Ricardo Cavolo is a world-renowned Spanish artist whose artwork has been on display everywhere from Moscow to Montreal. He has completed artwork for Absolut Vodka, the Glastonbury Festival (UK), Urban Outfitters (France, Germany, England), Nike, FC Barcelona, and Fox Sports Mexico.
Scott McClanahan is the acclaimed and award-winning author of Crapalachia, The Sarah BookHill William, and The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan: Volume 1. The Washington Post has called McClanahan's work "the genuine article."
"The comic book is the perfect medium -- collaborative, visual, and
verbal -- to explore the power of art to connect people in spite /
because of extenuating circumstances like mental illness. It's
magical to see Johnston's art reverberate between Cavolo and
McClanahan as they wrestle with these questions like (to choose a
metaphor Johnston might appreciate) Jacob wrestling with God."
--Lauren O'Neal, Los Angeles Review of Books"[The Incantations of
Daniel Johnston] captures Johnston's visions--both artistic and
hallucinatory--in an intensely colorful cartoonish style and vivid
recurring images: frogs, cascades of pills, volcanoes, eyeballs of
many varieties."
--John Williams, New York Times Book Review"Brilliant and
tragic."
--Nathan Scott McNamara, Electric Literature"Fans of Daniel
Johnston and his lo-fi, enigmatic music will devour this retelling
of Johnston's humble beginnings, his rise to fame, and his personal
demons. While the prose appears sparse it delves into the
problematic mythologizing of troubled artists and how we are guilty
of turning mental health conditions into clichés."
--Maggy van Eijk, BuzzFeed News"A self-referential story that
acknowledges the odd ways that society constructs culture and
celebrity and how hard it can be to fully capture a life,
especially when that person is famous, or "cult famous," as the
case may be. But as McClanahan and Cavolo struggle to show the
heart of a man who himself struggles to make art and live his life,
they show their hearts as well--big, red, and beating.
--Laura Adamczyk, The A.V. Club"This blend of music, biography,
art, and mental illness belongs in collections with similar works
such as Ellen Forney's Marbles and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home."
--Library Journal"Amazing... a perfect, intuitive blend of fellow
fanatics with perspective. Both the writing and the artwork
shine."
--Simon Sweetman, STUFF"The Incantations of Daniel Johnston bears
some similarities to the work of French artist David B. as well as
R. Crumb's shorter work about the religious visions of Philip K.
Dick."
--Martin Schneider, Dangerous Minds"Something wholly unexpected,
grotesque, and poignant--a deeply idiosyncratic biographical
project that is less interested in chronology and reported details
than in the attendant horrors and anxieties of childhood, mental
health, and creativity."
--Will Stephenson, The Fader"You've never read anything like The
Incantations of Daniel Johnston, a poetic, frenetic dive through
the mind of the singer/songwriter, using it as a filter through
which the larger strokes of his life are presented. What results is
unstable, sympathetic, confused, and damned. As graphic novel
biographies go, this one excels, using all the possibilities of its
subject to shape the narrative execution, and to skillfully inform
the meat of the text, and the themes that it addresses."
--John Seven, Comics Beat"If there's a cultural ambassador to
Appalachia at this moment, it very well may be West Virginian
writer Scott McClanahan. McClanahan's latest work, The Incantations
of Daniel Johnston, is a graphic novel about the life of Daniel
Johnston, the influential outsider rock musician and artist also
from West Virginia. Like the accompanying images provided by
Spanish artist Ricardo Cavolo, McClanahan's prose is intoxicating,
taking care to detail magnificent anecdotes from Johnston's life
while simultaneously shedding light on ineffable notions like
culture, psychology and fame."
--Dan Mistich, Salon"Stunning... spirited and dark and sweet and
sad. Reading The Incantations of Daniel Johnston makes the reader
feel less alone, makes us feel connected to the vivid beauty and
torment that underpins the human experience. McClanahan and Cavolo
have managed to generate something spectacular."
--Kimberly King Parsons, Fanzine"Written by McClanahan and
illustrated by Ricardo Cavolo, [The Incantations of Daniel
Johnston] explores music, mental illness, and art. There is humor
but also real pain, provided by Johnston's difficult story as well
as McClanahan's powerful narration. It's a loose biography, a
history imagined."
--Phil McCausland, The A.V. Club"Chronicling the life and art of
cult musician like Daniel Johnston was never going to be an easy
task. The approach chosen by collaborators Cavolo and McClanahan
marries vividly surreal art with McClanahan's stylized prose-a
singular combination to evoke a singular artist."
--Vol. 1 Brooklyn (best non-fiction of 2016 [so far])"It's
gorgeous. It's weird. It's dark and full of devils."
--Susie Rodarme, Book Riot"No tribute has been closer to the spirit
of Johnston than a new graphic novel, The Incantations of Daniel
Johnston [which] manages to pay homage to the legend of Johnston
without romanticizing his mental illness. The illustrations by
Cavolo, a Spanish artist, are inspired by folk and devotional art,
so they elevate Johnston and his figurative creations to the realm
of the mystical and the mysterious. Cavolo has effectively created
Saint Daniel, but it is a complicated path to sainthood."
--Leah Caldwell, Texas Observer"McClanahan pays due respect to
Johnston's genius while casting a less mythical or overly
inspirational light on his struggles."
--Amy Diegelman, Book Riot"What McClanahan and Cavolo accomplished
can only be called magic and holds the same bizarre power as
Johnston's voice, scrunched face, and shaky hands whenever he's not
holding a guitar. [The Incantations of Daniel Johnston is] a weird,
heartbreaking, deeply personal piece of art that will hopefully
become as much a part of Daniel Johnston's story as the iconic
mural he left in Austin."
--Gabino Iglesias, Vol. 1 Brooklyn"Beautiful and original."
--Michael Schaub, Men's Journal"Cavolo's art is lush, cartoonish,
and red, red, red--the better to illustrate Johnston's giant heart
and big, big love for all the girls in his life who already have
boyfriends. [The Incantations of Daniel Johnston] acknowledges the
odd ways that society constructs culture and celebrity and how hard
it can be to fully capture a life, especially when that person is
famous, or "cult famous," as the case may be. But as McClanahan and
Cavolo struggle to show the heart of a man who himself struggles to
make art and live his life, they show their hearts as well--big,
red, and beating."
--The A.V. Club"Astounding... as beautiful and heartbreaking,
dazzling and giddy as you would expect a brilliant comic-book
freestyle biography of Daniel Johnston would be. The love and
affection for their subject is matched by a subtly keen dissection
of the ways we mythologize troubled artists and mental
illness."
--Michael Cerveris, Magnet Magazine"Mesmerizing, equal parts
ebullient and ecstatic as it is frightening and tragic. Cavolo's
playfully psychedelic illustrations and McClanahan's
dizzyingly-hallucinatory and infectious prose work together to
forge a dark alchemy that summons Daniels' angels and demons, that
reaches deep into his mythos both for inspiration and to
debunk."
--Fanzine"Like an acid-laced children's book, The Incantations of
Daniel Johnston follows the course of the musician's life with a
hallucinatory reverence, before departing into the happy,
beautiful, life filled with love that could have been for Johnston.
McClanahan's prose over Cavolo's stunning illustrations left me
welling with tears."
--Lindsay MaHarry, The Skeeve"[Cavolo's] illustrations look a bit
like tattoos, a bit like comic book drawings (if a sixth grader had
done them . . . but a sixth grader with an MFA). McClanahan makes
bold, funny, and true statements about the nature of culture, the
history of art, success, psychology, et cetera. [The Incantations
of Daniel Johnston] is very good."
--Jamie Iredell, ARTS ATL"Tragic, beautiful, funny, an intensely
sad portrait of the unfortunate life of a complex artist. Like all
of McClanahan's work, there is humor, pathos and an intimate
understanding of how difficult it can be just to live a life, this
time punctuated by the colorful, strange and somehow movie art of
Ricardo Cavolo."
--Justin Souther, Malaprop's Bookstore"The best cover of the year.
Sorry to all other books that are out in 2016, this thing is just
glorious."
--Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn"Even without hearing a note of
Johnston's music, The Incantations of Daniel Johnston
captivates."
--Nathan Thomas, The Parthenon"The Incantations of Daniel Johnston
is part fiction, part factual, all madness."
--Joni Deutsch, West Virginia Public Broadcasting"Whether or not
you know anything about Daniel Johnston, this dazzling graphic
novel will beseige your consciousness with colors so vivid they
threaten--at any moment--to dribble from the page in warm spats
like blood."
--William Grabowski, The Night Run"[Cavolo's] bright and bold
creations--usually made with traditional techniques and materials
such as watercolors, inks and acrylics--depict misfit characters in
Frida Kahlo-esque folk art tones and bring 'em into a contemporary
context with cool details like glasses, tattoos, bikes and dope
shoes."
--Shelley Jones, Huck Magazine"[McClanahan is] the Poet Laureate of
Real America."
Nick Moran, --The Millions
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