metaphrog, the Franco-Scottish duo have been releasing comics and graphic novels since 1996, first serialising Strange Weather Lately and The Maze.
Their current Louis series have received multiple Eisner and Ignatz award nominations, Scottish Arts Council support and critical acclaim worldwide.
Their latest multimedia project Louis - Dreams Never Die, a graphic novel with music by hey and múm, and featuring a special online Louis animation, was released in association with FatCat Records.
They are currently working on a new Louis book.
Louis in the press:"metaphrog have produced three books about the most adorable character, Louis - Red Letter Day, Louis - Lying to Clive and Louis - The Clown's Last Words..."
Julie Burchill in The Guardian
'metaphrog's deep story will have readers contemplating its images and events long after they've reached the final page.'
Publishers Weekly
'An indispensable bedside book, to plunge into as in a dream.'
Libération
' Franco-Scottish duo metaphrog use simple designs and storytelling techniques to make the reader think about the role imagination has for the "average Joe" making his way through the daily grind. Metaphrog give their work the feel of a great children's book. Louis himself is cut from the same cloth as Charlie Brown and Jimmy Corrigan...'
The Comics Journal
"Louis - Dreams Never Die is their most satisfying, poetic work to date."
The Herald
"A delightful all-ages tale of Louis' quest for adventure, Louis - Red Letter Day is the sort of comic book that draws you into its world. It's a distinctive work, fully envisioned and not in the least imitative,and has the potential of becoming a children's classic."
Comics Buyer's Guide
"Imagine an alternate universe - let's call it Metaphrogland - where there is no distinction betweenstories for children and those for adults... Metaphrog has crafted something unique, uncompromising, and greater than the sum of its parts.
If only more comics were so genuinely transporting."Rain Taxi Review of books
" Maybe it's the palette that makes the Louis series look as though it's meant for kids. Louis is an unassuming worker with a head like a potato who lives with his pet bird. But Metaphrog, the Glasgow-based duo behind the books, have weighted Louis's world with a few dystopian twists. His bird's name is Formulaic Companion; his post is monitored; and in one episode he's questioned about his knowledge of 'the underground'. Poor Louis is also saddled with existential woes. 'Why do I feel so hollow?' he asks the Comforter, a machine in his house that dispenses answers for cash. ('Because you haven't been watching your entertainment centre enough' is the reply.) Louis dreams of escape, but his plans are constantly foiled by the forces at work around him..."
The Guardian
"An insinuating, multi-levelled fable for our disconnected age."
Paul Gravett in The Comics Journal
" Strange, disturbing, allegorical... Louis, and his caged bird FC, take you into a world that is at once utterly strange and alarmingly familiar. In a quirky, highly imaginative and quite surreal way, themes of surveillance, social control, exploitation, consumerism and punishment are explored. Ostensibly a children'scartoon book, its subtlehumour and sinister quality will appeal to all ages, while unassuming, slightly melancholic hero, Louis, is just totally heartwarming.
Beware: this stuff isprobably addictive."New Internationalist
"With squibs for eyes and delicately inked circles for nose and mouth, Louis' reduced features magically express a life spent daydreaming, writing letters to possibly fictional aunts and reading signs that say 'you look like a potato'. Infused with shadowless light and written in precisely elusive balloons, Louis - Red Letter Day is a seriously spaced enigma from Metaphrog aka Glaswegian cult artists John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs. Like nothing else around."
Kodwo Eshun in i-D
"...Louis - Red Letter Day is disturbingly wonderful; you don't want to miss out on this book. Trust me when I say this is the book that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time."
www.icomics.com
"Luminescent and haunting illustrations add to the surreal feel of a magical modernist mystery with implicit 1984-style warning which repays repeated readings..."
The School Librarian
"A truly wonderful piece of storytelling. Go on, treat yourself!"
Comics International
'Louis, we love you.'
SFX
"I'm sure you remember Curious George, that cute little monkey who's curiosity would always get him in and out of trouble as he turned the simplest of tasks into the most wonderful of adventures. Alright. Now take that little guy and place him inside The Village, the Orwellian setting of Patrick McGoohan's cult classic, The Prisoner, and you've got LOUIS, one of the most intriguing children's worlds in literature today. Louis is a rotund little fellow with a round head and a button nose that lives in a strange hamlet where mysterious parties monitor everyone.
He toils all day on weird machines, and plays with a clockwork bird. He dreams of adventure and a life beyond the daily tedium of the village, if only he could escape its borders. One day, Louis decides to express his ambitions to his Aunt Alison in the form of a letter.
They begin to correspond, back and forth, with each new missive rekindling his desire for freedom.
Is Aunt Alison the key to Louis' escape, or is she simply another machination of his mysterious wardens? Metaphrog, the creators of LOUIS, are actually a duo hailing from Scotland that broke into comics with a number of very sophisticated and surreal thrillers.
LOUIS is their first foray into children's books and they've been able to successfully translate that strange energy to something
equally inspirational, as it is fascinating. And with its vibrant art and painted colors, this is truly a special book.
LOUIS is simply something that must be seen to be believed."Peter Siegel in Artbomb
" A supposed children's story, this blackly humorous adventure comments on social structure and routine in a devilishly cute/sinister manner, amusing both juveniles and dodderers alike..."
sleazenation
" Franco-Scottish husband-and-wife team Metaphrog are working wonders with material that hovers in the borderland between children's and adult fiction, that shadowy neutral zone where the young can see dim reflections of their own maturity and the old can regain briefglimpses of the insights of vanished youth.
Which is a highfalutin' way of rewriting the cliché "for kids of all ages". Louis - Lying To Clive is a dark treat for kids of all ages.
Read it. "James Lovegrove in Alien Online
" Louis - Red Letter Day, the weirdest thing to come out of Glasgow for a long, long time, has "cult" written all over it [...] Metaphrog paint a world of pastel coloured protagonists with dull lives, living in the despair of 1984 or Brazil. Lonely Soul will empathise. Others will sympathise. Children - ostensibly the main audience of this work - will be baffled but, hopefully, charmed.
A comic that belies its simple exterior, with intelligent and cynical dialogue. Read it when things look bleak, and you're guaranteed to end up smiling."Jayne Dearsley in SFX
"This self published comic strip is something of a phenomenon; the Glasgow based Metaphrog received two Eisner Award nominations for the first instalment of Louis' adventures, (Louis Red Letter Day) those of Best New Graphic Album and Best Title for a Younger Audience. This latter seems a little odd to me, in that Louis's adventures are dark to the point of being unsettling, and so cryptic and downright weird at times that I suspect any child picking up this book will go away with fractured minds …Coming on like a children's Absurdist primer, this charming but uncomfortable little book will amuse and disturb you. Oblique, sinister and cute in equal measure."
FLUX
"The cult of Franco-Scottish artists that make up Metaphrog have been producing comics since 1996...Their latest effort, Louis - Lying to Clive charts the continuing troubles of life for Louis and his friend as they set out, along with saucer-eyed accomplice Clive, to discover the secret of the Bee-Hive...Louis - Lying to Clive is a darkly humorous tale of a search for excitement beyond the mundane boundaries of every day life. Masquerading as a magical children's story Louis - Lying to Clive amuses and bemuses in equal measures."
mosquito magazine
"Beginning a new story from the surreal yet unnervingly real world of Martin Nitram." So states the fine print on Strange Weather Lately's back cover. Surreal/real; Martin/Nitram. Mirrored images. This tale, or act, rather, deals with shifting weather patterns in the human condition. Suspicion. Depression. Frustration. Confusion.Loss of identity and self-worth. The simple conversation that can inexplicably bring forth suppressed memory. Fear. Loss of control. Mystery. It's all here, flowing effortlessly back and forth between the dozen characters that inhabit this moving, brooding twenty-one page black and white chapter. I don't know where this story is heading, but I'm glad I'm along for the ride [...] It's a play within a play, real emotions at conflict with acting sensibility, high drama on the outskirts of affairs of the heart. Strange weather, indeed, but I feel it's only the calm before the storm [...] this comic lingers with you long after you set it down, and bears several rereadings."
Review of Strange Weather Lately in Comic Effect
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