From PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS an adaptation of Eric H. Cline’s bestselling 1177 B.C.
“1177 B.C. is a spectacular achievement—deftly adapted, beautifully drawn, and captivatingly colored by Glynnis Fawkes. . . . [She] doesn’t just bring history alive, she propels it across the page in an accessible, gripping way.” —Alison Bechdel, New York Times bestselling author of Fun Home
"Bold, intriguing, and imaginative. . . . [A] clever mix of fact and ‘fun,’ enlivened by [Fawkes's] graphic reimagining of the Bronze Age world."—David Stuttard, Classics for All
"1177 B.C. [A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed] uses the graphic novel format in ingeniously inventive ways to present the complicated history of the end of the Bronze Age. . . . An astonishing amount of information is packed into these pages, drawing on a vast range of sources, from inscriptions to archeological evidence to literature, including the Iliad and the Bible. . . . Together, the words and pictures show how history is made."—Marissa Moss, New York Journal of Books
"The illustrations are compelling – well-conceived and constructed."—Chris Gosden, Times Literary Supplement
Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C. tells the story of one of history’s greatest mysteries: what caused the ancient civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean to collapse more than three thousand years ago, bringing the Late Bronze Age to an abrupt end? In this vivid and captivating full-color graphic adaptation of the landmark book, author-illustrator Glynnis Fawkes invites us to follow two young friends living in the aftermath of the cataclysm as they unravel why it happened—and reveal important lessons for today’s interconnected and vulnerable world.
Pel, a member of the marauding Sea Peoples, and Shesha, an Egyptian scribe, visit the kingdoms of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Canaanites, Assyrians, and Egyptians to explore the calamities that brought them down. This graphic history depicts the people, events, art, architecture, and lands that Pel and Shesha encounter. We witness the Sea Peoples’ battles on land and sea, earthquakes on the Greek mainland, droughts and famine in Anatolia, invasions in north Syria, and possible rebellions in Canaan. Along the way, we also learn about the assassination of a Hittite prince traveling to marry an Egyptian queen, the sinking of a merchant ship laden with international goods, and the return of a pair of sandals to Crete by the Babylonian king Hammurabi.
An entertaining adventure story, this dazzling comic is also historically accurate and enlightening, inviting readers of all ages to think about the surprising factors and theories that explain why societies, whether ancient or modern, die or survive when struck by catastrophes.
Order from Princeton Press, Bookshop.org, or from your local bookseller.
REVIEWS
Times Literary Supplement July, 2024
Fabulous book trailer!
The Center for Cartoon Studies Presents Charlotte Bronte Before Jane Eyre published by Little, Brown September 2019 with an introduction by Alison Bechdel.
Listed among YALSA’s 2020 Great Graphic Novels for Teens.
ORDER AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSHOP!
For me that’s glorious Phoenix Books in Burlington, VT.
Praise for Charlotte Bronte Before Jane Eyre:
”…Emotionally nuanced and visually stunning biography…”
Kirkus Review:
“Fawkes deftly weaves narration from Charlotte’s writings into appropriate biographical scenes….Fawkes’ illustrations appear as black-and-white, shaded pencil drawings in a style that cartoonist Alison Bechdel aptly describes in the introduction as “crisp and engaging.” … A biography that goes beyond static history, inspiring respect for Charlotte and encouraging writers and artists to defend their work through adversity.”
“One of the joys of Fawkes’s slender volume is that Charlotte does not suffer in noble silence; she is openly ambitious, even resenting what teaching steals from her creative life. Though some of the portrait’s strengths can be attributed to the subject herself—this book relies heavily on her letters and poems—Fawkes is a deft and economical editor. With sure-handed, irreverent illustrations, she captures life on the windswept moors and masters the art of Victorian side-eye. Her Charlotte Brontë is as smart, brooding, and rebellious as Jane Eyre, and her volume offers an accessible introduction to and an elaboration on the Brontës’ work.”
Persephone’s Garden (2019) published by Secret Acres. It is 272 pages of new comics about my mother, cartoons that have appeared on The New Yorker.com and elsewhere, and diary comics spanning the past 7 years, most of my children’s childhood.
Praise for Persephone’s Garden:
“Few cartoonists capture a life being lived better than Glynnis Fawkes. Her comics are concocted from small joys, great sorrows, and of being in the present moment while also being painfully aware of the passage of time. Glynnis is one of my favorite cartoonists and this collection of deft observations and wry musings are by turns poignant and hilarious and collectively they add up to something greater than the sum of their parts: a low-key masterpiece by a brilliant and generous artist.”
- James Sturm, author of The Golem's Mighty Swing and Off Season
A children's song inspires a love of Greek mythology in a young girl. A young woman finds a career in archeology and illustration. A young mother sees her daughter become a woman, as her own mother's memories are lost. Persephone's Garden is a deeply personal story and an inventive study of girlhood, womanhood and motherhood, through memory, history and mythology.
8" x 6.". Full color. 272 pages.
“Fawkes has a wonderfully lithe, Thurber-esque line, which adapts effortlessly to the humorous and quotidian.
Combining small moments that will ring true for many readers, Fawkes uncovers big themes in this funny-sad, satisfying mosaic.”
About The House on Thurman Street:
This 7-page comic is included in Persephone’s Garden.
I drew it for The Strumpet 5, international anthology of comics by women that came out in September 2017. The theme of the issue is Origin stories, and answering that theme, I made this compressed story about growing up in NW Portland, my mother's Alzheimer's, and the artists and writer who influenced me. Ursula LeGuin, acclaimed author of the Earthsea Books and so many more, lived a few houses away from where I grew up. Her words that originated from a place so close to home have inspired me since I first read her books in the 1980s. Her sense of justice and depth of integrity, her exploration of political and social situations through fiction, her vivid descriptions of place have all affected the way I go about my own work. She died on Jan 22, 2018. I wonder, did she walk beyond that low wall in the desolate place she described in The Furthest Shore? What must it be like for someone who has imagined death to so clearly to experience it? For me her memory is as bright as ever, her books are living, there to be read.
I'm grateful to Ellen Lindner, founder of the Strumpet, for the chance to write about Thurman St. We co-edited this issue and came up with the theme together-- there's nothing like an assignment for getting a story onto paper. I hope to expand this comic into a longer one some day--there is a lot more to tell about my parents' careers as artists, this old neighborhood, and the interesting characters that I knew in Portland before I left in 1996.
You won't want to read this story without reading all the rest of the stories in Strumpet--so go ahead and buy the issue.
Under contract with Holiday House.
This book is still in search of a title! It’s also a long time in the making. I finished a first draft in residence at La Maison des Auteurs in Angouleme in 2017. I have continued to revise, edit, and add to the story, and will be published by Holiday House in 2027.
This is the story of a family of artists on Santorini before and after the catastrophic eruption in the 17th century BC, and 11-year-old Asara who follows her father in painting frescos in palaces of Knossos in Crete and Tel ed Daba in Egypt. She is in search of both her mother, a weaver, who was lost in the chaos of evacuating the island during the eruption, and her independence as an artist.
For this project I’ve received funding from The Sustainable Arts Foundation, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Alumni Travel Fellowship, and the Vermont Arts Council, and residencies at The Vermont Studio Center and the Ragdale Foundation.
I printed this as a first chapter for MoCCAfest, spring 2024.
Greek Diary Short Listed for the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize.
And won a silver medal at the Society of Illustrators MoCCA Arts Festival in NY in 2017.
In June and July 2016, I went to Greece to work on a dig, my 9th season at the site of Kenchreai on the Corinthian Gulf. For 5 weeks I drew every day, both diary comics and landscapes--3 notebooks full. Part of the Diary is about work on the dig and part is about the trip afterwards to Rhodes, Santorini, and Paros I took with my family--my husband John, Classics professor, musician, scholar of ancient music, and our two kids, ages 9 and 11. My goal now is to make this diary into a book by adding context to the daily trials: memories from my first and many subsequent trips to Greece over nearly 20 years and especially the beginning of the romance with John on Santorini 13 years ago.
Reign of Crumbs is 76 pages, perfect bound b/w w/color covers and is published in June 2017 by Kilgore Books.
"Glynnis' comics have been some of our favorites for many years now. Whether she's detailing the joys and hardships of parenting in Vermont or the Middle East, adventuring in Greece, or re-telling ancient myths, she is a joy to read, with strong and clear line. She has a unique and uncanny ability to pull the critical thread out of a story and show it to the world."
This 96-page book is out of print! It was once available at Birdcage Bottom Books Distro. This book is on hold while I revise, edit and expand it in the next few years. Rob Clough reviewed the book at High-Low in August, 2018.
Winner the Society of Illustrators/MoCCA festival Award of Excellence in April 2016.
Alle Ego means “good friend” or ‘other self” in ancient Greek. This is a middle chapter of a book-in progress (although it reads as a stand-alone story) and is a memoir of an art student’s adventures in Greece. This scene is about getting lost in Crete.
After a Fulbright grant, I published Archaeology Lives in Cyprus, (Hellenic Bank, 2001) a bilingual collection of paintings of archaeological sites with commentary by excavators. The same year I also published Cartoons of Cyprus, (Mouflon Publications, Nicosia) 70 drawings about Cypriot archaeology.
I spent a few days on the dig, drawing fieldwork in action. This sketch found a home in the Museum in Athirenou.
This short comic uses the complete text of the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos. Composed between the 8th and 7th centuries BC, the so called The Homeric Hymns are epic songs dedicated to various gods, and by tradition (falsely) attributed to Homer, the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey.
Gregory Nagy, professor of Classical Greek Literature at Harvard University, made this translation especially.
I drew this around 2013 as part of my self-training in the medium of comics.
