Lynd Ward: Gods' Man, Madman's Drum, Wild Pilgrimage (LOA #210)Edited by Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus A wordless novel in woodcuts from Lynd Ward, a pioneering artist/novelist who was “an unmistakable soul-companion to . . . Frank Capra and John Steinbeck, but also Fritz Lang and Franz Kafka” (Jonathan Lethem) From the Great Depression to WII, America’s first great graphic novelist bore witness to the roiling, dizzying national scene as both a master printmaker and a socially committed storyteller. In this, the first of two volumes collecting all his woodcut novels, The Library of America brings together Lynd Ward’s earliest books, published when the artist was still in his twenties. Gods’ Man (1929), the audaciously ambitious work that made Ward’s reputation, is a modern morality play, an allegory of the deadly bargain a striving young artist often makes with life. Madman’s Drum (1930), a multigenerational saga worthy of Faulkner, traces the legacy of violence haunting a family whose stock in trade is human souls. Wild Pilgrimage (1932), perhaps the most accomplished of these early books, is a study in the brutalization of an American factory worker whose heart can still respond to beauty but whose mind is twisted in rage against the system and its shackles. The images reproduced in this volume are taken from prints pulled from the original woodblocks or first-generation electrotypes. Ward’s novels are presented, for the first time since the 1930s, in the format that the artist intended, one image per right-hand page, and are followed by five essays in which he discusses the technical challenges of his craft. Art Spiegelman contributes an introductory essay, “Reading Pictures,” that defines Ward’s towering achievement in that most demanding of graphic-story forms. |
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American Artists Art Spiegelman ARTURO GIOVANNITTI book’s brush drawings Caldecott Caldecott Medal Cape & Smith cartoonist characters children’s collector’s comics copies decorations deluxe edition editor Electrotypes engraved by Ward Equinox issues essay father Federal Arts Project Frans Masereel full-page George Macy German Gods Graphic Arts gravers Harrison Smith Harry F Hildegarde Hoyt Houghton Mifflin Ignacio Zuloaga illustrations images individual Jersey Jonathan Cape Kendall Ward Limited Editions Club lithographs lithographs by Ward Lonely Lake Lynd Ward Madman’s Drum May’s McNeer Methodist MFSS Mueller National Academy novel in woodcuts º º º Otto Nückel pictorial narrative picture book America’s printmaker published by Cape result ſae seems sequence Smith & Haas ſº Song Without Words Storyteller Without Words summer tool type of block Vertigo Ward’s Washington flat-bed press Wild Pilgrimage wood engraving woodblock woodcut novel wordless book wordless novel York young-adult biography