SelfMadeHero

SelfMadeHero is an independent publishing house which specialises in adapting works of literature, as well as producing ground-breaking original fiction in the graphic novel medium.

Parent company	Metro Media Ltd
Founded	2007
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Headquarters location	London
Distribution	Abrams Books (US) Canadian Manda Group (Canada) Abrams & Chronicle Books (UK) Thames & Hudson (Australia)[1]
Key people	Emma Hayley
Fiction genres	Graphic novels
Imprints	Manga Shakespeare Eye Classics Crime Classics Graphic Biography
Official website	www.selfmadehero.com

SelfMadeHero's books are distributed in the U.S. by Abrams Books.

History

SelfMadeHero was founded in October 2007 by Emma Hayley, and launched with two lines: Manga Shakespeare,[2][3] featuring works based on the Bard but with different settings - mainly Japan in the past and future, and Eye Classics, which are adaptations of great classic works, such as those of Poe and Kafka. In 2008 she won the UK Young Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards.

In 2009 SelfMadeHero expanded to include graphic adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, including Hound of the Baskervilles and Study in Scarlet, and later At The Mountain of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft. It also began publishing the Graphic Biography series with Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, which has further expanded to tell the fascinating life stories of era-defining pop-culture icons such as Hunter S. Thompson and Nick Cave.

Since 2010 SelfMadeHero has been publishing original material, notably Glyn Dillon's The Nao of Brown, The Motherless Oven trilogy by Rob Davis, and LOVECRAFT by I.N.J. Culbard. In 2011 the company received the Kitschies Black Tentacle award.[4]

Bibliography

Manga Shakespeare

The adaptations of Shakespeare's plays were made by Richard Appignanesi (who previously worked on Icon Books' Introducing... series), with the art created by UK-based manga artist who have come to prominence via Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga (United Kingdom & Ireland) competition, their work for Sweatdrop Studios or London manga collective Umisen Yamisen.

Title	Artist	Released	ISBN	Ref
Hamlet	Emma Vieceli	March 2007	ISBN 978-0-9552856-1-5	[5][6]
Romeo and Juliet	Sonia Leong		ISBN 978-0-9552856-0-8
The Tempest	Paul Duffield	September 2007	ISBN 978-0-9552856-0-8
Richard III	Patrick Warren		ISBN 978-0-9552856-3-9
A Midsummer Night's Dream	Kate Brown	February 2008	ISBN 978-0-9552856-4-6
Julius Caesar	Mustashrik	June 2008	ISBN 978-0-9552856-5-3
Macbeth	Robert Deas		ISBN 978-0-9552856-6-0
As You Like It	Chie Kutsuwada	January 2009	ISBN 978-0-9558169-0-1
Othello	Ryuta Osada		ISBN 978-0-9558169-5-6
Henry VIII	Patrick Warren	May 2009	ISBN 978-1-906838-02-7
King Lear	ILYA		ISBN 978-0-9558169-7-0
Much Ado About Nothing	Emma Vieceli		ISBN 978-0-9558169-6-3
The Merchant of Venice	Faye Yong	September 2009	ISBN 978-0-9558169-1-8
Twelfth Night	Nana Li		ISBN 978-0-9558169-9-4

Eye Classics

The creators are drawn from a British comic background (in particular Nevermore) but also include screenwriters and more traditional artists.

Title	Author	Adaptation	Artist	Released	ISBN	Ref
Nevermore (anthology)	Edgar Allan Poe	various		October 2007	ISBN 978-0-9552856-8-4	[7]
The Master and Margarita	Mikhail Bulgakov	Andrzej Klimowski	Danusia Schejbal	May 2008	ISBN 978-0-9552856-7-7
The Trial	Franz Kafka	David Zane Mairowitz	Chantal Montellier	March 2008	ISBN 978-0-9552856-9-1
The Picture of Dorian Gray	Oscar Wilde	Ian Edginton	I. N. J. Culbard	September 2008	ISBN 978-0-9558169-3-2
At the Mountains of Madness	H. P. Lovecraft	I. N. J. Culbard		October 2010	ISBN 978-1-906838-12-6
The Castle	Franz Kafka	David Zane Mairowitz,	Jaromir99	November 2013	ISBN 978-1-906838-67-6
The Shadow Out of Time	H. P. Lovecraft	I. N. J. Culbard			ISBN 978-1906838683
The Man Who Laughs	Victor Hugo	David Hine	Mark Stafford		ISBN 978-1-906838-58-4

Crime Classics

The Crime Classics line began with a set of four adaptations of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, adapted by Ian Edginton, with art by I. N. J. Culbard:

Title	Author	Artist	Released	ISBN	Ref
The Hound of the Baskervilles	Ian Edginton	I. N. J. Culbard	May 2009	ISBN 978-0-9558169-7-0
A Study in Scarlet				ISBN 978-0-9558169-6-3	[8]
The Sign of the Four			September 2009	ISBN 978-0-9558169-1-8
The Valley of Fear				ISBN 978-0-9558169-9-4

Rachel Cooke reviewed A Study in Scarlet for The Observer and concluded:

Culbard and Edginton are adept at concision, leaving out nothing that is crucial and excising much that isn't. I relished every page and thought how this book would be the perfect primer for any child whose parents feel them to be just on the cusp of potential Holmes worship.[9]

Graphic Biography

Title	Author	Artist	Released	ISBN	Ref
Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness	Reinhard Kleist		October 2009	ISBN 0-8109-8463-6	[10]
A Chinese Life	Li Kunwu & Philippe Ôtié	Li Kunwu	July 2012	ISBN 978-1906838553	[11]
Nick Cave: Mercy on Me	Reinhard Kleist		September 2017	ISBN 978-1910593363	[12]

Awards and Nominations

Year	Award	Category	Book	Creator(s)	Result
2013	Angoulême International Comics Festival	Special Jury Prize [13]	The Nao of Brown	Glyn Dillon	Won
2015	British Comic Awards	Best Book [14]	The Motherless Oven	Rob Davis	Won
2016	Eisner Award	Best Graphic Album [15]	Ruins	Peter Kuper	Won
2020	Angoulême International Comics Festival	SNCF Polar Prize 2020 [16]	Tumult	John Harris Dunning & Michael Kennedy	Nominated

See also

• Classical Comics, another new British company producing graphic novel adaptations of great works, including some of the same Shakespeare plays
• Classics Illustrated, a similar venture from the 1940s to 1960s
• Pendulum Press, a similar venture from the 1970s
• Marvel Classics Comics, a similar venture from 1976–1978
• Marvel Illustrated, Marvel Comics imprint adapting classic literature
• Graphic Classics
• The Manga Bible, an adaptation by Siku

Notes

1. "SelfMadeHero". Retrieved 2018-02-11.
2. Manga Hamlet by The Bard?, BBC Radio Cambs, March 9, 2007
3. Shakespeare gets comic treatment, BBC, May 11, 2007
4. "The 2011 Kitschies, presented by The Kraken Rum". 4 February 2012. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
5. Manga Hamlet by The Bard?, BBC Radio Cambs, March 9, 2007
6. Shakespeare gets comic treatment, BBC, May 11, 2007
7. Review of Nevermore, The Guardian, November 17, 2007
8. Cooke, Rachel (March 28, 2010). "A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard". The Observer. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
9. Cooke, Rachel (March 28, 2010). "A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard". The Observer. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
10. Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist, The Guardian, October 24, 2009
11. A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu & Philippe Ôtié, The Guardian, October 12, 2012
12. Nick Cave: Mercy on Me by Reinhard Kleist, The Guardian, September 21, 2017
13. "Dillon wins Best Book at Comic Awards". 28 Nov 2013. Retrieved 28 Nov 2013.
14. "British Comic Awards announces 2015 winners". 14 Nov 2015. Retrieved 14 Nov 2015.
15. "John Lewis's 'March', Peter Kuper's 'Ruins' Win Eisner Awards". 23 July 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
16. "Prix SNCF du Polar 2020". 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.

References

• Self Made Hero at the Grand Comics Database
• Self Made Hero at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)

External links

• Official website