Quill and Quire

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Drawn and Quarterly

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The self-titled yearly anthology Drawn and Quarterly, now on its fifth volume, is an impressive, full-colour tome that introduces North America to some of the world’s best new comic book talent, as well as providing generous retrospectives of past masters. In this edition, rural Quebec comics grandfather Albert Chartier is given 80 pages of his long-running strip, Onesime. These chronicle not only Chartier’s talent, but the rich culture of rural Quebec through the 1950s and ‘60s. Another highlight is a translation of a 1970 story by Japanese master Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Rutu Modan, a new comics artist from Israel, is another wonderful find. Modan uses a visceral range of colour to draw the reader into the story.

Once Drawn and Quarterly’s flagship publication, the anthology has long been eclipsed by the company’s extensive booklist. But in many ways the evolution of the anthology over the years mirrors the evolution of the company, and editor and publisher Chris Oliveros’s definition of comics. First designed and distributed as a traditional magazine that tolerated sillier pieces, the anthology changed over to heavier stock and more colour pages to match increasingly serious work. Now an oversized, perfect-bound book, the Drawn and Quarterly anthology is a sizable weight on the bookshelf befitting its status as one of the world’s pre-eminent venues for short graphic fiction.

 

Reviewer: David Howard

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly

DETAILS

Price: $39.95

Page Count: 200 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-896597-61-0

Issue Date: 2004-3

Categories: Anthologies