Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain’s Get Jiro! gets a cover and synopsis
The pre-order listing for Anthony Bourdain’s “gourmet slaughterfest” graphic novel Get Jiro! has surfaced on Amazon.com, and with it the Langdon Foss-drawn cover.
Arriving July 3, the 160-page Vertigo graphic novel marks the comics debut of the acerbic chef turned author turned television host, who collaborated with friend and novelist Joel Rose and Heavy Metal artist Foss.
Bourdain first teased the book in September 2010, characterizing Get Jiro! as “sort of like Fistful of Dollars meets Eat Drink Man Woman” or, alternately, “Yojimbo meets Big Night and Babette’s Feast, an ultra-violent slaughter-fest over culinary arcana.” If you’re hoping for something a little more specific, you’re in luck, as the Amazon listing includes an official synopsis:
In a not-too-distant future L.A. where master chefs rule the town like crime lords and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurants, a bloody culinary war is raging.
On one side, the Internationalists, who blend foods from all over the world into exotic delights. On the other, the “Vertical Farm,” who prepare nothing but organic, vegetarian, macrobiotic dishes. Into this maelstrom steps Jiro, a renegade and ruthless sushi chef, known to decapitate patrons who dare request a California Roll, or who stir wasabi into their soy sauce. Both sides want Jiro to join their factions. Jiro, however has bigger ideas, and in the end, no chef may be left alive!
If there had been any doubts before, that sure make it clear: Food nerds, this book’s for you.
(via Anthony Bourdain)
- December 19, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Anthony Bourdain’s ‘gourmet slaughterfest’ Get Jiro! to arrive in June
Art from "Get Jiro!" by Langdon Foss
Vertigo at last has set a June 2012 release date for Get Jiro!, the eagerly anticipated graphic novel from acerbic chef, author and television host Anthony Bourdain.
Teased in September 2010 by Bourdain, and officially announced a few weeks later by the DC Comics imprint, the futuristic action thriller set in a world where food and the secrets of its preparation are the source of all power, leading master chefs to fight over a mysterious sushi chef named Jiro. Bourdain has described the graphic novel as “a gourmet slaughterfest, sort of like Fistful of Dollars meets Eat Drink Man Woman” and “Yojimbo meets Big Night and Babette’s Feast, an ultra-violent slaughter-fest over culinary arcana.”
Originally pegged for a 2011 debut, the 160-page hardcover is written by Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential, Medium Raw) and friend and novelist Joel Rose (The Blackest Bird, Kill Kill Faster Faster), and illustrated by artist Langdon Foss (Heavy Metal).
- November 22, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
NYCC ’10 | Vertigo officially announces Anthony Bourdain’s Get Jiro!
"Get Jiro!" art by Langdon Foss
Vertigo confirmed at New York Comic Con this afternoon that it will release a graphic novel by Anthony Bourdain, the acerbic chef, author and host of the Travel Channel’s No Reservations.
Revealed last month by Bourdain himself, Get Jiro! is a futuristic action thriller set in a world where food and the secrets of its preparation are the source of all power, leading master chefs to fight over a mysterious sushi chef named Jiro. Bourdain has described the graphic novel as “Yojimbo meets Big Night and Babette’s Feast, an ultra-violent slaughter-fest over culinary arcana.”
Get Jiro! is written by Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential, Medium Raw) and friend and novelist Joel Rose (The Blackest Bird, Kill Kill Faster Faster), and illustrated by artist Langdon Foss (Heavy Metal). The book is expected to be released sometime in 2011.
During today’s “Vertigo: On the Edge” panel, the DC Comics imprint also announced:
- The Annotated Sandman, a four-volume collection by Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes and The New Annotated Dracula, working closely with Neil Gaiman.
- The reunion of the 100 Bullets team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso on “a top-secret Vertigo project for 2011.”
- The New York Five, a four-issue sequel to The New York Four, Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s 2008 Minx graphic novel. The miniseries debuts in January.
- Delirium’s Party, Jill Thompson’s follow-up to 2001′s The Little Endless Storybook, will debut in March.
- Mentioned at Comic-Con International, the six-issue Cinderella: Fables are Forever will debut in February from the Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love team of Chris Roberson and Sean McManus.
Look for a full panel report at Comic Book Resources.
- October 9, 2010 @ 01:45 PM by Kevin Melrose
Anthony Bourdain writing graphic novel ‘about ultraviolent food nerds’ for DC
Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain, the acerbic chef, author and television host who in July wrote a touching remembrance of Harvey Pekar, is working on a graphic novel for DC Comics — and it sounds fantastic.
The news was revealed in a pair of recent interviews from his book tour in support of Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook.
The graphic novel, Get Gyro, is “about ultraviolent food nerds,” says the 54-year-old Bourdain. “It’s a gourmet slaughterfest, sort of like Fistful of Dollars meets Eat Drink Man Woman.” Alternately, he describes it as “Yojimbo meets Big Night and Babette’s Feast, an ultra-violent slaughter-fest over culinary arcana.”
In short: awesome. Could Get Gyro be what brings the cooking genre from manga into Western comics?
The graphic novel is set to be released sometime next year, presumably through DC’s Veritgo imprint. No artist is mentioned.
- September 16, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Anthony Bourdain remembers Harvey Pekar
Anthony Bourdain with Harvey Pekar
Among the many tributes to Harvey Pekar that have begun to appear online and in print, this one by chef and author Anthony Bourdain stands out. That’s in large part because Bourdain’s remembrance centers on a 2007 episode of his Travel Channel series No Reservations that brought him to a wintry Cleveland, where the irascible Pekar served as a guide and narrator.
Watching that episode, it was obvious a handful of ingredients — Bourdain, comic book-style illustrations and, most importantly, Pekar in his element — had combined to create something special. So it’s nice to see that, three years and almost 60 episodes later, “Cleveland” remains Bourdain’s favorite.
“That show was unique among over a hundred others in that everything — absolutely everything — went perfectly and exactly as planned,” he wrote today on his blog. “Unlike every other episode, pretty much everything had been ‘written’ (or at least planned out) in advance: the look, the American Splendor graphics, destinations, subjects and content. In the middle of a blizzard in the dead of winter, we got exactly what we were looking for. We wanted American Splendor and that’s what we got.”
It’s a lovely tribute that moves beyond an episode of a food and travel show, with Bourdain trying to capture what drew so many to Pekar and his work: “A few great artists come to ‘own’ their territory. As Joseph Mitchell once owned New York and Zola owned Paris, Harvey Pekar owned not just Cleveland but all those places in the American Heartland where people wake up every day, go to work, do the best they can — and in spite of the vast and overwhelming forces that conspire to disappoint them — go on, try as best as possible to do right by the people around them, to attain that most difficult of ideals: to be ‘good’ people.”
You can watch a teaser for the Pekar episode after the break.
- July 13, 2010 @ 02:34 PM by Kevin Melrose
Talking Comics with Tim: Bob Fingerman
From the Ashes
When I learned that IDW was publishing Bob Fingerman‘s newest project, From the Ashes, I’ll admit I was pleassantly surprised, given that it seemed outside of IDW’s typical market focus. So when he recently agreed to an email interview I was eager to find out how it landed at IDW in addition to his thought process on this speculative memoir (as well as his latest Fantagraphics release, Connective Tissue). The first installment of the six-issue From The Ashes miniseries hits the market this Wednesday, May 13. Here’s the official snippet on the miniseries from IDW: “Fingerman and his wife Michele find out the apocalypse isn’t the end of the world in this hip satirical survival romp through Manhattan’s ruins. Think The Road, only funny!” My thanks to Fingerman for his time and to Emma Griffiths and Martin Wendel for facilitating this interview, as well as Chris Mautner for his help in formulating questions. If you happen to be in New York this Friday, May 15, Fingerman will have an art show/signing at Rocketship at 8 PM.
Tim O’Shea: Why did you opt to do this series as a mini-series, as opposed to a graphic novel?
Bob Fingerman: It wasn’t my choice. I’d have preferred to release it as a book straight off, but that’s not IDW’s business model. Still, they put out classy looking comics on good paper. And it will eventually get collected as a book.
O’Shea: You consulted with your wife, Michele, throughout the development of this story. But before embarking on this project did you tell her you intended this to be an “open love letter” (as you describe it in your recent Huffington Post piece) to her? Anyway you slice it, she clearly loves you a great deal to support a work that aims to capture your relationship with her and features “mutants, cannibals, zombies”.
Fingerman: Michele is the center of my life. She’s very supportive of everything I do. “Open love letter” is pretty corny, I’ll admit. But it’s honest. My consulting with her basically entailed repeatedly asking her, “Is it all right if I have you doing this or that?” She got final approval.
- May 11, 2009 @ 02:00 PM by Tim O'Shea