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= Empire (graphic novel) =

Empire is a 1978 graphic novel written by Samuel R. Delany and illustrated by Howard Chaykin.

Plot
A powerful device has been hidden in separate pieces. Qrelon, whose planet was destroyed by the empire, leads a small group of rebels that risks everything to collect the pieces of the device that, once complete, will be the weapon powerful enough to destroy the planet-sized computer that runs the empire. Wryn, an archaeology student, is chosen by the empire to assassinate the rebel leader.

Style
Empire is categorized as speculative fiction and science fiction. The graphic novel is a fantastical foray into space and planetary travel. The heroine, Qrelon, leads a successful rebellion against the Kuduuke empire. The three-panelled pages feature bold, detailed painted graphics by Chaykin.

Reception
Reviews appeared in New Worlds, #216 September 1979 and Science Fiction Review, May 1980.

The graphic novel received 8th place in the 1979 Locus Award for Best SF Art or Illustrated Book.

Publication history
Published in 1978, Empire is regarded as one of the first graphic novels published in the United States. The first edition of Empire was published as a hardcover by Berkley Windhover with Byron Preiss.

Delany and illustrator of Star Wars comics Chaykin had been looking to collaborate since the late 1960s. In 1976, Delany, Chaykin and Preiss, who was schoolmates with the artist, finally began to discuss and devise a visual novel which would become Empire.

Before its publication, Mediascene reported that Berkley Publishing science fiction editor David Hartwell was so confident about this "breakthrough novel in graphic story form" that the print run for the $9.95 paperback edition was planned for 50,000 copies, with 1,500 signed and numbered hardcovers retailed at $24 each.

Edits by Byron Preiss
In 1977, Preiss told convention-goers that "separate, type-set text was necessary for commercial reasons." In a 1979 interview with The Comics Journal, Delany recalls Preiss suggesting that Empire would use no speech balloons because "they made things look too comicy," which Delany thought "was a mistake." Despite being marketed as a "science fiction novel," the writer protested that "I never thought of it as such... I think of it as a comic book."

In the same interview, Delany also remarked that Preiss “rewrote a good number of my sentences… I take full responsibility for maybe half the sentences in the text.” However, this was soon corrected by Delany in a later volume of The Comics Journal in a Letter to the Editor, in which he says only "a mere 39 percent" had been rewritten by Preiss.