Tom Gauld

The Guardian cartoonist relates the daily deadpan adventures of the last policeman living on the moon "Living on the moon . . . Whatever were we thinking? . . . It seems so silly now." The lunar colony is slowly winding down, like a small town circumvented by a new super highway. As our hero, the Mooncop, makes his daily rounds, his beat grows ever smaller, the population dwindles. A young girl runs away, a dog breaks off his leash, an automaton wanders off from the Museum of the Moon. Each day that the Mooncop goes to work, life gets a little quieter and a little lonelier. As in Goliath, Tom Gauld's retelling of the Bible story, the focus in Gauld's science fiction is personal--no big explosions or grand reveals, just the incremental dissolution of an abandoned project and a person’s slow awakening to his own uselessness. Depicted in the distinctive, matter-of-fact style of Gauld's beloved Guardian strips, Mooncop is equal parts funny and melancholy. Gauld captures essential truths about humanity, making this a story of the past, present, and future, all in one.

Mooncop

A best-of collection of literary humour cartoons from the critically-acclaimed Guardian cartoonist In his inimitable style, British cartoonist Tom Gauld has opened comics to a crossover audience and challenged perceptions of what the medium can be. Noted as a “book-lover’s cartoonist,” Gauld’s weekly strips in The Guardian, Britain’s most well-regarded newspaper, stitch together the worlds of literary criticism and pop culture to create brilliantly executed, concise comics. Simultaneously silly and serious, Gauld adds an undeniable lightness to traditionally highbrow themes. From sarcastic panels about the health hazards of being a best-selling writer to a list of magical items for fantasy writers (such as the Amulet of Attraction, which summons mainstream acceptance, Hollywood money, and fresh coffee), Gauld’s cartoons are timely and droll—his trademark British humour, impeccable timing, and distinctive visual style sets him apart from the rest. Lauded both for his frequent contributions to New Scientist, The Guardian and The New York Times, and his Eisner-nominated graphic novels, Tom Gauld is one of the most celebrated cartoonists working today. In Baking with Kafka, he proves this with one witty, sly, ridiculous comic after another.

Baking With Kafka

A master of stripped-down, powerful storytelling reworks the David-and-Goliath myth "Gauld's Goliath is a master class in reduction...a celebration of the Christian underdog becomes a subtle meditation on the power of spin and the absurdity of war."-The Times of London Goliath of Gath isn't much of a fighter. Given half a choice, he would pick admin work over patrolling in a heartbeat, to say nothing of his distaste for engaging in combat. Nonetheless, at the behest of the king, he finds himself issuing a twice-daily challenge to the Israelites: "Choose a man. Let him come to me that we may fight. If he be able to kill me then we shall be your servants. But if I kill him, then you shall be our servants." Day after day he reluctantly repeats his speech, and the isolation of this duty gives him the chance to banter with his shield-bearer and reflect on the beauty of his surroundings. This is the story of David and Goliath as seen from Goliath's side of the Valley of Elah. Quiet moments in Goliath's life as a soldier are accentuated by Tom Gauld's drawing style, which contrasts minimalist scenery and near-geometric humans with densely crosshatched detail reminiscent of Edward Gorey. Goliath's battle is simultaneously tragic and bleakly funny, as bureaucracy pervades even this most mythic of figures. Goliath displays a sensitive wit, a bold line, and a traditional narrative reworked, remade, and revolutionized.

Goliath

A side-splitting skewering of the sober world of STEM No one is safe when humorist and cartoonist Tom Gauld directs his hilarious gaze to your profession. Just as he did with writers, poets, and literary classics for the Guardian books page, Gauld now does with hapless scientists, nanobots, and puzzling theorems for his weekly New Scientist strip, the international magazine that covers all aspects of science and technology. Gauld's Department of Mind-Blowing Theories presents one hundred and fifty comic strips topical and funny enough to engage any layperson with a rudimentary recall of their old science classes as well as those who consider themselves boffins of the contemporary physical and natural world. A dog philosopher questions what it means to be a ‘good boy’ while playing fetch! A virtual assistant and a robot-cleaner elope! The undiscovered species and the theoretical particle face existential despair! Facebook commenters debunk Darwin’s posting of On the Origin of Species! Why are there poodles pouring out of this wormhole?! One could hypothesize how Gauld is able to command such quick-witted knowledge of the scientific world however, as these strips prove, Gauld would retaliate with the sharpest of punchlines to that hastily cobbled postulate. Gauld won an Eisner for Best Humor for Baking With Kafka and Department of Mind-Blowing Theoriesis sure to cement his reputation as the foremost authority on joke generating technology.

Department of Mind-Blowing Theories

Confront the spectre of failure, the wraith of social media, and other supernatural enemies of the author Tom Gauld returns with his wittiest and most trenchant collection of literary cartoons to date. Perfectly composed drawings are punctuated with the artist’s signature brand of humour, hitting high and low. After all, Gauld is just as comfortable taking jabs at Jane Eyre and Game of Thrones. Some particularly favoured targets include the pretentious procrastinating novelist, the commercial mercenary of the dispassionate editor, the willful obscurantism of the vainglorious poet. Quake in the presence of the stack of bedside books as it grows taller! Gnash your teeth at the ever-moving deadline that the writer never meets! Quail before the critic’s incisive dissection of the manuscript! And most importantly, seethe with envy at the paragon of creative productivity! Revenge of the Librarians contains even more murders, drubbings, and castigations than The Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, Baking For Kafka, or any other collections of mordant scribblings by the inimitably excellent Gauld.

Revenge of the Librarians

When a wooden robot prince forgets to say the magic words that turn his sister from a log into a princess she is thrown away, so he goes on an epic journey to find her and bring her back.

The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess

“Precise and wryly hilarious...Gauld's both a literature nerd and a science-fiction nerd whose deadpan mashups belong on the same shelf as R. Sikoryak, Michael Kupperman, and Kate Beaton.”—NPR, Best Books of 2013 A new collection from the Guardian and New York Times Magazine cartoonist The New York Times Magazine cartoonist Tom Gauld follows up his widely praised graphic novel Goliath with You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, a collection of cartoons made for The Guardian. Over the past eight years, Gauld has produced a weekly cartoon for the Saturday Review section of Britain’s best-regarded newspaper. Only a handful of comics from this huge and hilarious body of work have ever been printed in North America—and these have been available exclusively within the pages of the prestigious Believer magazine. You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack distills perfectly Gauld’s dark humor, impeccable timing, and distinctive style. Arrests by the fiction police and imaginary towns designed by Tom Waits intermingle hilariously with piercing observations about human behavior and whimsical imaginings of the future. Again and again, Gauld reaffirms his position as a first-rank cartoonist, creating work infused with a deep understanding of both literary and cartoon history.

Cartoons

You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack

Ay Polisi

Simone Lia

A morally outraged sweetcorn kernel, 'folk these days are disgusting! What the bloody hell happed to morals?', some wrestlers going for a wander before their big finale, a rabbit, a monkey nut, bread, bhagis, bittersweet relationships… Exquisitely and intricately drawn, quirky, surreal and very, very funny, BOTH introduces two new brilliant comic artists to the Bloomsbury list alongside Edward Gorey, Steven Appleby and Glen Baxter.

Both

In cucina con Kafka

Golyat Ciltli

Carlos Mayor Ortega

La venganza de los bibliotecarios

Com graça e humor, a HQ apresenta uma nova e surpreendente versão da história bíblica. Golias de Gate não é lá um grande soldado. Se dependesse dele, preferia pegar as tarefas do administrativo a participar de combates. Isso muda quando o rei dos filisteus o envia para desafiar os israelitas. Em sua versão da história bíblica, Tom Gauld vê Golias não como o guerreiro ao qual nos acostumamos, mas como um burocrata de fala mansa e hábitos tranquilos. A narrativa mitológica se transforma num retrato sutil desse personagem que, na derrota para Davi, sempre simbolizou a primazia da inteligência sobre a força bruta.

Golias

Confront the spectre of failure, the wraith of social media, and other supernatural enemies of the author Tom Gauld returns with his wittiest and most trenchant collection of literary cartoons to date. Perfectly composed drawings are punctuated with the artist's signature brand of humour, hitting high and low. After all, Gauld is just as comfortable taking jabs at Jane Eyre and Game of Thrones. Some particularly favoured targets include the pretentious procrastinating novelist, the commercial mercenary of the dispassionate editor, the willful obscurantism of the vainglorious poet. Quake in the presence of the stack of bedside books as it grows taller! Gnash your teeth at the ever-moving deadline that the writer never meets! Quail before the critic's incisive dissection of the manuscript! And most importantly, seethe with envy at the paragon of creative productivity! Revenge of the Librarians contains even more murders, drubbings, and castigations than The Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, Baking For Kafka, or any other collections of mordant scribblings by the inimitably excellent Gauld.

De kleine houten robot en de boomstam prinses

Dipartimento di teorie folgoranti

Fãs de literatura conhecem bem o trabalho de Tom Gauld. Suas historinhas sobre escritores e leitores e suas tiradas sobre o universo do livro tornaram-se clássicas entre os apaixonados pela leitura. Uma de suas tiras mais conhecidas, em que um autor de ficção científica diz a seus colegas mais sisudos, enquanto decola, "Vocês estão apenas com inveja da minha mochila a jato", foi vista e compartilhada milhões de vezes. Em Guarda lunar, Gauld volta à forma longa, como no premiado Golias, e os admiradores logo reconhecerão os traços mais marcantes de seu trabalho: o humor seco, a economia na ação, o clima melancólico que revela a graça, a tristeza e o absurdo da vida cotidiana. Nas rondas do solitário policial da Lua, pouco acontece: um cachorro foge, um robô dá defeito, um morador volta para a Terra. Num futuro em que a colonização do espaço tornou-se aparentemente banal, o guarda circula pelo vasto cenário vazio numa sucessão de dias que se confundem. Ao mesmo tempo divertido e sorumbático, o livro captura verdades essenciais sobre quem somos. Ao combinar passado, presente e futuro, Gauld cria um mundo de ficção científica quase igual ao nosso — um ajuste nas lentes que revelarão ao leitor uma realidade tão próxima quanto surpreendente.

Guarda lunar

"A witty look at art and celebrity in 38,000 BC, when a caveman agonizes over what kind of painting to feature in his upcoming exhibition." [Publisher's statement].

Hunter & Painter

Fifty comics from The Guardian, by Britain’s most well regarded cartoonist Tom Gauld (Mooncop, You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, Goliath) has created countless iconic strips for The Guardian over the course of his illustrious career. A master of condensing grand, highbrow themes into one- to eight-panel comics, his weekly strips embody his trademark British humor while simultaneously opening comics to an audience unfamiliar with the artistry that cartooning has to offer. Funny but serious, these comics allow Gauld to put his impressive knowledge of history, literature, and pop culture on full display—his impeccable timing and distinctive visual style setting him apart from the rest. This postcard set celebrates more than a decade of Gauld’s contributions to The Guardian, with fifty of his most beloved strips, on everything from Samuel Beckett’s sitcom pitches (such as Waiting for Kramer: a show where two men await the arrival of a man named Kramer who never comes), “Procrastination for Creative Writers, a 10-Week Course,” and “Poetry Anthologies for People Who Don’t Like Poems.” Witty and beautifully drawn, The Snooty Bookshop will make you chuckle at least fifty times, guaranteed.

Fifty Literary Postcards by Tom Gauld

The Snooty Bookshop

Todo el mundo tiene envidia de mi mochila voladora es una selección de las tiras cómicas de Tom Gauld, que durante los últimos años ha hecho las delicias de los lectores del prestigioso diario británico The Guardian. Con una mirada irónica y una predilección por la excentricidad y el absurdo, las historietas de Gauld conforman un microcosmos en el que se entremezclan lo clásico y lo contemporáneo, las referencias culturales y las veleidades del comportamiento humano, y donde coexisten novelistas frustrados, detectives victorianos y robots.

Tom Gauld

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