The Porcupine's Quill

A story of travail and triumph, Mark Huebner’s wordless novel Let Go follows a laid-off ad man struggling to carry the deadweight of his past as he labours through a blizzard toward an unknown future.

‘The mesmerizing linocuts communicate Hall’s unstoppable will to live and prove that while a picture is worth a thousand words, it is also worth a thousand emotions.’

—Maria Siassina, This Magazine

Jarrett Heckbert's Metamorphadox is a wordless novel in which wood engravings tell a story of the perils of technological mediation to the ever-evolving human existence.

‘Trudeau's personality and charisma leap from these pages. Infused by his energy and Walker's skill, Trudeau: La Vie en Rose proves a resounding success.’

—Peter Dabbene, Foreword Reviews

‘The Wordless Leonard Cohen Songbook demands close and careful viewing. In this, it is like cinema, or the photographic work of a Richard Avedon or Diane Arbus. Each image is full, suggestive and rich in context and style.’

—Norman Ravvin, The Canadian Jewish News

‘Hemingway said the old man is an old man and the sea is the sea. Joseph Campbell said the mother goddess is a universal archetype. Steven McCabe made an image of an apple and it started a war.

‘Never More Together can be a fun wordless story or it can be viewed again and again as an allegory of the desire to dominate and the corruption of desire—from the Genesis creation myth to the power of modern protest and social communication.’

—Pierre L’Abbé

‘By eschewing words, Walker's woodcuts are allowed to stand as simple and powerful gestures to a life story that any amount of words would be unable to tell in any case.... These images are, as Tom Smart's closing essay suggests, a kind of text in themselves, and they tell a story that is truly compelling, even and especially if it is a story that requires us to contribute more than usual to its telling.’

—Jeremy Luke Hill

‘The book does not want to be put down; instead the reader, the observer, re-engages again and again, returning to read into the images a story that eludes understanding just as understanding seems to elude stories without words. This is a book for the shade on a bright summer day.’

—Mandelbrot, Geist

‘Walker has summoned the retrospective tension that exists for many after greeting the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 without a specific regard to personal safety, terrorism, or the rupture of simple daily ritual.’

—Rachel Farquharson, Huffington Post

‘Wanderlust unites book nerds and punking adolscents alike.... Megan Speers' setting down of the story contradicts the impermanence of youth and of the “Packsack People,” for whom the book is dedicated. It’s this juxtaposition, “visualizing a time and place that is not long on recorded history” as it’s put in the foreword, that elevates this simple story for reflection and careful interpretation.’

—Salon

‘While “reading” what amounts to a high-art picture book for adults can be dislocating, it is also very rewarding; Back+Forth sets out to probe readers’ understandings of narrative and character, and does it well.’

—Patty Comeau, ForeWord Reviews

‘Berg has done a dandy job of recreating the whole march, from its gleaming beginning to the cornet player’s falling collapse into the dark hole of madness.... For all the book’s dark content, a smart refreshing breeze wafts from its pages, the result of a lovely combo of artistic and bookmaking craft. Well done.’

—Dan Smith, Toronto Star