The Great Beyond

by Lea Murawiec, Aleshia Jensen (Translator)

Overview

How would you live with nothing but your name?

Manel Naher wants out. In a world where your name is currency, it’s tough to make ends meet. It’s even tougher when you share a name with a rising pop star. The city is unbearable—endless high-rises, social climbers left and right, and nothing but names as far as the eye can see. But Manel is looking a little bit farther, just beyond the horizon, and she’s even convinced her buddy Ali of how much more could be lying in wait right outside city limits.

When a sudden heart attack induced by diminished name recognition foils Manel’s plans, gradual change becomes a catalyst for a complete lifestyle overhaul. This stylish, absurd comedy of contemporary manners skewers the human condition in persistent self-promo. Sharp, architectural lines are accented by decisively mellow hues, building a humorously grim world unexpectedly bathed in nothing but light.

An exciting debut from a fresh perspective, The Great Beyond showcases newcomer Léa Murawiec’s command of comics language and satirizes a sprawling metropolis, its politics, and its extraordinary inhabitants.

Translated by Aleshia Jensen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770466777
Publisher:	Drawn & Quarterly
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Pages:	204
Sales rank:	1,057,735
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 10.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Léa Murawiec is an avid manga fan who began making her own comics at a very young age. She studied graphic design at the École Estienne and later shifted her focus to comics at the École européenne supérieure de l’image in Angoulême. She is the co-founder of Éditions Flutiste, an independent small press spotlighting emerging cartoonists.

Editorial Reviews

10/23/2023

Self-promotion is a life-or-death proposition in Murawiec’s English-language debut, an exhilarating satire of celebrity and the attention economy that bursts with pop sensibility. In an absurdist metropolitan dystopia choked with signs and billboards bearing citizens’ names, lonely people aren’t just forgotten. They lose their corporeal form and die. Manel Naher’s low-key routine of bookstore browsing and chats over noodles with her one good friend (“I can’t wait to get out of this city full of maniacs,” she bemoans) gets a gut check when a new release by a singer with the same name becomes a hit (and is titled “My Name’s on Everybody’s Lips,” no less). The nonfamous Manel suffers a heart attack because her “presence was almost non-existent” in the wake of the pop sensation Manel’s success. A breathless, Kafkaesque quest to enhance her public “presence” takes Manel from doctors to discos to desperation as she wonders if the eponymous “great beyond”—which refers to the uncharted verdant frontier beyond the city limits—is free of the elaborate economy built on name recognition. Murawiec renders her cartoon figures with a rubbery, Gumby-ish dynamism; Manel charges into each panel with brash determination, her ponytail floating mid-bounce. Both a briskly paced adventure story and an unsettling send-up of digital-age branding and narcissism, this introduces a bold stylist due for a little name recognition herself. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

An exquisite read. One of the most inventive graphic novels I’ve seen in years. It will make you think about your name, the names of your loved ones, and what that means for a long time to come.” —Tillie Walden, Are You Listening? and the Clementine series

“A truly inspiring debut. The ideas are as provocative as they are playful. The cartooning is exquisite and exhilarating. I read it in absolute awe.” —Ezra Claytan Daniels, Upgrade Soul and BTTM FDRS

“Packed full of visual ideas, as well as some great, loopy showstoppers. The Good Stuff.” —Michael DeForge, Birds of Maine

“[The Great Beyond] is that rarest of achievements for an author - a spellbindingly original debut that delivers on an annoyingly brilliant premise.” —The Irish Times, Best Graphic Novels of 2023

“An exhilarating satire of celebrity and the attention economy that bursts with pop sensibility.” —Publishers Weekly

“A thoroughly compelling work.” —Words Without Borders

“There’s barely a page of this book that doesn’t scintillate with enough imagery and ideas to fill its own fictional universe... The Great Beyond proves Léa Murawiec is a name worth remembering.” —Irish Times

“This graphic novel promises a biting commentary with absurd comedy.” —Book Riot

“The Great Beyond is a captivating exploration of our modern interconnected society.” —BlogCritics

“As a satire of the internet age, it’s powerfully effective… But what really makes the book special is Murawiec’s excellent visual sensibilities.” —The Comics Journal

From the Publisher