Tabella releases 'Ghost'

Ghost Volume 1, the work of husband and wife team Phoebe Reeves-Murray and Daniel Scott Gabriel Murray - the latter described by one reviewer as "the new Alex Ross" - will be published soon by British publisher Tabella Publishing.

Ghost follows the life of Jennifer Rhys, a troubled young woman who, from birth, has been tortured by visions of demonic angels, only to discover that she is an angel, not only an angel, but a Ghost, the last of the Heavenly Protectors of mankind in the great war to reclaim heaven.

Author Reeves-Murray mixes urban mythology, action, angelic lore and betrayal against a backdrop of a world being manipulated by evil to steal it away from the creator, while illustrator Daniel Scott Gabriel Murray brings the story to life with full page paintings.

Daniel has been a police officer for 19 years while at the same time working as an illustrator. The break came when he showed his portfolio to an editor at DC Comics during a convention, and from that point he’s slowly built a following and a reputation for creating images that are driven by light, passion and character.

Phoebe Reeves-Murray has been a teacher of non-traditional, at-risk - typically homeless and/or adjudicated high school and college age youth and adults as well as children in HeadStart for the last 20 years; creating “thinking and learning outside of the box” activities and curriculum for students, teachers, and faculty across the US. Most recently, Phoebe has created a pathways to college program for low level literacy and math youth living in New Orleans who are concurrently working on completing their secondary education and becoming employed in a first job.

"The story came from a set of characters and basic storyline I’ve had for a long time, and my wife, who is a writer, said, 'Let me do it,'" Murray says of the book's origins. "So she wrote the story, and I drew the illustrations."

"It's a graphic novel form — not a paperback, not a hardcover," he adds. "It's a hybrid of the two. It’s the size of a standard comic book, but it’s high-quality paper and high-quality illustrations.”

“It's intense stuff," says reviewer Lisa DuMond of the book. And it requires the reader’s full attention. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, and beautifully done – those are reasons enough to pick up a copy as soon as possible."

"I think its a book whose time has come," feels Reeves-Murray. "It’s an unusual offering in the graphic novel arena because this is a illustrated novel. It's taking an old form of fairy tale books.

"I wanted to create a story like that with our heroine being a woman who doesn't want to be a heroine. She’s had terrible family tragedy caught between a war of demonic angels and heavenly angels. And her baby becomes the focus of the war."

• Read an interview with Phoebe Reeves-Murray and Daniel Scott Gabriel Murray on the Ghost web site


Ghost - Volume 1
Author Phoebe Reeves Murray (Scorpius Digital, Prima Publishing)
Illustrated by Daniel Scott Gabriel Murray (DC Comics, LucasFilm)
ISBN 978-0-9558088-6-9 • 160 pages, 244 x 172mm
£9.99 UK / $19.95 US • Available March 2010

Featured above: the cover and a promotional image for GHOST© The Illustrated Novel. Created by Daniel Scott Gabriel Murray and written by Phoebe Reeves Murray. Illustration by Daniel Scott Gabriel Murray, © 2010 Daniel Murray, All rights reserved. More info: www.ghostnovel.com