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Reading lists

17 mesmerising graphic novels

The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil

A book for anybody who’s ever had a beard, thought about a beard, seen a beard, not had a beard...

It’s part satire, part parable, part nursery rhyme and part disaster movie, and it’s an utter joy to read.

Clever, funny and beautiful to look at… A fairytale for adults that children will also adore, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil is surely destined to become a classic.

As splendiferous as its title… An inspired swirling of the mundane with the surreal, the plot may be simple but his satire on modern life is witty and thoughtful.

Collins’ wonderful debut unfolds with slow and simple elegance through black-and-white panels.

It reminds me of nothing so much as a Roald Dahl novel.

A gorgeously penciled fable… The pacing and page design are immaculate.

There’s a touch of Roald Dahl to this dark, beautifully drawn and wonderfully surrealist tale.

A  witty and surreal response to conformity, and how we should embrace our  difference. Accompanied by incredible pencil drawings, you will be  blown away by the quality, and be humbled by the underlying message.

My pick of next season’s graphic novels.

A rich allegorical work with a certain Kafkaesque quality, with the story told in a rolling, rhyming blank verse.

This incredible fable is rich with subtext and allegory… It is a singularly spectacular graphic  novel… Timeless, uniquely insightful into the human condition, witty and  poignant.

With The Gigantic Beard that was Evil, Stephen Collins has produced a book too profound to be serious, too good for the patronizing pat of mainstream media...In The Beard That Was Evil, Collins has created a total work of art which elevates itself beyond comparison.

Collins’s [book] is a love song – or is it? – to facial hair and all who get tangled up in it.

A book to make you sing with the genius of it... A book of revolution, and a beautiful story told with imagination, grace and a lot of pencil lines. And you feel the hard effort on every page. Those individual hairs don’t draw themselves.

In exquisite pencil drawings, Stephen Collins pursues Dave’s absurd quandary through its logical stages, from infamy to celebrity, from vast scaffolding to hot-air balloons. It’s a timely fable about any government’s attempt to impose conformity on the “becauselessness” of humanity.

Stephen Collins was born in 1980 and grew up in Penge, South London. He began cartooning for The Times in 2003, and has since won several awards, including the Jonathan Cape/Observer Graphic Short Story Prize 2010. His work has appeared in many publications worldwide, and he contributes regular comics to the Guardian Weekend and Prospect magazine. He lives near Hertford with his wife and a well-charged beard trimmer. 
 
For up-to-date news and work, visit 
www.stephencollinsillustration.com

The job of the skin is to keep things in… 
 
On the buttoned-down island of Here, all is well. By which we mean: orderly, neat, contained and, moreover, beardless. 
 
Or at least it is until one famous day, when Dave, bald but for a single hair, finds himself assailed by a terrifying, unstoppable…monster*! 
 
Where did it come from? How should the islanders deal with it? And what, most importantly, are they going to do with Dave? 
 
The first book from a new leading light of UK comics, The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil is an off-beat fable worthy of Roald Dahl. It is about life, death and the meaning of beards. 
 
(*We mean a gigantic beard, basically.)

Stephen Collins

Here are some comics by Stephen Collins. 
 
Or, to be precise, a little over 100 comics by Stephen Collins. 
 
They constitute your opportunity to 
 
a) discover what plastic bags really think about 
b) learn the true identity of Kim Jong-Un’s life coach 
c) have everything ruined by the internet 
 
Enjoy!

Stephen Collins

Some Comics by Stephen Collins

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