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The Magician’s Wife: Back In Print After Almost 30 Years!

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DOVER COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS LOGO ][The Prize for Best Album (Prix du meilleur album), also known as the Golden Wildcat (Fauve d’Or), has been awarded to comics authors at the Angoulême International Comics Festival since 1976.  Globally, it is one of the most prestigious and respected comic awards given out each year.  In 1986, The Magician’s Wife (Originally published in French as La Femme du magicien) won this award, helping to introduce important American author Jerome Charyn to French comic book audiences, and majorly propelling the career of the now legendary French comic book artist Francois Boucq. In 1988, an English edition of the book surfaced from a small US publisher, but only stayed in print for a few years before disappearing for almost three decades. With last year’s release of a new French edition by European publisher Lombard, Dover Publications‘ graphic novel editor Drew Ford decided it was finally time for the release of a new English edition.

Spanning multiple decades and continents, this phantasmagorical epic is the result of writer Jerome Charyn and artist François Boucq combing their talents to recount a surrealistic tale about the wife of a philandering magician and her struggles with terrifying demons, both real and imaginary. This new edition promises to mesmerize a new generation of readers for years to come!

Jerome Charyn, master of lyrical farce and literary ventriloquism, published his first novel in 1964. He’s the author of Johnny One-Eye, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, I Am Abraham, and dozens of other acclaimed novels as well as nonfiction works. His short stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Paris Review, American Scholar, Epoch, Narrative and Ellery Queen. He is also the author of eight highly acclaimed graphic novels.

Charyn’s popular crime novels, featuring homicide detective Isaac Sidel, inspired a new animated drama series. ‘Hard Apple’ debuts on the small screen early next year, helmed by Hollywood insider James Gray (The Immigrants) and illustrated by famed artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka (Waltz with Bashir.) Charyn lives in New York and Paris.

Dover to publish The Magician’s Wife by Jerome Charyn & Francois Boucq

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TheMagiciansWifeDover Publications has announced their upcoming publication of The Magician’s Wife graphic novel.  Long out of print in English, legendary French comics artist Francois Boucq teams with acclaimed, surrealistic crime novelist Jerome Charyn.

The story is about “the adventures, or the anti-adventures, of the wife of a magician. The problem is that the magician has two wives – and that they are mother and daughter – who find themselves in an uninvited competition for the affections of the troubled conjurer. And, as the magician becomes increasingly attracted to the younger woman, she, in revenge for his lubricity, turns into a werewolf in Central Park threatening his life and that of several others involved in his lubricity. What evolves is not a Captain’s Paradise but a macabre battle of the sexes cum detective story with mystical overtones.”

Out of print in English for nearly three decades, the original 80-page story won two prizes (Grand Prix) in France where it was first published as a Bande Dessinée in 1986 and now appears here from Dover in a handsome trade paperback format.  It has been compared to a kind of film noir caught between the covers of a comic book, directed by Fellini.

Over the years, the book has won a powerful cult following, and has appeared on several critics lists of top graphic novels of all time.

The Magician’s Wife is scheduled for release in October 2015.