Snake Skin Subtext, by Brian A. Kenny

Here are the first 5 pages of Brian A. Kenny's graphic novel Snake Skin Subtext.

It's distributed by A Raven Above Press, & available here & here.

The symbolism reminds me of Tarot cards & Egyptian mythology, & has a ritualistic feeling. The narrative feels like an internal, psychic drama rather than events occurring in the outside world. It's abstract inasmuch as it doesn't rely on drawings of consensus reality.

Like no other book I can recall. (A distant cousin would be Italo Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies.)

a kick in the eye

a kick in the eye is a collaborative graphic novel written/drawn by 12 people: Rosaire Appel, Tony Burhouse, Tim Gaze, Marco Giovenale, Gareth A Hopkins, Satu Kaikkonen, Gary J Shipley, Christopher Skinner, Lin Tarczynski, Orchid Tierney, Sergio Uzal & Nico Vassilakis. Not many frames, but lots of asemic & abstract content.

Partly inspired by a literary novel written by 7 authors.

Selling at the minimum price at CreateSpace, & even cheaper at Amazon.

SHROUDS by Gary J. Shipley available in paperback

here are the first 9 pages of Gary's abstract graphic novel SHROUDS, recently published as an A4 sized paperback book through my imprint asemic editions.

SHROUDS is 62 pages of evocative images.

from Andrei Molotiu's description in the blurb:
Like the clouds with which its title rhymes, Gary J Shipley’s Shrouds allows us to see in its pages landscapes, faces and flying animals, that however never resolve into simply legible, unambiguous figures.

 Andrei likens Gary's work to Michaux, Rothko, Still & the CoBrA artists. I would add Jean Dubuffet & the Art Brut people who influenced him.

SHROUDS is one of a number of longer abstract sequential compositions which engage with the reader's imagination. My own book 100 Scenes (asemic editions & Transgressor) & Andrei's Nautilus (Fahrenheit) work in a similar way.

Gary presented some pages in progress at this blog back in 2010.

100 Scenes, a graphic novel

my abstract graphic novel is available as a pay-for-download e-book from XinXii (Germany). the actual publisher is Transgressor, of South Australia.

you can read the first 10 pages freely by clicking on Look Inside / _excerpt_ at the XinXii link.

100 pages of black & white abstract shapes suggest a story.

similar to Andrei's blotcomics, but without frames.

Shrouds, by Gary Shipley

here are one of the Contents pages & one of the interior pages from Gary Shipley's 93 page "asemic novel" Shrouds.

so far, it is in PDF form, but he is looking for a publisher for a physical book version.

if you'd like to see the PDF, which is more than 50 Mb, please email Gary: gj-shipley (AT) ntlworld.com

(images updated on 14 Dec, with better scans.)