Martin Rowson – författare

In Martin Rowson's "The Waste Land", private detective Chris Marlowe is tasked with getting to the bottom of the most impenetrable of all modernist mysteries: namely T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland". Cunningly contrived, this irreverent graphic parody is inspired in equal parts by the classic modernist poem and by the American noir novels of Raymond Chandler. Marlowe, searching for his dead partner's killers, is lured into a web of murder, deceit, lust, despair, and, of course, a frantic quest for the Holy Grail. Doped, duped, pistol-whipped, framed by the cops, and going nowhere fast, Marlowe enters a nightmare world where Robert Frost, Norman Mailer, and Edmund Wilson drink in the gloom of a London pub; where Auden is glimpsed entering the men's room; where Henry James, Aldous Huxley, and Richard Wagner share an ice cream aboard a Thames pleasure steamer; and where, out of luck and out of clues, Marlowe finally tracks down T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Available again for the first time in a decade, this is an unforgettably strange trip through modern literature with one of Britain's best writers and illustrators.

A few months after two of his parents had died, Martin Rowson had a dream about the house he grew up in which was crammed with tons and tons of stuff, both physical and emotional. In this book Rowson delves into all that 'stuff'; weaving together dreams, family anecdotes and gossip, jokes, advice, history, smells, sounds and sights of the past. The result is a funny, thought-provoking and ultimately moving meditation on families, life, love, disease and the existentialist horrors of clearing out the attic.

'As with dogs, so with gods - by and large, you should blame the owners.'A particular trait, common to all human civilisations, is the worship of non-human entities with followings of devotees who claim that their reverence can transport them to transcendental heights of complete and unfettered love.Do we mean God? No - we mean Dog. Dogs and other pets we've been keeping and loving since we began walking on two feet. But why do we love God - and pets - so much when their capriciousness sometimes suggests that they don't love us back?In this wise, witty and highly topical book, celebrated cartoonist and novelist Martin Rowson argues that rationally, the whole enterprise of religion is a monumental and faintly ridiculous waste of time and money. But then again, so is pet-keeping.

A stocking-fodder sensation of classic Christmas carols told through the brilliantly British medium of pun, by the internationally renowned Guardian cartoonist, Martin Rowson.Carol Carnage takes the first verse and chorus line of five world-famous carols and renders them into stunning pen-and-ink puns, brimming with English eccentricity, invention and Christmas-crackerly bawdiness. Whether it is the frosty beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter maliciously misheard as the vomit-spackled Ian the Greek,Mid-wine Tour or the trumpeting joy of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen spitefully styled as a husband and wife drunkenly heckling one another in Got Dressed Yet Mary? Gin Till Morn!, the internationally renowned cartoonist Martin Rowson unrepentantly takes aim at po-faced carol enthusiasts and dangerously earnest Christmassers the world over.

British satirist and cartoonist Martin Rowson’s acerbic chronicles of the evolution—or rather, regression—of politics in the last two decades.In 1997, on top of his regular visual contributions to the Tribune, Martin Rowson—the veteran mouthpiece of the Left of the British Labour Party—started writing a monthly column in the paper’s “As I Please” section, which was George Orwell’s slot fifty years earlier. Through his columns, Rowson chronicled the changing tides and tsunamis in the current political scene, documenting the rise of nationalism and the right-wing in these prescient musings. Over the next two decades, he pondered everything—the ideological battles inside Labour, the psychopathology of the Tory Party, the London Zoo, the British class system, Doctor Who, terrorism—and anything else that came to mind a day or so before the deadline.Here, for the first time, a selection of these columns has been collected alongside Rowson’s other textual journalism, from tiny underground magazines in the United States to contributions to the Guardian, the Independent, and many other mainstream publications, on subjects ranging from the Charlie Hebdo massacre to his favorite books.

Tolerated in Britain for over 300 years-and ubiquitous throughout the world for much longer - visual satire gives offence in the quickest way and in its purest form. Cartoons have long since established themselves as a legitimate part of the general political discourse. As a cartoonist, it is Rowson's job to give offence. But the flip side of giving offence is, of course, giving comfort to the opponents or victims of the offended. In "Giving Offence", Rowson explains how and why cartoons work, why they matter and why the reactions of the offended are often an even blunter political weapon than the cartoons themselves. This book is in collaboration with "Index on Censorship".

Since 2010, Martin Rowson has been documenting the highs and lows – mainly the lows – of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition week after week in The Guardian, as well as in The Morning Star, Tribune and many other publications.This book collects Rowson’s best, most brutally funny, cartoons from a period that began with a “big, open, comprehensive offer” to Nick Clegg, continued on through riots, phone-hacking, double-dip recession, and endless debates on Europe, and will end (perhaps) with the general election in 2015. Accompanied by witty explanatory text, The Coalition Book takes a biting satirical look at Cameron and Clegg’s first – and perhaps last – five years in charge. The book contains a foreword by Will Self.

Pollsters called it a foregone conclusion. Columnists said Theresa May’s snap general election wouldn’t just return her a thumping majority in the House of Commons – it would plunge the opposition into existential crisis. For Labour MPs, concerns about “job security” in an age of zero-hours contracts suddenly felt uncomfortably close to home. And then something happened. Momentum got to work. Grime4Corbyn gathered steam. Clicktivists were transformed into door-knocking, flag-waving activists. Soon, a familiar chant – “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” – was reverberating around football stadiums and venues across the country. All this while Theresa turned Maybot and the Conservatives released a manifesto that looked bad for people and even worse for animals. Featuring work by many of the UK’s best-known cartoonists, including Martin Rowson, Steve Bell and Stephen Collins, The Corbyn Comic Book captures the qualities, quirks and flaws of a man whose startling rise to prominence has been the defining story of 2017. He didn’t win, but he did cause a political earthquake. Corbynmania is a thing now – and so is Comix4Corbyn.

Hans Holbein’s 16th-century masterpiece, The Dance of Death, reminds its readers that no one, no matter their rank or position, can escape the great leveller, Death. In a foreboding series of woodcuts, Death, depicted as a skeleton, intrudes on the lives of people from every level of society, from the sailor to the judge, the ploughman to the king. By highlighting our common fate, Holbein exposes the folly of greed and ambition, and in doing so brings a corrupt and callous elite crashing back down to earth.In this darkly satirical update, Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson sharpens and reshapes Holbein’s vision for the 21st century. Death seizes the City banker by his braces and offers a light to the oligarch; it joins the surgeon in theatre and the Hollywood star on the red carpet. Filled with wit and doom-laden drama, Martin Rowson’s The Dance of Death is a masterful reimagining of a book which, in its uncompromising treatment of the rich and powerful, paved the way for the great, levelling craft of political cartooning.