Sam Zabel and the magic pen - Hardcover

Dylan Horrocks is a master. The journey Sam Zabel takes through a magical comic book land is full of references and tropes we all recognize but it also features a moral component that is so thoughtfully laid down that the reader finds themself thinking about the implications for a long time after finishing.--Aimee LoSecco

...[A] thoughtful, layered graphic novel... The result is sublime: a breezy-reading rumination on the promise and the problems inherent in graphic novels' complicated history, and the power the creator holds in shaping the medium's future.--Aaron Ragan-Fore

Zabel embarks on a journey... [that] transcends the classic cautionary 'be careful what you wish for' tale, reflecting on gender politics in comics and how they intersect with fantasy.--Hillary Brown

More Calvino than Borges... The story moves vertiginously between fantasy worlds, as Horrocks stages confrontations between comics' pulpy and frequently sexist past, and the more female-friendly webcomics and manga of present-day practice. ...[T]he book's real achievement is in the way it manages to be both besotted and furious with cartooning's speckled history - plus be newly impassioned about the future of comics.--Sean Rogers

...[W]onderful, and there's nowhere near enough Dylan Horrocks work in the world.--Kurt Busiek (Astro City, The Autumnlands)

...[A] fast-paced and multi-level fantasy adventure with a progressive viewpoint and a good-natured wit. In Dylan Horrock's hands, literary criticism becomes exactly what it is advocating comics to be and that's a precious feat. ... [The characters] bring forth one of the most unexpected, truest tear-jerkers I have ever seen in a comic -- you'll get misty-eyed for them and for comics in the best possible sense.--John Seven

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen is a coming-of-age story for the fantasies of our past and a joyful bear hug for the storytellers of our future. An effortless, magical read from front to back.--Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, The Sculptor)

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen is, like Hicksville, a meta-comic, a story about what it means to construct and share fictions made out of panels, captions, pictures and words; like Hicksville, it presents a secret history of what comics could or should have been. ... Sam Zabel is, mostly, a thoughtful delight, a celebration of Horrocks's chosen medium, with powerful supporting characters helpfully present to save the day...--Stephen Burt

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen... is amazing and wonderful. As in Hicksville, the theme here involves fantasy, but with a more mature treatment, one reflective of today's comic reader. ... The images are astounding. ... Horrocks really understands the visual language of comics and how much can be done with it. ...I found Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen incredibly inspiring. ... Only someone who knows and loves the comic medium could criticize it this deeply and accurately.--Johanna Draper Carlson

Acclaimed cartoonist Dylan Horrocks returns with a long-awaited new graphic novel, the first since his perennial classic, 1998’s Hicksville. Cartoonist Sam Zabel hasn’t drawn a comic in years. Stuck in a nightmare of creative block and despair, Sam spends his days writing superhero stories for a large American comics publisher and staring at a blank piece of paper, unable to draw a single line. Then one day he finds a mysterious old comic book set on Mars and is suddenly thrown headlong into a wild, fantastic journey through centuries of comics, stories, and imaginary worlds. Accompanied by a young webcomic creator named Alice and an enigmatic schoolgirl with rocket boots and a bag full of comics, Sam goes in search of the Magic Pen, encountering sex-crazed aliens, medieval monks, pirates, pixies and — of course — cartoonists. Funny, erotic, and thoughtful, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen explores the pleasures, dangers, and moral consequences of fantasy.