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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'He Died With a Felafel in His Hand was first published in 1994 and introduced literary grunge to young Australians. After a slow start it became a cult and then a bestseller, selling over 100,000 copies and being turned into a film starring Noah Taylor. The book went on to achieve international success, and the original edition is still selling well.
'To celebrate the tenth edition of this phenomenon, John Birmingham suggested a comic edition, drawn by a young artist he met at a Brisbane reading. Ryan Vella is another young Queensland genius. His version of the book, which retains every one of its lines, will entertain old readers and bring it alive for new ones.' (Publication summary)
Notes
-
A comic book based on John Birmingham's 1994 publication He Died with a Felafel in His Hand. The text has been re-arranged into chronological order and some scenes have been omitted.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Related Works
-
y
He Died with a Felafel in His Hand : Hilarious True Stories of Share House Accommodation in Australia in the 1990's
Darlinghurst
:
Yellow Press
,
1994
Z43582
1994
single work
novel
humour
'John Birmingham has lived with eighty-nine people and kept notes on all of them. This is their story.
''A rat died in the living room at King Street and we didn't know. There was at least six inches of compacted rubbish between our feet and the floor. Old Ratty must have crawled in there and died of pleasure. A visitor uncovered him while groping about for a beer!'
'This best-seller led to a successful stage play and major motion picture, starring Noah Taylor and Sophie Lee. It has been published in Britain and Italy.' (Publication summary)
Works about this Work
-
In Search of the Great Australian (Graphic) Novel
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Popular Culture , 16 February vol. 1 no. 1 2012; (p. 51-66) 'The critical acclaim enjoyed by such recent Australian graphic novels as Shaun Tan's The Arrival (2006) and Nicki Greenberg's adaptation of The Great Gatsby (2007) suggested that Australia had finally 'caught up' with the United States and Britain, by embracing the graphic novel as a legitimate creative medium, on a par with literature and cinema. The media interest generated by a succession of Australian graphic novels during recent years often implied that their very existence was a relatively new phenomenon. Accepting this premise without question, however, overlooks the evolution of the graphic novel in Australia, early examples of which - such as Syd Nicholls' Middy Malone: A Book Pirates (1941) - date back to the 1940s. Documenting how historical changes in the production and dissemination of graphic novels in Australia have influenced their critical and popular reception therefore creates new opportunities to explore a largely overlooked facet of Australian print culture. Furthermore, the study of the graphic novel in an exclusively Australian context provides a new perspective for re-examining the origins, definitions and, indeed, the limitations of the term 'graphic novel', and extends the parameters of the academic literature devoted to the medium beyond the traditionally dominant Anglo-American focus.' (Author's abstract)
-
We Call Upon the Author to Explain : Theorising Writers' Festivals as Sites of Contemporary Public Culture
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2010; 'This paper outlines a new vantage point for theorising today’s writers’ festivals as significant sites of contemporary public culture. Increasingly writers’ festivals claim to be both popular and important sites of public discussion and debate, and this paper’s empirical analysis of the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival bears out these qualities. Yet, this Festival also positions itself as a thinking person’s alternative to the ‘unstoppable urge in TV and newspapers towards providing infotainment’, and claims ‘people are looking to our writers for the tools with which to think, not to be told what to think’ (Campbell, Making Sense of Our World). Addressing the mix of claims made for the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival, as well as analysing the the topics discussed at the Festival, this paper examines the Festival’s multiple public culture roles and functions. Included in the topics discussed at the Festival are those typically produced and ciruclated in the media such as celebrity culture, and rather than viewing this content as trivialising and manipulative─as many critics of writers’ festivals have done─this paper illustrates how the media extended the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival’s public culture function.' (Author's abstract) -
Pick of the Week
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 23 October 2004; (p. 5)
— Review of He Died with a Felafel in His Hand 2004 single work picture book
-
Pick of the Week
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 23 October 2004; (p. 5)
— Review of He Died with a Felafel in His Hand 2004 single work picture book -
We Call Upon the Author to Explain : Theorising Writers' Festivals as Sites of Contemporary Public Culture
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2010; 'This paper outlines a new vantage point for theorising today’s writers’ festivals as significant sites of contemporary public culture. Increasingly writers’ festivals claim to be both popular and important sites of public discussion and debate, and this paper’s empirical analysis of the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival bears out these qualities. Yet, this Festival also positions itself as a thinking person’s alternative to the ‘unstoppable urge in TV and newspapers towards providing infotainment’, and claims ‘people are looking to our writers for the tools with which to think, not to be told what to think’ (Campbell, Making Sense of Our World). Addressing the mix of claims made for the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival, as well as analysing the the topics discussed at the Festival, this paper examines the Festival’s multiple public culture roles and functions. Included in the topics discussed at the Festival are those typically produced and ciruclated in the media such as celebrity culture, and rather than viewing this content as trivialising and manipulative─as many critics of writers’ festivals have done─this paper illustrates how the media extended the 2007 Brisbane Writers Festival’s public culture function.' (Author's abstract) -
In Search of the Great Australian (Graphic) Novel
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Popular Culture , 16 February vol. 1 no. 1 2012; (p. 51-66) 'The critical acclaim enjoyed by such recent Australian graphic novels as Shaun Tan's The Arrival (2006) and Nicki Greenberg's adaptation of The Great Gatsby (2007) suggested that Australia had finally 'caught up' with the United States and Britain, by embracing the graphic novel as a legitimate creative medium, on a par with literature and cinema. The media interest generated by a succession of Australian graphic novels during recent years often implied that their very existence was a relatively new phenomenon. Accepting this premise without question, however, overlooks the evolution of the graphic novel in Australia, early examples of which - such as Syd Nicholls' Middy Malone: A Book Pirates (1941) - date back to the 1940s. Documenting how historical changes in the production and dissemination of graphic novels in Australia have influenced their critical and popular reception therefore creates new opportunities to explore a largely overlooked facet of Australian print culture. Furthermore, the study of the graphic novel in an exclusively Australian context provides a new perspective for re-examining the origins, definitions and, indeed, the limitations of the term 'graphic novel', and extends the parameters of the academic literature devoted to the medium beyond the traditionally dominant Anglo-American focus.' (Author's abstract)
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