Posted in: Movies | Tagged: A Tale Of One Bad Rat, Bryan Talbot, graphic novel

Bryan Talbot's A Tale Of One Bad Rat Optioned As Movie

The rights to a film version of Bryan Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat have been optioned by Grasp the Nettle Films, a company based in Devon and London. Run by producer Rebecca Wolff and writer/director Dean Puckett, they are currently working on a slate of features including Magpie, a folk-horror backed by Bankside Films, and Seagull, which they are developing in collaboration with Early Day Films.

The multi-award-winning The Tale of One Bad Rat, first published and collected by Dark Horse Comics in 1994, has never been out of print and seen many different editions, including around 15 foreign reprints. The story follows a runaway teenager, Helen Potter, an abuse survivor and visionary who, in the company of her pet rat, follows in the footsteps of Beatrix Potter from London to the English Lake District, there to discover her inner strength. One Bad Rat is the most mainstream of Talbot's works and is drawn in a simple, naturalistic style with painted colours. All of the characters were drawn from life and the locations from photographs of real places. The Tale of One Bad Rat won the 1995 UK Comic Art Award for Best New Publication and the 1995 Don Thompson Award for Best Limited Series. The collected edition won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album Reprint in 1996 and received several other awards and nominations, including a nomination for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1997.

I bought – and loved – it at the time of publication. And I have an original artwork page from it on my study wall, which was also part of the Great British Comics exhibition at Harrods twenty years ago…

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!