Tag Archives: reinhard kleist

Discover the aftermath of Bowie’s groundbreaking tour of America in Low: Bowie’s Berlin Years

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Low: Bowie’s Berlin Years traces the aftermath of David Bowie’s groundbreaking tour of America, and the iconic “Berlin years” that followed. Hot on the platform heels of Starman: Bowie’s Stardust Years (SelfMadeHero, 2023), Reinhard Kleist masterfully concludes his two-part biography of David Bowie. In 1976, Bowie escaped the frantic madness and substance abuse of his life in Los Angeles for the Wall of the divided city of Berlin. With his friend Iggy Pop in tow, Bowie quit drugs and created LOW, the first album of his “Berlin Trilogy”. But even here, in some of the happiest days of his life, Ziggy Stardust would not let him go…

Low follows Bowie’s forays through West Berlin’s revolutionary music scene and wild club life, and takes us deep into his recording sessions at Hansa Studios. The friendship between Bowie and Iggy drives both artists to new creative heights, while Bowie’s relationship with the cabaret artist and drag icon Romy Haag illuminates his fascination with Berlin as a city on the brink. Kleist’s Low is both a retelling of Bowie’s Berlin years and a vibrant portrait of the city itself.

Reinhard Kleist is the award-winning author of Nick Cave: Mercy on Me and Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, which was nominated for Eisner and Harvey Awards.

Low: Bowie’s Berlin Years is out July 8, 2025 in the UK and May 22, 2025 in the US. The 176 page graphic novel has a retail price of $19.99.

Low: Bowie's Berlin Years

SelfMadeHero’s new titles include graphic biographies of Frida Kahlo, and Starman, Reinhard Kleist’s celebration of Bowie

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Releasing in March, Francisco de la Mora’s Frida Kahlo: Her Life, Her Work, Her Home explores the public and private faces of this iconic artist, whose transformation of personal pain and political vision into unforgettable art has made her one of the most inspiring personalities of the 20th century. This latest addition to SelfMadeHero’s ART MASTERS series depicts and defines the astonishing context against which her paintings struggled to be seen, her emergence from the shadow cast by her on-off life-partner Diego Rivera, and the beautiful home she created in Mexico City.

US Release: 4 April 2023 • UK Release: 16 March 2023
Published by SelfMadeHero
US Sales & Distro by Abrams Books • UK Sales & Distro Abrams & Chronicle Books72pp Hardback • 190 x 260mm / 7 ½ x 10 ¼ • Colour • US $18.99 / CAN $23.99 • UK £15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-914224-10-2

Frida Kahlo: Her Life, Her Work, Her Home

In May SelfMadeHero celebrates another reluctant muse and feminist champion. Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington, from the acclaimed team of Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot, tells the astonishing story of another hidden genius. Only ten years younger than Frida Kahlo, the no less troubled life and art of Leonora Carrington – painter, writer, activist – tracked and traced the surreal turmoil of the 20th century. Born to the purple of an English elite, Leonora came to keep company with Paris’s 1930s avant-garde, escaped the brutalities of Nazi Occupation and psychiatric confinement, and found contented exile in (where else but?) Mexico City…

UK Release: 11 May 2023 • US Release: 25 April 2023
Published by SelfMadeHero
UK Sales & Distro Abrams & Chronicle Books • US Sales & Distro by Abrams Books 
144pp • Hardback • 216 x 152mm / 81/2 x 6” • Colour • UK £19.99 • US $24.99 / CAN $31.99 •ISBN: 9781914224126

Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington

… AKA “Suffragette City”? David Bowie famously visited the Frida Kahlo Museum in 1997, and it was one of Leonora Carrington’s short stories that inspired his final single, “Lazarus”, in 2016. But that was long after the appearance of his most original chameleon creation – now the subject of the multi-award-winning Reinhard Kleist’s stunning new graphic novel, launching this April. Starman: Bowie’s Stardust Years relates the genius of that slow genesis, and the enduring impact it made on cultural history – as well as the toll its performance took on Bowie himself.

UK Release: 30 March 2023 • US Release: 2 May 2023
Published by SelfMadeHero
UK Sales & Distro Abrams & Chronicle Books • US Sales & Distro by Abrams Books
176pp • Paperback with flaps • 170 x 240mm 6 ¾ x 9 ½ • Colour • UK £16.99 • US $19.99 / CAN $24.99 • ISBN: 978-1-914224-08-9

Starman: Bowie’s Stardust Years

And talking of visionary South Londoners, SelfMadeHero confirms the publication in June of Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter – the long-awaited new work by veteran graphic novelist Oscar Zarate. A friend and rival of the great J.M.W. Turner, by the time of his early death in 1802, Girtin had already transformed the humble art of watercolour into a transcendent medium. Interweaving historical narrative with modern fiction, Zarate’s own masterpiece pays unique homage to this neglected pioneer.

UK Release: 8 June 2023 • US Release: 13 June 2023
Published by SelfMadeHero
UK Sales & Distro Abrams & Chronicle Books • US Sales & Distro by Abrams Books
392pp • Hardback • 190 x 260mm / 7 ½ x 10 ¼ • Colour • UK £34.99 • US $39.99 / CAN $49.99 • ISBN: 978-1-914224-07-2

Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter

Review: The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft

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The true story of Holocaust survivor and professional boxer Harry Haft.

Story: Reinhard Kleist
Art: Reinhard Kleist

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Amazon
comiXology/Kindle

SelfMadeHero provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
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Review: Nick Cave: Mercy on Me

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Songwriters possess a certain niche for poetic license, sometimes perpetuating something into more than there was. The one song, that comes to mind as far as stories go, is Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, a searing series of events that only gets more intense with each action. Of course, the songwriters I grew up listening to, were from places much like the ones I grew up in. I remember hearing Biz Markie “Just A Friend” and much like everyone else I enjoyed the music, loved the hook but the story he was telling was far from typical.

He started off talking about how he met a girl one day, hoping it would more than just friends. She gave him a ton of indications that they were really…just friends. By the end of the song, both the artist and listener are shocked to find out why. In Reinhard Kleist’s epic Nick Cave: Mercy On Me, a legendary songwriter takes center stage in a life filled to the brim of heartbreak and pain, solace, success and elation.

We are introduced to Nick Cave, a fiery young man, who lives in the wilds of Australia’s outback, which looks very much like our Wild West, which makes it not surprising that he is a big fan of Johnny Cash. This leads him to wanting to become a singer, because at the time, he could not play any instruments where he fronts his first band, The Birthday Party. He would go on to form another band, the Bad Seeds, while meeting a lot of interesting people, which includes many loves of his life. By Book’s end, the reader gets a view of his song making process and internal struggles while weaving each song like a beautiful tapestry.

Overall, I must say I have heard of Nick Cave, but never listened to any of his songs, but the job Kleist did here makes me want to go listen to him, as its equal parts Ring Of Fire and any Terry Gilliam movie. The stories told by Kelist makes more than your typical biographical graphic novel, it makes Nick Cave’s story, a movie that needs to be seen. The art by Kleist is renders images in black and white into gorgeous art. Altogether, much like most books about music, even if you are not a fan, it is always nice to take behind the curtain.

Story: Reinhard Kleist Art: Reinhard Kleist
Story: 10 Art: 10 Overall: 10 Recommendation: Buy

Review: Castro GN

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arsenal-pulp-press-castro-soft-cover-1If there was a reward for good timing, Arsenal Pulp Press will get it for their graphic novel, Castro by Reinhard Kleist. Originally published in English by Selfmade Hero for the British market, it’s now being made available in North America for the first time. The graphic novel has been updated too, to include references to renewed relations between Cuba and the US.

Castro dives into the life of the controversial Cuban leader Fidel Castro (shocked I know based on the title). The graphic novel tracks Castro’s rise, through the revolution, and post revolution life.

The book is narrated by a German journalist named Karl Mertens, who is plunged into the searing heat of pre-revolutionary Cuba in the mid-1950s. He first meets with Castro while the latter is hiding in the mountains, then follows him through the dramatic revolution and his ascent to the presidency that, despite the Bay of Pigs confrontation and decades of international trade blockades, lasts for nearly 50 years. We also witness Castro’s involvement in bloody skirmishes, failed missions, and brutal crackdowns, as well as his interactions with and on behalf of the Cuban people, which reveal as much about his fallible human qualities as they do his legend.

Kleist, who visited Cuba in 2008, captures the excitement of the revolution, and the loss of the sheen in the post revolution, presenting Castro in both positive and negative light and painting a complex picture of one of the most enduring and controversial figures in modern history as well as the politics that swirled around him.

Kleist also doesn’t seem to take sides at all in right and wrong. The story is told through the experiences of the German journalist, and by doing that Kleist gives us the full arc, not romanticizing reality, but showing warts and all. We can see the idealism follow a natural path, and a path I personally have felt in my political career.

Castro is a solid read for those who want to learn more about the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro, and provides a good starting point. Hopefully, it’ll get folks interested to explore more, as reality is one hell of a story.

Story: Reinhard Kleist Art: Reinhard Kleist
Story: 8 Art: 8 Overall: 8 Recommendation: Buy

Arsenal Pulp provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review