London-based publisher SelfMadeHero have just unveiled four graphic novel titles that are getting set to be released during the first few months of 2024.

The release slate, which most certainly upholds their mission statement of delivering stories that “provoke, entertain, inspire and inform”, includes a new paperback edition of Peter Kuper’s Eisner Award-winning Ruins, Jean-Marc Rochette’s mountainous bear encounter The Last Queen, a graphic guide to managing anxiety, and a biography of pioneering female novelist George Sand.

Full details and cover artwork can be found below.

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RUINS (PAPERBACK EDITION)

Author: Peter Kuper
ISBN: 978-1-914224-18-8
Price: UK £18.99 / US $22.99 / CAN $28.99
Format: Paperback, 328 pages, colour
Publication Date: 29th February (UK); 5th March (US).

Peter Kuper’s Ruins won the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album, and this year we’re thrilled to say that it’s returning in paperback!

In Ruins, Samantha and George are about to launch into a sabbatical year in the quaint Mexican town of Oaxaca. For Samantha, their journey to this historic town is about fulfilling a life-long dream; for George, it is an unsettling step into the unknown.

In our five-star review of Ruins back in 2015, we said “By turns charming, moving, funny and upsetting, this is a book that simply has to be read.”

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THE LAST QUEEN

Author: Jean-Marc Rochette (Translation by Edward Gauvin)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-19-5
Price: UK £19.99 / US $25.99 / CAN $32.99
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages, colour
Publication Date: 28th March (UK); tbc (US)

Jean-Marc Rochette, co-creator of Snowpiercer and the Eisner-nominated Altitude, returns with The Last Queen, a multi-award-winning celebration of the subjects most dear to him: the mountains, and the balance between man and nature.

Édouard Roux, once an outcast youth feared as a child of bears and witches, is left disfigured and alone in the aftermath of the Great War. But when the animal sculptor Jeanne Sauvage grants Édouard the face of Hercules, life begins anew.

The Guardian wrote of Altitude: “Propelled by bravado and undercut by the very real risk of death, Jean-Marc’s story carries serious emotional clout, while its colourful panels capture the stark geometry of cliff faces and dangling ropes.”

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THE ANXIETY CLUB: HOW TO SURVIVE MODERN LIFE

Authors: Dr. Frédéric Fanget and Catherine Meyer (Translation by Edward Gauvin)
Artist: Pauline Aubry
ISBN: 978-1-914224-21-8
Price: UK £16.99 / US $19.99 / CAN $24.99
Format: Paperback, 128 pages, colour
Publication Date: 25th April (UK); tbc (US)

The Anxiety Club introduces three characters, each with a different form of anxiety. We follow their stories, and follow them into the therapy room where they discover the behavioural, cognitive and emotional tools to help free themselves from anxious thinking.

Created by psychiatrist and leading anxiety expert Dr. Frédéric Fanget, veteran psychology writer/editor Catherine Meyer, and seasoned artist Pauline Aubry, this accessible, YA-friendly graphic self-help handbook helps the reader to identify, understand and manage anxiety.

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GEORGE SAND: TRUE GENIUS, TRUE WOMAN

Writer: Séverine Vidal
Illustrator: Kim Consigny Translation by Edward Gauvin
ISBN: 978-1-914224-20-1
Price: UK £18.99 / US $22.99 / CAN $28.99
Format: Paperback, 344 pages, B&W
Publication Date: 9th May (UK); tbc (US)

The latest in SelfMadeHero’s acclaimed series of graphic biographies, George Sand dutifully explores the life of one of the great pioneering figures of 19th-century French literature.

Born in 1804 – at a time when women were deprived of their civil rights (along with minors, criminals, and the insane) – Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (later known as George Sand) grew up to defy those norms, both in her life and her forty-year career as a novelist and playwright.

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The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson-Adams (aka Ceej)
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