 Trade In this Item for up to £1.20
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Grandville for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.20, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`It's a wry big-hearted book with a serious message about terror and bravery'. --Scotland on Sunday Review
`a playful, allusive book in which there's a witty touch or knowing in-joke on almost every page ... and throughout, the glossy gorgeousness fills your eyes' --The Times
`A fast-paced, gorgeously coloured, amusingly anthromorphic fantasy'. --Metro
`a playful, allusive book in which there's a witty touch or knowing in-joke on almost every page ... and throughout, the glossy gorgeousness fills your eyes' --The Times
`A fast-paced, gorgeously coloured, amusingly anthromorphic fantasy'. --Metro
Product Description
Bryan Talbot's most recent book, Alice in Sunderland, was hailed by the Guardian as one of the ten best graphic novels ever and acclaimed by critics all over the world. Before that, at the start of his career, he created the first ever steampunk graphic novel, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.
In Grandville Talbot brings us another steampunk masterpiece. Inspired by the work of the nineteenth-century French illustrator Gérard, who worked under the pseudonym 'Grandville' and frequently drew anthropomorphic animal characters, it tells the story of detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard as he stalks a gang of murderers through the heart of Belle Epoque Paris. In this alternative reality France is the major world power and its capital is thronged with steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons and flying machines. The characters are mostly animals, though there is an underclass of humans, often referred to as 'dough faces', who resemble the 'clear-line' characters of Hergé's Tintin books.
Visually stunning, Grandville is a fantastical and audacious rollercoaster ride that will add to Talbot's reputation as one of the best graphic novelists in the world.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Grandville" is the name of the French city where two detectives go to investigate the murder of a British Ambassador. They dodge street gangs, save a damsel in distress, uncover yet more murders while picking up clues, and avoid being corpses themselves. In short, your usual detective story.
What makes this so much more than average is the stunning artwork Talbot's created. Motorised carriages, robots, airships, antiquated yet futuristic weaponry, panoramic views of Victorian streets populated with colourful animal headed people, highly detailed crowd scenes and polished buildings all presented on glossy, high quality paper.
I won't describe the background to this strange world as it'll take ages but it's fascinating and the detective characters are interesting and though Brock is perhaps an amalgam of popular detectives (Holmes, Marlowe, Hammer) he's compelling enough to be different in his own right. Readability is something few graphic novelists have in them but Talbot's work is so detailed you'll miss certain references that you'll discover upon going back. There's a lot of references to children's books that anyone who's familiar with them will enjoy like Beatrix Potter's characters and Herge's Snowy (presented here as an opium addicted tramp).
Possibly my favourite Bryan Talbot book and good place to start if you're new. Very accessible, very layered, a superb book and one of the highlights of comics in 2009.
What makes this so much more than average is the stunning artwork Talbot's created. Motorised carriages, robots, airships, antiquated yet futuristic weaponry, panoramic views of Victorian streets populated with colourful animal headed people, highly detailed crowd scenes and polished buildings all presented on glossy, high quality paper.
I won't describe the background to this strange world as it'll take ages but it's fascinating and the detective characters are interesting and though Brock is perhaps an amalgam of popular detectives (Holmes, Marlowe, Hammer) he's compelling enough to be different in his own right. Readability is something few graphic novelists have in them but Talbot's work is so detailed you'll miss certain references that you'll discover upon going back. There's a lot of references to children's books that anyone who's familiar with them will enjoy like Beatrix Potter's characters and Herge's Snowy (presented here as an opium addicted tramp).
Possibly my favourite Bryan Talbot book and good place to start if you're new. Very accessible, very layered, a superb book and one of the highlights of comics in 2009.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a really good read set in a dystopian, imaginary parallel universe where animals rule and humans clean up after them. Throw in some revisionist history - What if Napoleonic France had conquered Britain? Mix in some elements of 9/11 attacks and conspiracy theories. Have the conspiracy investigated by a Sherlock Holmes style badger and you are almost there.
superb artwork, great story, and this is a wonderful hardcover edition. Worth buying and deserving of a place in most graphic novel collections. Time may prove this to be a classic, but for the moment, it's simply a barstorming read.
superb artwork, great story, and this is a wonderful hardcover edition. Worth buying and deserving of a place in most graphic novel collections. Time may prove this to be a classic, but for the moment, it's simply a barstorming read.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I like old-fashioned mystery and adventure stories, and I like graphic storytelling, so this quasi-steampunkish mystery caught my attention. The story takes place in a kind of alternate Victorian era which follows after the French conquer England in the Napoleonic Wars and England eventually wins a meager liberation following a campaign of terror (roughly akin to the Algerian war of independence). The story revolves around a murder that has connections to the relations between England and France. The person who investigates this death and is hero of the story is Inspector LeBrock of the Yard, a kind of action-hero combination Sherlock Holmes/James Bond/Jason Bourne, with beefy muscles, courage, excellent powers of ratiocination, and a capable sidekick. And, oh yes, he's a badger.
You see, the book takes its title from the pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, a French illustrator of the first part of the 19th-century, who was famous for his satirical caricatures of prominent people as animals, as well as for being the illustrator for many popular novels of the time. Talbot populates the tale almost entirely with anthropomorphized animals (humans appear briefly as kind of slave/servants), as Inspector LeBrock and Detective Ratzi (no points for guessing what kind of animal he is), look into the murder of a British diplomat. This quickly sucks them into an elaborate conspiracy that is awfully similar to some of the most outlandish of the 9/11 "Truther" ideas.
The plot is so nutty that it was hard to get too invested in it, and similarly, I just couldn't take the anthromorphized animals seriously. As a result, I read the whole book at a bit of a mental distance -- enjoying the imagination involved in constructing it, but not really getting sucked in. Kind of like when one watches a poorly acted film with excellent special effects -- you can enjoy it for aspects of the craftsmanship, but you're not going to care about any of the characters. One is even more removed from the story when you start to notice winks and nods to other famous graphic works, such a dog that looks exactly like Snowy from Tintin undergoing an opium hallucination that's obviously a nod to The Blue Lotus, or any number of other scenes where characters from other works appear (such as Spirou, Rupert the Bear, Maus, and I'm sure many others). It's kind of an amusing lark, but never really captured my imagination.
You see, the book takes its title from the pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, a French illustrator of the first part of the 19th-century, who was famous for his satirical caricatures of prominent people as animals, as well as for being the illustrator for many popular novels of the time. Talbot populates the tale almost entirely with anthropomorphized animals (humans appear briefly as kind of slave/servants), as Inspector LeBrock and Detective Ratzi (no points for guessing what kind of animal he is), look into the murder of a British diplomat. This quickly sucks them into an elaborate conspiracy that is awfully similar to some of the most outlandish of the 9/11 "Truther" ideas.
The plot is so nutty that it was hard to get too invested in it, and similarly, I just couldn't take the anthromorphized animals seriously. As a result, I read the whole book at a bit of a mental distance -- enjoying the imagination involved in constructing it, but not really getting sucked in. Kind of like when one watches a poorly acted film with excellent special effects -- you can enjoy it for aspects of the craftsmanship, but you're not going to care about any of the characters. One is even more removed from the story when you start to notice winks and nods to other famous graphic works, such a dog that looks exactly like Snowy from Tintin undergoing an opium hallucination that's obviously a nod to The Blue Lotus, or any number of other scenes where characters from other works appear (such as Spirou, Rupert the Bear, Maus, and I'm sure many others). It's kind of an amusing lark, but never really captured my imagination.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bloomin' marvellous
The caption and the other reviewers have already said a lot about Grandville, so I'll just settle for a dissection of what I think is good and bad about it. Read more
Published 5 months ago by R. Paterson
Beautifully drawn story, let down a little by the plot and production...
Although several friends are great fans of the graphic novel, I have never read many in the past. However, my eye was caught by Bryan Talbot's Grandville when visiting the British... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mark Pack
Wonderful
"Grandville" looks absolutely great - the artwork and in fact the whole package looks superb - being hardback definitely fits with the style of the story. Read more
Published 13 months ago by J. Bloss
Social Comentary
Beautiful graphic novel.
Pictures are stunning.
Story is brilliant, with a great social compentary (conspirasy theray link with the twin towers)
Well worth a look
Pictures are stunning.
Story is brilliant, with a great social compentary (conspirasy theray link with the twin towers)
Well worth a look
Published 16 months ago by Mr. Paul Cruickshank
Talbot at his very best
One of my favourite graphic novels of all time is Talbot's harrowing tale of homelessness, child abuse and Beatrix Potter, One Bad Rat. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Jo Bennie
Glorious and gripping
I don't have much new to add to the other reviews, but I loved this so much that I thought it deserved a quick five-star review. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Girl Friday
Badger tastic
Its a great story with fantastic characters and lovely art. And you can never go wrong with talking animals!
Published 22 months ago by DanDanger
Excellent
Grandville: A Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard Scientific-Romance Thriller, is the latest graphic novel by Bryan Talbot. Read more
Published on 25 May 2010 by JpfA
Furry Steampunk
Shades of Sherlock Holmes meets the Rupert books, this is the story of a badger who fights crime... Set in a Steampunk era of high tech Victoriana with steam driven vehicles,... Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2010 by James Moore
Quality material, quality purchase
First of all, this is a hardback which is well worth the expense. The covers are substantial and great to look at, and the artwork within is printed on luxurious, high-quality... Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2009 by Badger-of-Chemistry
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
