| City of Glass | |
|---|---|
 Cover art for the 2004 Picador edition. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Avon Books Picador (re-issue) |
| Format | Graphic novel |
| Publication date | 1994 2004 (re-issue) |
| Main character(s) | Daniel Quinn Paul Auster Peter Stillman |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Paul Auster Paul Karasik David Mazzucchelli |
City of Glass: The Graphic Novel, by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli, is a comics adaptation of American author Paul Auster's novella City of Glass .
The original comic was published by Avon Books as Neon Lit: Paul Auster's City of Glass (a Graphic Mystery). The project was led by influential and popular comics artist Art Spiegelman. [1] The original printing was well-received, and the work was chosen as one of "The Top 100 English-Language Comics of the Century". [2] Nonetheless, the book quickly fell out of print. [3]
In 2004, a new edition of the book was released as City of Glass: The Graphic Novel, which featured an introduction by Spiegelman. In this introduction, Spiegelman called the graphic novel "a breakthrough work." Since then, the book has been translated numerous times, with 20 foreign editions.
The story follows a man named Daniel Quinn. One night, he receives a call meant for a private detective (strangely enough named Paul Auster, the same name as the author of the story). Quinn is intrigued by the phone call, and takes the case. His employers end up being a man, named Peter Stillman, and his wife. Through the course of the narrative, Quinn discovers some surprising things about identity, language, and human nature. He also ends up meeting, not the unseen detective Paul Auster, but writer Paul Auster.
In one section of Paul Auster's original novella, Peter Stillman delivers a long, somewhat disjointed speech about his life and the job that he has for Daniel Quinn. In the comic adaptation, the interplay between words and pictures is particularly interesting, with the word balloons coming less often from Stillman and more often from inkwells, storm drains, and even cave paintings. Spiegelman was particularly impressed with this section of the book, noting how well it translated Auster's description of Stillman's speech patterns.[ citation needed ]
In March 2009, the City of Glass adaptation was given exhibition treatment, including Karasik's original layouts and Mazzucchelli's original art, as part of a Paul Auster celebration at the Dedica Literary Festival in Pordenone, Italy. [4]
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Paul Benjamin Auster was an American writer, novelist, memoirist, poet, and filmmaker. His notable works include The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002), The Brooklyn Follies (2005), Invisible (2009), Sunset Park (2010), Winter Journal (2012), and 4 3 2 1 (2017). His books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
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Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman, professionally known as Art Spiegelman, is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel Maus. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines Arcade and Raw has been influential, and from 1992 he spent a decade as contributing artist for The New Yorker. He is married to designer and editor Françoise Mouly and is the father of writer Nadja Spiegelman. In September 2022, the National Book Foundation announced that he would receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Maus, often published as Maus: A Survivor's Tale, is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The work employs postmodern techniques, and represents Jews as mice and other Germans and Poles as cats and pigs respectively. Critics have classified Maus as memoir, biography, history, fiction, autobiography, or a mix of genres. In 1992 it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize.
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David John Mazzucchelli is an American comics artist and writer, known for his work on seminal superhero comic book storylines Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One, as well as for graphic novels in other genres, such as Asterios Polyp and City of Glass: The Graphic Novel. He is also an instructor who teaches comic book storytelling at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
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City of Glass may refer to:
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Gods' Man is a wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985) published in 1929. In 139 captionless woodblock prints, it tells the Faustian story of an artist who signs away his soul for a magic paintbrush. Gods' Man was the first American wordless novel, and is considered a precursor of the graphic novel, whose development it influenced.
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