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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
‘Wonderfully Vulgar’: British Comics Exhibition Opens!
Posted: March 13, 2013
Opening tomorrow March 14th in the library at the University of Oldenburg, Germany is this fascinating exhibition ‘Wonderfully Vulgar’: British Comics from 1873 to 1939, curated by Kevin Carpenter and based on the collection of 5,000 pre-WW2 British comics housed in the library. If you can’t visit in person, the detailed online catalogue lets you read detailed texts and captions and click and enlarge scans of all of the exhibits.
Article: Warren & Gary Pleece - Montague Terrace
Posted: March 11, 2013
‘You’d think in such a large building, there’d be something interesting going on…’ This thought comes from a bored sniper stuck on a stakeout in Montague Terrace, London. His target lives there, a maverick scientific genius whose revolutionary inventions so threaten ‘the interests of enterprise’ that a corporate cartel has hired a hitman to bump him off. The curtains part and the show begins as neighbour spies on neighbour, peering into other flats and other lives. To all outward appearances these tenants seem ordinary enough, but there is more going on behind closed doors and beneath the surface. Read my article about The Pleece Brothers’ sinister apartment block and its quirky tenants here…
Article: Let Me Feel Your Finger First
Posted: March 3, 2013
Each bemused visitor entering the gallery foyer at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts was asked to put on a plastic mask of a bespectacled, bearded, pock-marked man and join a throng of identically transformed people inside. Losing their visibility and individuality, subsumed into an anonymous hive-mind, all of them were soon following absurd instructions from an animated version of that same unsettling man, a floating head projected on a screen. Spoken in German, subtitled in English, the orders include, “Fall on the floor and play dead”. How far will you go to obey? Will you rebel? The queasy atmosphere of this communal programming was compounded by interruptions of an unseen comic strip, narrated panel by panel in a mock-academic Germanic accent, about our Big Brother-style master’s peccadillos. We gradually learn that he likes nothing better on a hot summer afternoon than tying up his nephews, Cute Punk and his twin, lanky acidhead Clem. Meet the rest of this dysfunctional, discomforting ‘Familenalbum’ here…
Terry Wiley’s VerityFair in Deluxe iPad Edition!
Posted: February 28, 2013
Look out, Verity Bourneville doesn’t so much break ‘the fourth wall’ to address you directly, as demolish it and grab you to join her and her mates for all sort of escapades inside the panels. Terry Wiley is at the top of his game in VerityFair, fashioning this “45-year-old car-crash of a personality” into the most feisty, fascinating, personable, unpredictable, multi-faceted new character in 21st-century British comics. She’ll tell you what it’s all about.
From teatime tomorrow Friday March 1st, you can purchase the spiffing Deluxe iPad edition of Terry Wiley’s wonderful self-published series VerityFair produced by Panel Nine, at the very affordable introductory price of $4.99 / £2.99 -
here’s the iTunes link.
VerityFair is the acclaimed graphic novel from the brilliant Brit Terry Wiley. A slightly twisted soap opera with the merest dash of X-Files, VerityFair tells the story of Verity Bourneville, a 40-something semi-talented actress and full-time extrovert, in her quest for success and a good night’s sleep. Terry is offering a sampler pdf from the original debut issue downloadable as a pdf here.
The app collects together almost 100 pages of comics comprising the whole of VerityFair Part 1 - Chapters 1, 2 and 3 published between May 2010 and November 2011. Almost every comics page has audio commentary recorded by Terry Wiley exclusively for the app. VerityFair Part 1 is supplemented by a whole host of extras including sketches and artwork, seven strips and stories including Sleaze Castle and Surreal School Stories, and an exclusive interview with Terry Wiley (see partial contents page above). Don’t miss this great deal!
The Graphic Novel at Falmouth Authorial Illustration Forum
Posted: February 26, 2013
The MA Illustration: Authorial Practice programme at Falmouth University in Cornwall cordially invites you to its Annual Illustration Forum: this year, it is all about the Graphic Novel! Graphic literature is enjoying wider audiences and is receiving greater recognition than ever before. Witty comic strips in the newspapers; original short stories, such as in the Observer/Cape/Comica Short Story prize; or dramatic retellings of classic tales… However you like to find it, there’s a flavour for everyone, and plenty to get under your skin. Perhaps you like your graphic literature traditional, or maybe you are staunchly independent? As the medium grows and develops, there are ever-increasing ways of writing, drawing and reading graphic literature.
To discuss these questions, and to present their own work, the Forum is delighted to welcome: Tom Gauld, Catherine Anyango, Barnaby Richards, and Isabel Greenberg, as well as Roger Sabin to chair the event (Reader in Popular Culture at Central St. Martin’s, and all-round comics guru). As always, the forum is the ideal place to meet with other illustrators, artists and writers; to hear insightful perspectives from creators in the midst of the medium; and to join in the day’s debate in the Q&A session. Tickets are available from katie.townsend[at]falmouth.ac.uk We hope to see you there! Poster designed by Alys Jones.
Article: Previews April 2013
Posted: February 24, 2013
It’s not every month that you get significant new outings by several masters - and mistresses - of the medium like Rutu Modan, Audrey Niffenegger, Dash Shaw, Zander & Kevin Cannon, Lucy Knisley and Anders Nilsen. Other highlights include French phenomenon Blutch with his first ever full-length graphic novel appearing in English. My PG Tips for April 2013 also include some manga gems, past and present, notably debuts from Shigeru Sugiura and Gengorah Tagame, plus a pair of intriguing creators from Spain, and books by the Pleece Brothers, Mark Millar & Frank Quitely, and Robbie Morrison & Jim Murray, part of the ongoing British comics resurgence. And DC Comics seem to have sorted out reprinting more than the two previously printed stores from the completed but mostly unpublished second issue of Jack Kirby’s 1970 gangster classic In The Days Of The Mob - (here’s an unpublished page from the story ‘A Room for Kid Twist’ - see this and more on www.whatifkirby.com). So there’s plenty of great comics reading ahead! Check out the rest of my PG Previews here…
Enter BD & Comics Passion Nationwide Contest!
Posted: February 21, 2013
Calling all comics devotees: BD & Comics Passion is back for the third time at the Institut français in South Kensington, London from May 30th to June 2nd 2013, in association with Comica Festival! Workshops, live drawing, concerts and movies galore are on the agenda, with some of the greatest writers and illustrators.
And since you love comics, why not make one yourself? If you’re aged 7 to 17 and live in the UK, you can participate in our nationwide contest and stand a chance to win amazing prizes! Whether you make it on your own, as a class project, or with friends…All you need to do is design a comic book full of creativity where the food you love - or hate - most is the centrepiece… Anything can happen: a crazy scientist invents a new smell for Brussels sprouts? We love it! The adventures of Super Cucumber? Go for it! The discovery of a chocolate planet? We’ve been dreaming about it! But careful now, the title and cover of your comic are important, as much as the story and drawing…
I will be joining a panel of experts who will choose the three most inventive and achieved applications. The winners will get amazing prizes, all presented during an astonishing prize ceremony at the Institut français in London, during the Festival. Deadline for entries is Thursday 9 May 2013 at midnight. For more information about the rules and to obtain the entry application form, contact 020 7073 1345 or bdl[at]institutfrancais.org.uk or visit the BD & Comics Passion website. Have a go and best of luck!
Article: Adventures in Comics 3 - The Great Tree
Posted: February 18, 2013
This year, Marine Studios in Margate, Kent have organised their third comics competition Adventures in Comics on the theme ‘The Great Tree”. Over sixty submissions were sent in from as far afield as Sarawak and Minneapolis and all of them are eventually being posted online here. Mike Garley, editor in chief of new monthly digital comic VS Comics, was their guest speaker for their First Friday evening event on February 1st, and he will publish the best three comics submissions in his digital comics edition.
Publication of the tabloid newspaper compilation of entries will coincide with Margate’s GEEK2013 gaming convention next weekend. All entries were on display at Marine Studios on 1st February at their First Friday evening. This exhibition will then move to the Pie Factory, 5 Broad Street, Margate CT9 1EW from February 21st to 24th 2013 (open 12-4pm each day), where the public will identify the stories they think should win. These “people’s-choice” picks will share the winners’ podium with my own personal choice as guest judge and comics aficionado! And I’ll be in Margate this Saturday February 23rd to give an illustrated talk for GEEK2013 from 11am to 12 noon, and announce the results. Hope to see some of you there! Read the intro I’ve written for the newspaper here…
Article: Frederik Peeters - Pachyderme
Posted: February 10, 2013
It is often assumed that meticulous planning, scriptwriting, sketching and preparatory breakdowns are essential stages in the making of any comic. Few artists would dare to trust a large element of improvisation in their process, but this is one of the key methods of the Swiss graphic novelist Frederik Peeters. He enjoys developing the alchemy between words and pictures intuitively on the page, still thinking and deciding as he creates, not so much ‘automatic drawing or writing’, but definitely not over-preparing it all beforehand in detailed scripts and rough layouts. Ideas, images and texts seem to flow from his mind and memories through his hand and pen into ink and onto panel after panel. Peeters dares to leap into the unknown with each new experiment, whether working solo or in collaboration. The results are breathtaking; like him, we can’t tell where the story and art will takes us next. Read the rest of my new Article here…
Shaun Tan, Scott McCloud & More in New Australian Comics Doc!
Posted: February 5, 2013
Last summer, I was filmed at one of our monthly Comica Social Club get-togethers at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South bank with my good pal Bruce Mutard for Graphic Novels! Melbourne!, a new documentary movie about the buzzing creative community in Melbourne. Next week, after opening in its home city and getting two showings during this past weekend’s 40th Angoulême International Comics Festival, I am delighted that the film arrives in London for its UK Premiere Screening on Wednesday February 13th, organised with Comica Festival and supported by the Australia High Commission.
Co-directors Bernard Caleo and Daniel Hayward will be in town to introduce their movie, which features Melbourne comic-book makers Nicki Greenberg, Bruce Mutard, Pat Grant and Mandy Ord, and commentaries by fellow Oz creator Shaun Tan (below left), American guru Scott McCloud (below right) and from New Zealand, Hicksville author Dylan Horrocks (bottom left). Get your tickets for £5 by emailing a request or buy on the door - for details see this Comica Festival news blog posting. See you there!
