If you care about comics and/or literature, you have probably read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, a book of media theory on par with McLuhan's Understanding Media. If you're smart, you've finished Understanding Media and intuited that McCloud probably makes some pretty incredible comics himself, and may have moved onto something like the brilliant ZOT!. And if you did that, you've probably been immensely frustrated by the lack of recent new graphic novels from McCloud.
The dry spell has ended. A new graphic novel, more than five years in the making, is at hand, and it's called The Sculptor.
I've been hearing about The Sculptor for a long time, starting when I ran into Scott at a comics show and he told me he was nearly done with volume one of his magnum opus. That was five years ago. Since then, my friends at First Second (who are publishing The Sculptor and also In Real Life, the graphic novel I collaborated on with Jen Wang), have been teasing me with hints about the book and assurances that it's been well worth the wait.
Last week First Second finally formally announced the book's publication date: Feb 3, 2015. First Second has promised us an exclusive excerpt from the book, along with an interview with Scott, so stay tuned.
David Smith is giving his life for his art—literally. Thanks to a deal with Death, the young sculptor gets his childhood wish: to sculpt anything he can imagine with his bare hands. But now that he only has 200 days to live, deciding what to create is harder than he thought, and discovering the love of his life at the 11th hour isn't making it any easier!
This is a story of desire taken to the edge of reason and beyond; of the frantic, clumsy dance steps of young love; and a gorgeous, street-level portrait of the world's greatest city. It's about the small, warm, human moments of everyday life…and the great surging forces that lie just under the surface. Scott McCloud wrote the book on how comics work; now he vaults into great fiction with a breathtaking, funny, and unforgettable new work
