The Beaufort Diaries - T. Cooper & A. Petrowsky (Melville)

The graphic novel The Beaufort Diaries tells the inspiring story of a polar bear who escapes extinction by going Hollywood. It may sound like a familiar story - boy goes to Hollywood, boy befriends big star, boy gets almost as famous as big star, boy finds fame tricky - but The Beaufort Diaries are subversively different. For one thing, the “boy” is a polar bear. For another thing, the “big star” is Leonardo DiCaprio. And together, they decide to make an action movie… about the environment.

The graphic novel is a collaboration between T. Cooper (story) and Alex Petrowsky (illustration). The illustrations are poster-like, full color images, sample pages are up on Petrowsky's Beaufort webpage, click the cover to open the illustrated pages), and just beyond the book is a book video that features Beaufort, and a story text excerpt is online in the Outlet: From “The Beaufort Diaries” by T. Cooper.

T. Cooper is also the author of two regular old novels, Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes and Some of the Parts, as well as co-editor of an anthology of short stories entitled A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing. He lives in New York with his family.

Alex Petrowsky is an enterpeneur, a nomad, an artist, an illustrator - for more of his projects, visit his webpage.

About Melville House PublishingMelville House is an independent publishing house born out of the book blog MobyLives and founded in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is also known as the Left Bank of New York City, and which is where Marlon Brando said to Eve Marie Saint (in "On the Waterfront," which was shot in Hoboken), "Come on, I'll walk you home. There are a lot of guys around here with only one thing on their mind." As it turns out, what's on the mind of a lot of those men -- and local women, too -- is good, solid literature, especially literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In an amazing coincidence, this is exactly what Melville House provides.

Zahra’s Paradise - Amir and Khalil (First Second Book & coop)

So a Persian writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor walk into a room… Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Actually, that’s something like the start of this unusual editorial adventure, the first of its kind. Zahra's Paradise is an online, serial webcomic in various languages: English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew and more. It is published by First Second books in cooperation with Casterman in French and Dutch, Rizzoli Lizard in Italian, and Norma Editorial in Spanish.

Zahra’s Paradise weaves together a composite of real people and events: Set in the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections of 2009, this webcomic tells the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has disappeared in the Islamic Republic’s gulags. Mehdi has vanished in an extrajudicial twilight zone where habeas corpus is suspended. What stops his memory from being obliterated is not the law. It is the grit and guts of a mother who refuses to surrender her son to fate and the tenacity of a brother—a blogger—who fuses culture and technology to explore and explode absence: the void in which Mehdi has vanished.

author Amir + artist Kahlil
The author Amir is an Iranian-American human rights activist, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has lived and worked in the United States, Canada, Europe and Afghanistan. His essays and articles have appeared far and wide in the press. Khalil’s work as a fine artist has been much praised. He sculpts and creates ceramics and has been cartooning since he was very young. Zahra’s Paradise is his first graphic novel. The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons.

About First Second Book, Casterman, Rizzoli Lizard, Norma Editorial
First Second Book is an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers. Casterman is a French comic publisher ("La maison Casterman a intégré le monde de la bande dessinée dans les années 1930 en éditant les albums de Tintin"). Rizzoli Lizard is an Italian comic publisher. Norma Editorial is a Spanish comic publisher.

Amir and Khalil: Zahra’s Paradise
online serial webcomic in English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages
start reading at page 1

following the theme: more daily s-press books that focus on the theme of middle east / prohibited stories / east/west etc.