The New World

“Luxuriously published by New York Review Books, [The New World ] gathers together between hard covers a variety of work by Chris Reynolds, the cult Welsh-born artist who remains both underrated and too little known. The result is a collection that isn’t only beautiful to look at and to hold; turning its pages, it strikes you that though these ineffably strange strips were written in another time, they work better in ours. Here, after all, is a world where technology must be treated with suspicion, workers perform random jobs whose nature is essentially pointless, and loneliness is the presiding spirit of the age….As the writer Ed Park suggests in his introduction, to call Reynolds’s comics black and white isn’t quite to do them justice; they’re more like black and white and black – and it’s in that extra layer of darkness that his genius may be found.” — Rachel Cooke, The Guardian

“Since the mid-1980s, British cartoonist Reynolds has self-published his tales of Mauretania, set some years after Earth has been taken over by intergalactic invaders… . Over the years, Reynolds’ stories have amassed an enthusiastic cult (including the alt-cartoonist Seth, who designed this volume); this handsome compilation is bound to expand his following immensely.” —Booklist


“Reynolds’ stark black and white frames stop you in your tracks…It’s also mesmerising and hypnotic. You want to read it again once you’re done, and pore over its strangeness…Periodically books find their way to Bookmunch’s maw that we don’t expect and they blow our collective socks off. This is very definitely of that variety.” —Bookmunch

“Spend some time with Chris Reynolds’s The New World: Comics From Mauretania… Stark illustrations will envelop you in their contrasts—the blanket blacks of the foreground, the impossible star-bright skies—and you’ll find yourself thumbing anxiously for the uncertain medium of shadows. The characters will elude you—transient, distant, largely muted in their emotions—and their struggles will become your own as you search for meaning in an increasingly mysterious world.” —Christopher Notarnicola, The Paris Review Daily

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 in the United Kingdom.

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.

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