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Bryan Talbot Has A Confession To Make About Grandville: Force Majeure

Published Wed, 15 Nov 2017 04:00:08 -0600

Today sees the launch of Grandville: Force Majeure , the final Grandville graphic novel by Bryan Talbot. But there's a problem. Bryan writes

I've a confession – there is a big mistake in the book.

I'd done my best to make this as good as I could. I saw it as not only a huge homage to the detective genre, but also hoped that the plot would be an intricate piece of clockwork that was as near perfect as I could make it. And it was. This is the galling thing about it. After all the time I'd taken thinking over every aspect of the story, it was finished, complete and at the printers. Then I received a set of proofs to ok, with a note from the production manager that, if I wanted to make any changes, they needed doing immediately, before it went to press. Looking through, I saw a place that worked perfectly well, but I decided to make a point clearer and rewrote a sentence. It did make the point I wanted but, in rewriting the sentence, I inadvertently made ONE word the opposite of what it should have been. There's probably a word for this. It's exactly the sort of stupid mistake I make when answering emails too quickly while working. When I saw it in the advance copy I received, my heart nearly stopped. I felt physically ill for a week.

It's fixed now, the files have been replaced with the original text for future editions and the digital version, but it remains in this first edition. I'm hoping that readers get so caught up in the story that they'll just not notice. What I'd like to know is if any of you spotted it. Please let me know if you did.

You know what? I didn't. I was swept along by the narrative…

A gallery of the original artwork from Force Majeure is on display at Orbital Comics into December, and Bryan Talbot is signing copies today. See you there?