A magician's case of graphic story books
The Magician is an epic graphic novel, a bookmaking tour de force, a mesmerizing art object, and the completion of over a decade-long obsession of author Chris Byrne. This enigmatic box of wonders houses a dozen separate publications, printed and hand bound using a variety of techniques.
The books include Theogony, Handmade, Down the Head, Mountain Man/She-Wolf, Letterpress Flipbook, 4-Ply Toilet Paper, Moleskine, The Magician Manual, M-Phase, Unfinished Versions, Colophon, and Curtains.
Copies of The Magician are included in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; School of Visual Arts Library, New York; and the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, New York; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California; The Magician and Archival Materials 2002-2013, Special Collections and College of Visual Arts, University of North Texas, Denton; Collins Memorial Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington; RARE-BOOKS, University of Southern California, Architecture and Fine Arts Library, Los Angeles, California; Kennesaw State University Bentley Rare Book Museum, Kennesaw, Georgia; The Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination, Ridgefield, Connecticut.
"Chris Byrne has made an alt comic of such invention, thoughtfulness and ambition that only Chris Ware's artistic production is on a similar playing field and I imagine that Chris [Ware] will be impressed or astounded or disturbed by this narrative machine that contains, issues and transcends the medium." —Gary Panter, February 2013
"There is no single apt reference point for Chris Byrne's ingenious The Magician. It is a wunderkammer, a Cornell-ian box, a visual novel, a conjurer's tool kit. Above all it's a moving, multifaceted graphic narrative. There's never been anything quite like it."
— Dan Nadel, February 2013
Designed by Chris Byrne and Scott Newton. Published by Marquand Books in an edition of 20 with five artist's proofs. For more information contact Ed Marquand, ed@paper-hammer.com
