Back + Forth: A Novel in 90 Linocuts

by Marta Chudolinska (Artist)

Location exerts one very important influence on our lives; the specific landscape, structure, weather and people of a cityscape combine to create a unique culture of place; a ‘place’ that can define us as succinctly as we might like to think we control our own definitions of self. Aviation allows many of us to live, almost simultaneously, in distant places and to indulge in the complexities of multiple lives. Back + Forth examines the attendant possibility of entrapment, between two such distant places and two, very different, times. Back + Forth examines what it means to belong, to assimilate, to be distant, and to challenge the constraints of time and space in the juggling act that we all call life.

The second in a series of graphic novels edited for the Porcupine's Quill by wood engraver George A. Walker in which Walker encourages students at the Ontario College of Art and Design to embrace 19th century linocut printmaking techniques to create extended visual narratives which are then scanned, digitized, and subsequently printed offset for publication at popular prices in a format that uses 20th century offset printing technology to replicate the look and feel of a 19th century letterpress product. Series editor George A. Walker is renowned as an illustrator (for American novelist Neil Gaiman, and others), a wood engraver, and a private press printer and publisher. Walker is also senior designer at Firefly Books, and moonlights teaching at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Art

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Marta Chudolinska is a comics artist, bookbinder and printmaker compelled by the narrative potential of images. Her first graphic novel, Back + Forth: A Novel in 90 Linocuts, was shortlisted for a Doug Wright Award in 2010.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wordless books are such a rarity, and this one is most pleasant to read. The style/form is beautiful and the hearty paper makes for a book that seems more like a collector's item than a novel.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wordless graphic novel about time, place and relationships told through beautiful linocuts. The images made me salivate.