The Tango Collection
Edited by Bernard Caleo
Allen & Unwin RRP: NZ$39.99

A celebration of love in all its guises from the most creative comic book talent in Australia and New Zealand.

A smorgasbord of storytelling art, The Tango Collection is a perfect introduction for anyone curious about the exciting and versatile medium that is the graphic novel. Selected from eight editions of the Australian romance comic book anthology Tango, this quirky, experimental and fun collection on love introduces us to a new breed of Australian writer.

Since 1997, Tango has been a forum that presents work by established comic-book makers alongside newcomers. Featuring Nicki Greenberg, Andrew Weldon, Bruce Mutard, Mandy Ord, Michael Camilleri, Jo Waite, Adam Ford and with a foreword by well known New Zealand comics guru Dylan Horrocks, The Tango Collection showcases the amazing talent of local creators.
“Here you’ll find some of the most memorable comics by cartoonists from Australia and New Zealand – from the haunting hallucinations of Jo Waite to the methodical precision of Bruce Mutard. There’s humour, joy, pain, pleasure and queasy recognition to be found here. Stories of sadness and loss, domestic familiarity, youthful passion, perversity and lust. Because Tango, is after all, a romance comic. Love, like food, can deliver nausea and bliss in equal portions. And isn’t that what life is all about?” – Dylan Horrocks

About the editor

Bernard’s love of comics began with Asterix and Tintin hardcovers borrowed from the Northcote library in the 1970s, continued with superhero comics in the 1980s, and got all grown-up with ‘graphic novels’ in the 1990s and beyond. In 1991 he began making comic books himself: planning, writing, drawing and publishing them. Frequently these comic book series have been collaborations – Yell Olé! and The False Impressionists with Tolley, Café Ghetto with John Murphy – but he also flies solo, as with the stories and mini-comics featuring the character Hermann Flâneur and his ongoing online tragi-comic book, I Knew Him.

In 1997 Bernard launched the comic book publishing imprint Cardigan Comics, and he has edited and published Tango ever since. Bernard has watched comic books develop as a storytelling art, and is very excited about the directions for comic books as a part of book culture and visual art culture in Australia and New Zealand.