05 October 2012
What's your favourite graphic novel?
The screaming downstairs was for Jessie J signing her book Nice to Meet You. The staircases bulged with JK Rowling's A Casual Vacancy. On the top floor a quiet mob chatted about a different sort of fan club. One that boasts 1 billion members.
This was Waterstones, Piccadilly, last Thursday. The artist Polyp was launching his graphic novel The Cooperative Revolution. It's about the rise of the cooperative movement - from tiny beginnings in 1840s Rochdale to today's global network.
The book is done in a mix of lovely atmospheric pictures and elegant old-fashioned prose. You can get it here.
Apart from the storytelling, it's peppered with nuggets that will make you the toast of the water cooler (do you still have one of those?). Like the fact that a Portuguese man-o'-war is not one but four separate organisms working together to strike terror into small fry and bathers.
And that's the theme of The Cooperative Revolution. Not the terror bit - but the idea that cooperating is as much a part of our make-up as competition is. Makes sense to me - especially when you think about this finite planet of ours.
Once a big Tintin fan, I might just be lured back to graphic novels by The Cooperative Revolution. Right now it's my favourite.
What's yours?
Adam Bradbury, Publishing & New Media team
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