Starman: Bowie’s Stardust Years Coming From SelfMade hero

How Bowie Changed The Face of Music

In 1972, the rock’n’roll messiah ZIGGY STARDUST was born. His provocative play on sexual identity and gender roles laid the foundation for David Bowie’s ascent to becoming one of the most successful pop musicians of all time. 

Reinhard Kleist’s STARMAN weaves the gripping tale of this outrageous character’s genesis, rise, and fall, as well as of David Bowie’s hapless efforts in the London music scene before Ziggy’s arrival, and of the struggles he experienced with his own creation at the height of his fame. 

As Bowie transforms himself, ever more frenetically, into the egocentric rock star he first conceived, the extravagant lifestyle he had only ever imagined threatens to engulf him, and bring everything down before his eyes… 

About the author 

Reinhard Kleist, born in 1970 in Hürth, Cologne, has worked and lived as an illustrator and comic book artist in Berlin since 1996. He made his international breakthrough in 2006 with the biographical comic book Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness, which was awarded the renowned Max and Moritz Prize and nominated for both the Eisner and Harvey Awards. With The Boxer in 2013, Kleist became the first cartoonist to receive the German Youth Literature Prize. In 2017, Kleist once again tackled one of music’s great storytellers in Nick Cave: Mercy on Me, which was simultaneously released in many languages. In 2018, Kleist was honoured for his work with the Max and Moritz Prize for Best German-Language Comic Book Artist. In 2021, Kleist tackled another extraordinary boxing champion, Emile Griffith, in the comic book Knock Out! 

Originally published in German. Copyright text and illustrations © 2021 by Carlsen 

• This publication has not been prepared, approved, authorized or licensed by the David Bowie estate or any related entity. 

• Song lyrics usage granted for “Space Oddity” (David Bowie) and “Love You Till Tuesday” (David Bowie) by © Onward Music Ltd/ESSEX MUSIKVERTRIEB GmbH Hamburg 

 SelfMadeHero aim to publish ground-breaking and beautiful work by authors and artists from across the globe, from the quirky and humorous to the political and profound. We are proud to bring readers graphic novels and visual narratives that provoke, entertain, inspire, and inform. Releases for 2023 include: Francisco de la Mora’s Frida Kahlo: Her Life, Her Work, Her Home, Reinhard Kleist’s Starman: Bowie’s Stardust Years, Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot’s Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington, Leo Schulz and Teresa Robertson’s The Comical Eye’s British Monarchy: from Alfred the Great to Charles III, Oscar Zarate’s Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter.