Still, after a night of mindless aggression the thugs still have a bit of time and energy left to give ugly freak a bit of a kickingâ€¦īarely able to stand on his own malformed feet at the best of times, Banshee is found collapsed in the street by recovering drug-addict Etty who gets him into a hospital. The deformed dosser everybody calls Banshee is screaming again, but the skinheads, hookers, winos and other human trash have better things to do than listen to the mad bastard. Years later in â€˜Transmissionsâ€™ the dystopian urban night is shattered by a pain-drenched wail. His story of a life spent daily triumphing over a body wracked by Spina bifida and a society that couldnâ€™t handle cripples who didnâ€™t know their place is a stunning testament to human courage and the liberating power of creativity (originally published by Renegade Press and re-issued in revised and expanded editions by Titan Books in 1990 and Active Images in 2003) and led to Davison being invited to contribute to the VG roster.ĭavison writes, illustrates and letters this darkly enchanting parable, similarly examining the themes of disability, alienation, perception and inclusion, which opens in a prologue with a rather nonconformist if not confrontational interpretation of the myth of Minos of Crete and the bestial murderous Minotaur from a wilful little girl named Etty-Mae Brown. A fifth commissioned volume was crafted by relative newcomer and unique authorial voice Al Davison who had first come to the industryâ€™s attention with his incredible autobiography The Spiral Cage: Diary of an Astral Gypsy in 1988. John Harrison & Ian Miller and Ian McDonald & Dave Lyttleton.

Gollancz was probably the first to fully embrace the nascent form, creating the VG Graphics imprint and going all out by releasing a game-changing selection of mature and challenging confections by comics glitterati Alan Moore & Oscar Zarate, Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean and fantasy stalwarts M. When the likes of HarperCollins, Macmillan/Pan and Gollancz finally caught wise they did it in fine style with challenging works like Doris Lessing & Charlie Adlardâ€™s Playing the Game or The City by James Herbert & Ian Miller. ISBN hardback: 978-0-57505-189-8Â Â softcover: 978-0-57505-283-3ĭuring the 1990s, following the stunning success and huge mainstream sales of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus, graphic novels were finally accepted by the publishing industry as a viable and valuable market for adults after decades in which sequential narrative had been deemed a ghetto for children and idiots – the works of Raymond Williams and others of his pioneering ilk notwithstanding.

The Spiral Cage by Al Davison