AustLit

'A space bounty hunter tracks down a frog princess, a woman finds a condom where it shouldn’t be, and a spoiled art student works his first freelance job. Deep Breaths is a collection of short comics about tension, violence, monsters, and moments… including the award-winning story Mooreland Mates and nine other tales, rarely or never before seen.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'An on-the-rise Australian cartoonist makes his spectacular debut, a fantasy coming-of-age graphic novel inspired by classic role-playing games, each chapter drawn in a different style.

'The last school bell has rung and it’s finally HOME TIME! Even though they’re twins, Lilly and David don’t agree on much… except that the last summer before high school is the perfect time for relaxing with friends. But their plans for sleepovers, fantasy games, and romance are thrown out the window when the whole gang falls into a river and wakes up in a village of fantastic creatures. Hailed as magical spirits and attacked by lizards, these kids must find their way home — if they don’t throttle each other first. Australian cartoonist Campbell Whyte combines the rich imagination of Dungeons & Dragons with puckishly charming characters and a touch of video-game geometry in his spectacular first graphic novel.' (Publication summary)

'Blue is the debut graphic novel by Australian cartoonist Pat Grant. Part autobiography and part science fiction, the book follows three spotty teenagers who skip school to go surfing and end up investigating rumors of a dead body on the train line. Provincial values and the emotions aroused by immigration clash as the teenagers encounter strange, blue-skinned foreigners that have arrived in their little beach town. Things become even more confronting when the trail leads them to make first contact with a new wave of immigrants to their coastal town, who might be the harbingers of sweeping change.

'Blue is a delicate and affectionate portrayal of an iconic setting and way of life, told with an unerring ear and eye for the vernacular. But it's also a story about difference, fear and change, and the political implications of this for contemporary Australia.

'Pat Grant's approach to cartooning is largely an old-fashioned one, with each page of images painstakingly drawn on large pieces of illustration board with a sable brush and India ink. The images in Blue have been taken directly from drawings collected over many mornings on the beaches of NSW and Victoria; they are inspired by real life but don't lose their cartoonish charm. Combined with Grant's sparse writing the result is a cinematic story telling experience that lends itself particularly to an Australian experience of place and landscape.' (From the publisher's website.)