{"product_id":"the-dancing-plague","title":"The Dancing Plague","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis utterly original graphic novel tells the true story of when hundreds of a town's inhabitants were suddenly seized by the strange and unstoppable compulsion to dance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Dancing Plague\u003c\/i\u003e is a visually striking graphic work about the 1518 Strasbourg \"dancing plague,\" using embroidery and pyrography to turn medieval mass hysteria into something darkly beautiful and unsettling on the page. It shows how art can make even a half-forgotten catastrophe feel immediate again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe story is told from the imagined perspective of Mary, one of the witnesses. Prone to mystic visions as a child, betrayed in the convent to which she flees, then abused by her loutish husband, Mary endures her life as an oppressed and ultimately scapegoated woman with courage, strength, and inspiring beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs difficult to interpret now (as a psychological reaction to social injustice?) as it was then (as a collective demonic possession?), the story of the \"Dancing Plague\" finds suitably extraordinary expression in the unique mixed-media style Gareth Brookes has devised to tell it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe pioneering blend of his trademark \"pyrographic\" technique with sumptuously colorful--and literal--embroidery perfectly reflects, in a beautiful work of art, the enduring fragility of our human condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The most visually stunning quarantine comic I've seen is \u003cb\u003eTHE DANCING PLAGUE\u003c\/b\u003e by the British artist Gareth Brookes . . . With fire and needle, Brookes crafts a book the likes of which we've never seen before.\" - \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e ","brand":"Selfmadehero","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44459332403337,"sku":"9781910593981","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0376\/3057\/4729\/files\/9781910593981_b5438.jpg?v=1757071384","url":"https:\/\/thebookmarkpr.com\/products\/the-dancing-plague","provider":"The Bookmark Books \u0026 Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}