Synopses & Reviews
Before Jules Verneand#8217;s flying machines and H. G. Wellsand#8217;s spaceships, there was Frank Reade, globe-trotting inventor and original steampunk hero.
Frank Reade magazines were the worldand#8217;s first science fiction periodicals, enthralling millions of readers with tales of fantastic inventions and adventures. Now many of the spectacular images from the vintage dime novel series are being reprinted for the first time in more than a century, along with excerpts from the action-packed stories. In
Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, this lost legacy of Americana is interwoven with a biography of the "real" Reade familyand#8212;inventors and explorers who traveled the world with their helicopter airships, submarines, and robots, and who encountered figures like Geronimo and Houdini. This epic saga is brought to life in the multimedia style of the authorsand#8217; previous volume, the critically acclaimed
Boilerplate: Historyand#8217;s Mechanical Marvel.
Frank Reade is partand#8211;science fiction, partand#8211;alternate history, and entirely exciting!
Praise for Frank Reade:
and#160;and#8220;A retrofuturist visual feast.and#8221; and#8212;Wall Street Journal
and#8220;A stunning multimedia confection of the highest order that creates a detailed and delightful world.and#8221; and#8212;Publishers Weekly
and#8220;The bookand#8217;s allure owes everything to its deadpan prose and hundreds of perfectly faked photos and graphics that replicate mass-media and commercial ephemera of the Victorian eraand#8212;the result of immersive research.and#8221; and#8212;TheAtlantic.comand#160;
and#8220;Portland-based Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett are a husband-and-wife team of multimedia artists who have produced a variety of work. . . . Their new book, Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention, is their best work yet.and#8221; and#8212;io9.com
Synopsis
In this meticulously researched and fantastically pictorialized volume, Frank Reade and his peerless progeny are brought to life in all their globetrotting escapades with amazing electric airships, submarines, and robots, as well as historical figures like Houdini and Geronimo. Frank Reade did exist, but only in the pages of 19th-century dime novels. While the authors have completely re-imagined and enriched those tales into a family biography, they have also restored the incredible original engravings—most of which havent been seen in print in more than a century—and now present these lost pieces of Americana alongside their own creatively realized imagery.
Part science fiction and part alternate history, Frank Reade is equally as imaginative as the authors previous epic volume, Boilerplate (which Publishers Weekly called “a tour de force”), and presents an even more rollicking narrative.
About the Author
Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett have been collaborating on comics and graphic novels since 1989, including the Eisner Awardand#8211;nominated science-fiction comic series Heartbreakers and the critically acclaimed Boilerplate. They live in Portland, Oregon.