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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Caption Summer Special This Weekend!
Posted: August 17, 2012
Caption, the UK’s longest-running comics festival, is back this weekend in Oxford. It all happens at the East Oxford Community Centre, Cowley, Oxford OX4 1DD (Near to St. Clements ‘Oxford Tube’ stop). Guests include: Krent Able, Hannah Berry, Richy K. Chandler, Jade Sarson, David O’Connell, Al Davison, Hunt Emerson, Patrice Aggs, Robin Etherington, Woodrow Phoenix, Darryl Cunningham and Nicola Streeten. Here’s the line-up for Saturday and Sunday:
Saturday 18 August
Doors open 10 a.m. Bar open from 10 for coffee, 12 for drinks.
12:00. PANEL: Good, Clean, Knockabout Fun! Publisher Tony Bennett joins artists Hunt Emerson, Krent Able and Brick to talk about the 32 years of the controversial British comics company.
13:30. WORKSHOP with Al Davison. ‘The Alchemist’s Easel: a rough guide to drawing the unconscious’
14:30. PANEL: Shedding Light on the Dark Art of Editing Comics. Woodrow Phoenix (Nelson), Corinne Pearlman (Myriad), John Anderson (Soaring Penquin) and Hannah Berry (First Fictions judge) discuss editing and commissioning comics and graphic novels.
16:30. PANEL: Myriad Editions. Myriad commissioning editor Corinne Pearlman discusses the output of the company alongside Woodrow Phoenix (‘Rumble Strip’), Darryl Cunningham (‘Science Tales’), Nicola Streeten (‘Billy, Me & You’) and Gareth Brookes (‘The Black Project’).
21:00. QUIZ by Tony Hitchman, ‘Dangerous when wet!’
Doors close 23:00
Sunday 19 August
Doors open 10 a.m. Bar open from 10 for coffee, 12 for drinks.
11.00. BOOK GROUP: Comic Gosh!p Book Club (escaping from London) discuss Maus (Art Spiegelman) & My Cardboard Life (Philippa Rice). Try to (re)read one or both of these before the informal discussion in the bar, so you can join in!
12:30. PANEL: Playing in Someone Else’s Sandbox. Cartoonists discuss the benefits of working on creator owned vs. pre-existing characters, featuring Richy Chandler (‘Wallace & Grommit’ in The Sun) , David Baillie (via video! - Russian ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’), Charles Cutting (’ The Dream Quest of Randolph Carter’) and Robin Etherington (‘The Phoenix’ / ‘Transformers’).
14.00. PANEL: The Phoenix - A Gallimaufry of Graphical Goodness. Daniel Hartwell (writer, ‘Pirates of the Pangaea’), Neill Cameron (artist, ‘Pirates of the Pangaea’), Adam Murphy (‘Corpse Talk’), Robin Etherington (writer, ‘Long Gone Don’), Patrice Aggs (‘Blimpville’)
15.30. PANEL: America is not the Only Fruit. Manga influenced (and Manga Jiman shortlisted) small press creators Rebecca Burgess, Sarah Burgess, Jade Sarson and Joe Morgan discuss looking outside Anglo-American comics for inspiration with David O’Connell (Tozo, the public servant).
Doors Close 17:00
Read My Interview with Shaun Tan!
Posted: August 17, 2012
Shaun Tan is in town again on Monday August 27th for a very special Comica Conversation with the great Quentin Blake. Tickets are still available, but book now, as they are going fast - here’s the link for more details and how to book, and here’s my interview with Shaun to find out more about this Oscar-winning Australian cartoonist.
Article: Forbidden Adventures
Posted: August 12, 2012
Maybe like me you fondly remember those British black and white Alan Class collections, often reprinting stories so many times that the artwork was starting to disappear. They would come with almost interchangeable titles, made up of some combination of Astounding Creepy Suspense Tales from the Amazing Unknown Worlds Beyond! For thirty years until 1989, they were a cheap way for British kids to get hold of lots of pages of black-and-white American comic books, including Marvel’s new superheroes, in their local newsagents. Some of my favourite mystery tales in them originated from the American Comics Group (ACG). In his virtually unnoticed 1996 book Forbidden Adventures, Michael Vance charts the business and creative history of this modest, feisty outfit from 1943 to 1967, inextricably linked to its visionary editor and principal writer Richard E. Hughes, who wrote under a variety of pseudonyms - Pierre Alonzo, Ace Aquila, Brad Everson, Lafcadio Lee, Kermit Lundgren, Shane O’Shea, Greg Olivetti, Kurato Osaki, Pierce Rand, Bob Standish and Zev Zimmer - but whose real name was Leo Rosenbaum (1909-74). Read the rest of this Article on Herbie, Hughes, Highsmith & The History of ACG here…
Hear & See My Toronto Graphic Medicine Talk!
Posted: August 11, 2012
I was at the wonderful Comics & Medicine: Navigating the Margins Conference in Toronto last month. Here’s a pic with co-organiser and Mom’s Cancer author Brian Fies, taken by Karen Fies. I was honoured and thrilled to be invited back to kick off the proceedings with an introductory session, bright and early at 8.30am on the Monday morning.
My 45-minute illustrated exploration of medical comics past and present and overview of some exciting current developments is now online at the Graphic Medicine website, putting the audio recording together with a mini-slideshow all of the images from my Keynote presentation. Enjoy!
Article: Alice - Loves Little Lesions
Posted: August 5, 2012
Here is a fifteen-year flashback to the late Nineties and my review of a daring new experimental British anthology. You have got to admire Simon Henwood for his sheer persistence. After his efforts with the magazine Purr (five issues, 1993-1995), you might have expected him to lose some of his commitment, but here he is, bouncing back with an even more ambitious-looking magazine. The 1997 debut number of Alice is subtitled: JUVENALIA. PARENTAL IMBALANCE. ANGRY CANDY. TOT PSYCHOTICS. BAD TOYS. Read the rest of my Article here…
2nd International Alternative Press Festival Hits London!
Posted: August 2, 2012
These next four days bring the 2nd International Alternative Press Festival to its grand finale, with a late viewing tonight Thursday, 6-9pm for a whole street of exhibitions filling 11 shops in Lamb’s Conduit Street near Holborn, London WC1 (you can catch the shows during regular shopping hours till Sunday August 5th). Tomorrow evening, Friday, 7-9pm, there’s the launch party and exhibition opening at Gosh!, 1 Berwick Street in Soho for the fourth fantastic issue of The Comix Reader, and then this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, The Conway Hall on Red Lion Square near Holborn is pumping with the two-day Main Fair, offering loads of exhibitors, demos and workshops, admission a mere £3. Support The Alternative Press gang as they continue to excite and inspire with their inventive programming bringing together comics, zines, poetry, crafting and all things DIY and hand-made! For full details see the International Alternative Press Festival website…
My Talk at Pushwagner Show in Milton Keynes
Posted: August 2, 2012
A week today, next Wednesday August 8th, I’ll be appearing from 6.30pm at the MK Gallery, 900 Midsummer Blvd, Milton Keynes MK9 3QA to give an illustrated lecture about The World of Graphic Novels. This is part of a buzzing season of comics-related events at the first solo exhibition outside of Norway by artist Pushwagner (born Oslo, 1940, self-portrait above). The exhibition includes his defining creation, the graphic novel Soft City, which encapsulates a generation’s disenchantment with capitalism and life in the modern city. It was picked as one of the 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die. This free show brings together his drawings, paintings and prints made over the last forty years. As the press release explains, “His visionary practice resonates with the glamour of Pop Art, the language of science fiction, the anti-materialism of the Beat poets and the hallucinations of Vincent Van Gogh.” Hope to see you there, tickets cost £ 3, or £2 concessions and can be booked by calling +44 (0)1908 676 900, emailing info[at]mkgallery[dot]org, or on the door.
A Joy Meeting Two Joyces in Toronto!
Posted: July 30, 2012
It was a privilege and a joy for me to meet two truly inspired and inspiring innovators and activists in the comics medium in Toronto last week. On Monday night July 23rd, I was on stage at The Central Station next to The Beguiling bookstore to interview Joyce Brabner (above - she is thinking, not flinching!), instigator of Real War Stories, Brought to Light and Our Cancer Year with her late husband Harvey Pekar, alongside another special invitee, Joyce Farmer.
Then to wrap up the Comics & Medicine Conference on Tuesday July 24th, I talked with Joyce Farmer again about her provocative 1970s underground comix Abortion Eve and Tits & Clits and her graphic novel about her parents’ last years, Special Exits, for a wonderfully warm and funny closing session. Look out for my reports and transcripts of these encounters in future Articles on this website. Thanks to conference team-members Michael Green and MK Czerwiec (pictured behind the podium) for their photos.
Article: Rewriting Comics History
Posted: July 30, 2012
You’d think by now that the history of a medium as global and influential as comics would be fully researched and written, but this is not the case. In contrast to the more varied and international perspectives available on film or literature, the majority of English-language reference books on comics plough through the well-worn furrows of the 20th century American newspaper strip and comic book, re-affirming old "truths" and historical "facts". Objectivity and lack of bias are practically impossible, because by putting into print your history, your version of the "facts," your inclusions and omissions determine who and what are significant. In the process, almost inevitably, supposedly "minor" or "peripheral" figures and events can be overlooked. Writing history is a way of controlling history. As R.C. Harvey puts it in his book Children Of The Yellow Kid: The Evolution of the American Comic Strip, “And we begin, as most historical surveys of this medium do, with The Yellow Kid” (shown above from 1895). Read the rest of this Article here…
Article: Previews September 2012
Posted: July 26, 2012
What a month this September is turning out to be! It doesn’t get a lot better than this, with new works from major imaestros Burns, Moore, Morrison, Tardi and Ware and a mammoth chunk of Crumb & Kominsky’s collaborations, exciting innovators like Nina Bunjevac, Glyn Dillon, Sammy Harkham, David Nytra and Tobias Tak, and classy reprints of George Herriman, Wally Wood and Simon & Kirby all coming up, plus other treats historical and contemporary, English-language and translated, to look forward to. Here are my PG Tips for some of the very finest in graphic narratives coming your away in September, or thereabouts. Happy reading! Read my latest Previews Article here…
