nel’s birth in 1968, right through to 2011!

Not only a great celebration of incredibly talented UK based Comic Creators, this 252 page masterpiece is all in aid of Shelter, a UK based housing and homelessness charity.

Sleepyheads, by Randall.C, grabbed our attention at ELCAF for two reasons. Firstly, we’d just spent 9 hours lugging everything from the NGNG shop in Exeter, to the homestead of Sandra Dieckmann in London via the National Express and were suitably weary eyed, and secondly because you have to be blind to miss the bright orange cover!

A quick flick through the book and we were immediately taken on a journey through the befitting dream-like illustrations that filled its 112 pages. Sleepyheads has a playful nature, and is full of philosophy, absurdism, fantasy, love and self-discovery.

Of all the Graphic Novels we received from Blank slate, Hugo Tate is the one that will be sure to grab your attention as you pass the No Guts No Glory shop! A huge 217 x 216 mm in size, with a full-colour hardback cover and 192-pages of superb black and white illustration with a beautiful matt finish, Hugo Tate is the long awaited collection of Nick Abadzis’ first magnum opus, from the paged of Deadline Magazine!

Quoted as “Britain’s Love and Rockets” by The Comics Journal, and with an introduction by Garth Ennis, it’s safe to say that we’re pretty keen to get lost in the pages of this one! Beginning life in 1988 as an acerbic humour strip featuring an eponymous stick man protagonist living in a figuratively-drawn world, Hugo Tate evolved into an intelligent look into the lives of a complex web of characters stretching from London to New York and beyond.

As well a selection of books, we couldn’t resist asking the guys to send us some of their Chalk Marks! These are the new imprint from Blank Slate, providing a deluxe-format space for new creators to house short-form work.

Each of these brilliant Chalk Marks are roughly 8x11 inches, saddle-stitched and come with awesome wrap-around dust-jacket covers! These titles are also brilliantly affordable, at just £5.99 each!

The Survivalist, by Box Brown, contains 48-pages full of black and white illustrations and text that tell the story of Noah, a seemingly normal chap with a mundane office job who secretly prepares for Armageddon by building a fully operational bunker beneath his house after listening to the podcasts of an extreme conspiracy theorist!

And last but by no means least, the brilliant A Long Day Of Mr James-Teacher, by Harvey James. This beautifully illustrated Chalk Mark is a one-day account of Harvey James’ journey to South Korea, where he taught English to elementary school students.

Come on down to the NGNG shop to have a flick through the pages of our latest additions! Next week, we hope to be bringing you news of yet more Graphic Novels and lovely things from others that we met at ELCAF, including the mighty SelfMadeHero!

Watch this space, and be sure to pay a visit to the next Handmade Arcade outside the shop next Saturday, we’re getting excited to see the lovely creations that this months selection of local talent will be bringing!

See you soon,

Nath