Publisher Description

"Van Gieson thinks like cinema. Big. Epic. For the reader, the question is simple: do you wanna ride along? VROOM!"-Comics BulletinEel Mansions, Derek Van Gieson's first full-length graphic novel, is a supernatural soap opera noir. Set in Mill City: a grimy place inhabited by new wave satanists, secret agents, booze-hounds, record-store clerks, conspiracy theorists, murderers, and cartoonists. Derek Van Gieson skillfully unweaves a knotted sweater of intrigue, suspense, and dark humor.Derek Van Gieson is a Minneapolis-based artist, writer, and musician. His work appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Stranger.

Author Biography

Derek Van Gieson is an artist, writer, musician, currently living in Minneapolis, MN. His art has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Stranger, and his short comics have been published in the literary MOME anthology by Fantagraphics Books.

Review

"From a graphic standpoint, Derek Van Gieson lays on the ink with a jackhammer; thematically, he's dredging some infernal pits of the collective psyche for images, characters, and surreal situations that add up to a nightmarish skull-fuck of a book. [...] It's the sort of David Lynch-inspired phantasmagoria that Daniel Clowes flogged to great effect in Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron--but Van Gieson slathers on a retro-hip, record-store-shopping aesthetic that owes just as much to Clowes' earlier, lesser masterpiece, Lloyd Llewellyn. That said, the contorted flow and retina-clouding grotesquerie of Eel Mansions are all Van Gieson's own."--The Onion AV Club "Van Gieson manages to blend a lifetime's worth of influences into one heady brew."--Rob Clough, High-Low Comics "Van Gieson thinks like cinema. Big. Epic. [...] For the reader, the question is simple: do you wanna ride along? VROOM!"--The Comics Bulletin "If all of this sounds too wacky to be understood, you're only half right. This comic isn't meant to be linear, nor does it inspire to cohesion. In fact, part of the success of Eel Mansions is in its fragmentation. It's as if Van Gieson is asking us to let go of narrative sense-making, to temporarily suspend those cognitive devices that puts things together, and just enjoy the ride." --The Comics Alternative

Promotional

Excerpts on The Comics BulletinSocial Media Campaign

Long Description

"Van Gieson thinks like cinema. Big. Epic. For the reader, the question is simple: do you wanna ride along? VROOM!"-- Comics Bulletin Eel Mansions , Derek Van Gieson's first full-length graphic novel, is a supernatural soap opera noir. Set in Mill City: a grimy place inhabited by new wave satanists, secret agents, booze-hounds, record-store clerks, conspiracy theorists, murderers, and cartoonists. Derek Van Gieson skillfully unweaves a knotted sweater of intrigue, suspense, and dark humor. Derek Van Gieson is a Minneapolis-based artist, writer, and musician. His work appeared in the New York Times , the New Yorker , and the Stranger .

Review Quote

"From a graphic standpoint, Derek Van Gieson lays on the ink with a jackhammer; thematically, he's dredging some infernal pits of the collective psyche for images, characters, and surreal situations that add up to a nightmarish skull-fuck of a book. [

Competing Titles

Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron Dan Clowes 9781560971160 19.95 Fantagraphics 1/17/93 Black Hole Charles Burns 9780375714726 24.95 Pantheon 1/8/08

Description for Sales People

This is the first collection of the Eel Mansions series. Eel Mansions was first serialized in mini-comics form by Uncivilized Books and built a significant fan following. The mini-comics version was on several best-of lists for 2013. The mini-comics version was reviewed in several prominent venues including The Onion AV Club. The a lot of historical/cultural easter-eggs for comics fans in the story. It's one of the most remarked-on features. It appeals to conspiracy theory fans and weird horror fans (think Pynchon in fiction, or Dan Clowes' Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, or Charles Burns' Black Hole with it's own sensibility of course.)

Details