Manchester artist, Peterloo Memorial campaigner and regular Ethical Consumer cartoonist
'Polyp' dedicates his new cartoon book to the victims of Peterloo.
Inspired by the story of Manchester's infamous massacre of pro democracy campaigners, radical cartoonist Polyp has written a never-previously-attempted work of cartoon magic, condensing the whole of world history into a visual and completely wordless narrative.
Using a bold 'graphic esperanto' in the place of conventional word bubbles, Speechless aims to speak directly to the reader regardless of their native language, giving it a unique international appeal.
Speechless (aka Sans paroles / Sin palabras) invites the reader to see the history of our world through fresh eyes as characters living on its miniature version of our planet sweep through a journey from the stone age to the present day - and into a future the readers themselves are
asked to create...
Example pages from the book can be seen here on the Speechless website, along with a behind-the-scenes look at how it was drawn and a history of how he got it published.
In keeping with it's radical origins, SPEECHLESS examines the often untold stories of the long and continuing struggle for justice, equality and democracy, and the post-industrial forces threatening to bring the story of human civilization to an abrupt end.
Says Polyp:
“I guess I've always been fascinated by the idea of the miniature - the concept that when we look at something from a distance we start to see it in a new way... And of course that's almost a summary of humanity's evolving view of the planet.
"Very slowly, over the centuries, we've come to see the bigger and bigger picture, culminating
in our species' first-ever view of the 'whole earth'. This is why the Apollo moon mission has such a prominent place in the story, and partly why the book ends with that very image - the most reproduced in the history of photography...”
The Manchester book launch is Friday August 7 at 8pm in Sand Bar, 120 Grosvenor
Square, Manchester.
The speechless website is at www.speechlessthebook.org