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The Prince
Liam Cobb's longest work to date, The Prince is his take on the Frog Prince fairytale. We follow May, who is going through a bad marriage, but forms an unlikely friendship with a frog, who mysteriously turns up at her apartment as things between her and her husband deteriorate. Part animal comedy, part erotic thriller, The Prince is a strange, vengeful love story that tells the story of a woman and her pet.
120 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2018
About the author
Liam Cobb
21 books12 followersLiam Cobb is a British freelance illustrator and comic artist based in Reykjavik, Iceland and London, UK.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 13, 2018
This is absolutely amazing, I really love I hope everybody read this because it just beautiful.
May 7, 2025
Ribbit 🐸 🔝
May 22, 2025
After reading and loving “What Awaits Them” (a collection of Cobb's short-form work), I immediately bought myself a copy of this, his only long(ish)-form comic to date, a single 120-page narrative. I'd never heard any buzz around it at all, so despite how much I'd liked “What Awaits Them”, I didn't go into this with high expectations, but it really bowled me over. The story is creepy and dark and weird and mysterious and funny and thought-provoking in all the right ways. The art style isn't the most impressive – a bit sterile, with lots of very straight lines – but it serves the story perfectly. All in all, I liked this comic just as much as any of the comics in “What Awaits Them”. I highly recommend it to fans of Connor Willumsen, Joe Kessler and Olivier Schrauwen.
October 2, 2019
Todos sabemos que los cuentos clásicos, aquellas fábulas que nos contaban de niños en el colegio, o bien nuestros padres a la hora de acostarnos, son una efectiva manera de aleccionar respecto a ciertos códigos morales que nos definen. Hay mucho de universal en estas historias de travesura y redención, que por supuesto han terminado configurando un imaginario en el que sentirnos cómodos y seguros. Pero el arte tiende a voltear conceptos, a reimaginar instituciones, a mirar de otra manera ideas que creíamos inmóviles. Porque el orden es orden hasta que algo lo altera. Bendito arte.
Ejemplos habrá por millones de leyendas reformuladas, de subversión de tradiciones y transformación de arquetipos en algo diferente. El mundo de las viñetas no es ajeno a esta corriente, y dentro del panorama del cómic más indie el abanico se abre hasta el infinito. Tomando como base el cuento de la rana y la princesa, The Prince explora territorios que orbitan en la cara opuesta del espectro.
Tenemos a una mujer, May, inmersa en una ciudad agobiante, en un apartamento mediano y un matrimonio quebrado. Su marido la trata con total desconsideración. Ella vive resignada. Una noche la despiertan unos golpes en la puerta. Se levanta a averiguar quién llama a esas horas. Al abrir, lo único que encuentra es una rana en el suelo. May la recoge y la lleva al interior del apartamento. Imagina que la rana es el príncipe azul, el salvador inmaculado que debía haber sido su marido antes de destrozar esa imagen y convertirse en un ser despreciable. Besa a la rana y… nada sucede. ¿O tal vez sí?
El artista londinense Liam Cobb experimenta en The Prince para trastocar los convencionalismos de la narración común y mostrarlos bajo sus propios términos, desplegando una serie de artificios que sirven a una función principal: deformar el mensaje inequívoco del concepto original y convertirlo en algo ambiguo e inquietante. Así, el cómic deviene en una macabra fábula que tira de simbolismo e irrealidad para conformar una suerte de pesadilla urbana recurrente. Liam Cobb ejecuta una serie de mecanismos cercanos en muchos momentos a lo experimental, consiguiendo clavarse con firmeza en nuestro subconsciente a la manera en que lo hacen los malos sueños.
Reseña completa en "Heraldo de Galactus": https://heraldodegalactus.com/2019/10...
Ejemplos habrá por millones de leyendas reformuladas, de subversión de tradiciones y transformación de arquetipos en algo diferente. El mundo de las viñetas no es ajeno a esta corriente, y dentro del panorama del cómic más indie el abanico se abre hasta el infinito. Tomando como base el cuento de la rana y la princesa, The Prince explora territorios que orbitan en la cara opuesta del espectro.
Tenemos a una mujer, May, inmersa en una ciudad agobiante, en un apartamento mediano y un matrimonio quebrado. Su marido la trata con total desconsideración. Ella vive resignada. Una noche la despiertan unos golpes en la puerta. Se levanta a averiguar quién llama a esas horas. Al abrir, lo único que encuentra es una rana en el suelo. May la recoge y la lleva al interior del apartamento. Imagina que la rana es el príncipe azul, el salvador inmaculado que debía haber sido su marido antes de destrozar esa imagen y convertirse en un ser despreciable. Besa a la rana y… nada sucede. ¿O tal vez sí?
El artista londinense Liam Cobb experimenta en The Prince para trastocar los convencionalismos de la narración común y mostrarlos bajo sus propios términos, desplegando una serie de artificios que sirven a una función principal: deformar el mensaje inequívoco del concepto original y convertirlo en algo ambiguo e inquietante. Así, el cómic deviene en una macabra fábula que tira de simbolismo e irrealidad para conformar una suerte de pesadilla urbana recurrente. Liam Cobb ejecuta una serie de mecanismos cercanos en muchos momentos a lo experimental, consiguiendo clavarse con firmeza en nuestro subconsciente a la manera en que lo hacen los malos sueños.
Reseña completa en "Heraldo de Galactus": https://heraldodegalactus.com/2019/10...
December 22, 2023
Po tegorocznym zbiorze wydanym przez Breakdown Press, który kompletnie mną zawładnął, sięgnąłem po wcześniejszy dłuższy komiks Cobba, pt. "The Prince", będący bardzo luźnym nawiązaniem do baśni o Żabim Królu. Po części przerażająca, po części satyryczna historia kobiety, która doznawała upokorzeń w małżeństwie, aż do pojawienia się w jej życiu pewnej żaby. Cobb jest zwięzły i znów lubuje się w wyraźnie obrysowanych postaciach, których tło stanowią symetryczne wnętrza budynków i miast. Dominuje minimalizm w kresce i dialogach, ale zdarzają się również bardziej szczegółowe kadry. Kilka eksperymentalnych plansz związanych głównie z zabawą perspektywą, nadaje całości smaku. Świetna grafika i nieco dziwaczna historia, którą w kilku miejscach czytelnik musi sam dookreślić - wszystko czego obecnie potrzebuję do szczęścia
PS. Teoretycznie nakład wyczerpany, ale zamówiłem u sprzedawcy, który dawał 50% szans na sprowadzenie i się udało, więc polecam zaryzykować
PS. Teoretycznie nakład wyczerpany, ale zamówiłem u sprzedawcy, który dawał 50% szans na sprowadzenie i się udało, więc polecam zaryzykować
October 13, 2018
Intense and mysterious and creepy as hell. I loved it and quite frankly I’ve never read a weak Retrofit book. Along with Kilgore and Birdcage Bottom they are my favourite American micropress comic publishers.
October 20, 2018
Liam Cobb is a London illustrator whose specialty is drawings of architecture, interior and exterior. I've seen images of a dystopian story called Death of a Crow, which reminded me superficially of The Cage by Marti Vaughn-James. But The Prince is more of a horror story set in a city of boxy Miesian high rise buildings (it reminded me of Chicago), and the interiors are midcentury Modern. The protagonist is a woman named May in an unhappy relationship with the horrible Adrian. Adrian starts off cruel, but over the course of the story tips over into seriously abusive.
May discovers a frog in the barren hallway of their apartment building and take it in. Adrian is repulsed by it. He makes May get rid of it. The frog seems as fragile as any frog in real life would be--when May leaves him outside by the river, it is quickly eaten by a bird. But the frog keeps returning, to Adrian's extreme displeasure.
The story of not told in a linear fashion. It keeps switching back and forward in time, and we readers have to decide what is "real" and not. Some episodes seem like fantasy (Adrian attacked by a giant monster frog). Some involve violence committed by May against pushy assaulty men. The question the reader has is has May become an avenging angel killing men who have mistreated her (inspired by her "prince", the frog)? Or is there a supernatural frog creature going around killing men who abuse May? Or is it all an hallucination?
The open, minimal detail and bizarre content remind me a little of Olivier Schrauwen, but Liam Cobb doesn't commit to surrealism to the degree that Schrauwen does. But Prince was interesting and amusing.
May discovers a frog in the barren hallway of their apartment building and take it in. Adrian is repulsed by it. He makes May get rid of it. The frog seems as fragile as any frog in real life would be--when May leaves him outside by the river, it is quickly eaten by a bird. But the frog keeps returning, to Adrian's extreme displeasure.
The story of not told in a linear fashion. It keeps switching back and forward in time, and we readers have to decide what is "real" and not. Some episodes seem like fantasy (Adrian attacked by a giant monster frog). Some involve violence committed by May against pushy assaulty men. The question the reader has is has May become an avenging angel killing men who have mistreated her (inspired by her "prince", the frog)? Or is there a supernatural frog creature going around killing men who abuse May? Or is it all an hallucination?
The open, minimal detail and bizarre content remind me a little of Olivier Schrauwen, but Liam Cobb doesn't commit to surrealism to the degree that Schrauwen does. But Prince was interesting and amusing.
October 13, 2018
I always trust Retrofit to publish interesting comics, and sometimes they're ones that I otherwise wouldn't have given a chance. 'The Prince' is definitely falls in this category since I find the aesthetics off-putting for a variety of reasons (mostly having to do with my own dislike of computer assisted drawings and text). BUT, the storytelling helped me overcome my bias and appreciate the comic.
That may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but I want to be clear that it's not for lack of talent on the artists' part. I did find the comic intriguing and worth dissecting, but you'll never get me to like some of the aesthetic choices (computer airbrushing, no variance in line weight, overall appearance of being culled from stock illustration, etc.). I've never seen any of Cobb's other work, so it's possible that these choices were made specifically to maximize a feeling of unease?
That may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but I want to be clear that it's not for lack of talent on the artists' part. I did find the comic intriguing and worth dissecting, but you'll never get me to like some of the aesthetic choices (computer airbrushing, no variance in line weight, overall appearance of being culled from stock illustration, etc.). I've never seen any of Cobb's other work, so it's possible that these choices were made specifically to maximize a feeling of unease?
April 16, 2019
This is one of the more compelling and mysterious graphic novels I've read in awhile. The sparse and cinematic art style, and themes of loneliness and a femme fatale whose motives and thought process are frequently opaque, remind me very much of Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin (some panels could have come directly from the film's storyboard, especially with Cobb's striking use of darkness and light, characters slipping in and out of black shadows). Cobb knows when to hold back and how to space out the beats of a scene, or a single look or gesture, to maximize tension until it explodes. Like a frog boiling in a pot, you don't see what's happening until it's too late.
December 8, 2019
What a shame that I've had this book for awhile but I only just now got around to reading it. It's a gem! The art is reminiscent of '80s fashion plates (LOVE IT), and the story holds so much tension and weirdness, it kept me guessing. This is one I'll certainly revisit.
November 3, 2019
If you like strange stories, you'll love this comic. It's a weird one, for sure! A very creepy take on a frog prince-style narrative.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews