Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Cassandra Darke, posy simmonds, thought bubble

Posy Simmonds' Next Graphic Novel Is A Cassandra Darke Prequel

Posy Simmonds' next graphic novel is a Cassandra Darke prequel, announced at Thought Bubble

Published Sat, 15 Nov 2025 09:58:04 -0600

Article Summary

Posy Simmonds announces her next graphic novel, a prequel to Cassandra Darke, at Thought Bubble.
The prequel is set in the early 1960s, exploring Cassandra Darke’s youth as the world begins to change.
This marks Simmonds’ first-ever prequel, offering new depth to her acclaimed character Cassandra Darke.
Fans of Tamara Drew and Gemma Bovery have reason to celebrate as Simmonds returns to beloved territory.

Posy Simmonds is one of my favourite comic book creators of all time. I grew up on her comic book strip work on the Guardian Womens Page in the eighties and nineties, was delighted to discover her serialised graphic fiction in the Guardian years later with Tamara Drew and Gemma Bovery, both made it no films, and then followed up with the sensational Cassandra Darke, an elderly art dealer with a heart of coal, somewhere between Scrooge, Miriam Margoyles and Giles' Grandma.

Posy Simmonds' Next Graphic Novel Is A Cassandra Darke Prequel — Cassandra Darke

And now, announced at Thought Bubble in Harrogate today at her retrospect panel with comic book curator Paul Gravett (with a little private clarification afterwards), Posy Simmonds' next graphic novel project, and one that she is currently working on, is a prequel to said Cassandra Darke, set seventy-three years ago, in the early sixties when Cassandra is a young women, the world is starting to change, and Darke finds herself right there. Or at least, on the edges.

I'm an absolute sucker for a prequel ever since The Magician's Nephew. And this has my name all over it. This will be Posy Simmonds' first-ever prequel, and she jokingly chided the audience not to kill off their characters, because you never know.

Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds
Cassandra Darke is an art dealer, mean, selfish, solitary by nature, living in Chelsea in a house worth £7 million. She has become a social pariah, but doesn't much care. Between one Christmas and the next, she has sullied the reputation of a West End gallery and has acquired a conviction for fraud, a suspended sentence and a bank balance drained by lawsuits. On the scale of villainy, fraud seems to Cassandra a rather paltry offence – her own crime involving 'no violence, no weapon, no dead body'. 'Simmonds is a copper-bottomed genius… she is as brilliant a writer as Britain has' Jenny Colgan, Mail Online.

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