Dragman

Fans of Steven Appleby's brilliant cartoons know already of their unique energy... All the same, his first long-form graphic novel, Dragman, will surely bring him massed armies of new admirers. Funny, sweet and emotionally true, it doesn't so much tip toe on to fraught cultural territory as dance wildly across it. In this sense, at least, it has the added virtue of being at once both wildly transgressive and powerfully reassuring... Appleby has torn up all the rules, and not only those that dictate, at this point in the 21st century, that a person's identity must be clearly labelled, pinned down like some dead butterfly... It's all marvellous fun. Rachel Cooke Observer *Graphic Novel of the Month*