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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Come to My Free Library Talk on Superheroes
Posted: November 21, 2011
This Wednesday November 23rd, 6.30-8pm, as part of the Comica 2011 Festival, Islington Central Library, 2 Fieldway Crescent, London N5 1PF kindly invited me back to talk about my passion for comics. This time, I’ll be giving an illustrated lecture about superheroes. Rather than some definitive history, The History and Future of Superheroes! will be a more quirky and personal take, reflecting my shifting tastes in this predominant genre in American comic books and sharing some of the controversies and questions they raise, from their Golden Age origins to today’s multi-platform ‘superbrands’.
I hope it will also open out into some discussion with the audience about we love and loathe about these 20th century icons. This talk also ties in with the new guide I have edited and co-written, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, which of course includes a fair few outstanding superheroes, American and international. Copies will be on sale after and I’ll be happy to sign yours for you.
This is a free Comica event but numbers are limited. So to obtain a ticket please phone 0207 527 6960 or email angelica.ashcroft[at]islington.gov.uk - see you there and remember, the dress-code is capes and cowls!
Interview: Charles Burns
Posted: November 20, 2011
Charles Burns is today’s undisputed master of unsettling creepiness and not only in such American comics as Big Baby, Dog Boy, El Borbah, Black Hole and his latest, X’ed Out, but also in photography, animation, and set and costume design. Catching him amidst preparations for his first major retrospective at the Museum M in Leuven, Belgium, was the perfect time to get some perspectives on his oeuvre. Read the full interview here…
My Interview on this week’s Orbital Podcast
Posted: November 14, 2011
Simon, Tom and Chris from Orbital Comics, London, kindly invited me onto their bouncey Orbital Podcast this week to talk about both the new massive guide I’ve edited, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, and the upcoming Comica Festival 2011 events. You can jump ahead to 1 hour and 4 minutes, where the UK 1001 Comics cover pops up on the screen to hear this twenty-minute-or-so interview with me. Thanks for listening in!
Article: David B.
Posted: November 13, 2011
David B. is his own invention, a new self-made identity created by Pierre-François David Beauchard. He saw it as a way to restore the name David, which his mother originally wanted him to have, but his anti-semitic grandfather objected to. It was also a way to redefine and distinguish himself from his sometimes harrowing childhood dealing with his elder brother Jean-Christophe’s epilepsy. As his parents would never discuss the illness as he grew up, David B. embarked on an autobiographical account in comics form in his Thirties in an attempt to open a dialogue with them. This resulted in Epileptic, one of the most affecting family testimonies in comics since Art Spiegelman‘s Pulitzer prize-winning Holocaust memoir Maus. Read the full article here…
Article: Battle Of The Eyes
Posted: November 7, 2011
Battle Of The Eyes burnt briefly but brilliantly in 1985 as an ‘ideologically insane’ post-punk art-gang, whose extreme flagship tabloid, sneeringly named Nyak-Nyak!, trampled borders between the trash culture of hot rods, monsters and comics, and the British music scene from which the trio sprang. Early this year, Chris Long reconnected with Savage Pencil to reform BOTE as a duo. Read the full article here…
Join me at Transitions II: Comica Symposium 2011
Posted: November 2, 2011
This year’s Comica Festival is upon us now with a packed programme of events, exhibitions, Comica Conversations, lots of launch parties, our Comiket Independent Comics Fair, and much, much more. The schedule is constantly being updated over on the Comica website, but I wanted to alert you to this Saturday’s second Comica Symposium 2011: Transitions II at Birkbeck, University of London, this coming Saturday, November 5th. This conference is academic but accessible, serious but entertaining, bigger and better than last year’s highly successful first foray. There are so many fascinating presentations that ace organiser Tony Venezia has had to run parallel sessions in the morning. And the best thing about it this year is that it’s on a Saturday, so more people can get to it, and it’s still completely free, including wine and snacks from 6-7pm. Yes, there’s still time for you to catch some fireworks after!
I am really looking forward to this full day. I’ll be chairing one of the morning sessions from 10.30am and joining Julia Round, Roger Sabin and special American guest and Keynote Speaker Kent Worcester in the closing Response/Plenary Session. There’s a wonderful variety of subjects being discussed here, something for every taste in comics, from manga, Arab comics and Silver Age superheroes, to Hamlet adaptations, Rock ‘n’ Roll in comics, Motion Comics and Squirrel Girl! Some brilliant comics creators will also be participating including webcomics wizard Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, experimenter extraordinaire Simon Grennan and Karrie Fransman, discussing her imminent graphic novel The House That Groaned. You can download the complete schedule and abstracts at the dedicated Comica Symposium 2011 webpage.
Come and share your passion and fascination for comics with other enquiring explorers of sequential art and graphic narratives. Take part in the future of Comics Studies. Doors open from 9.30am and the location is Rooms B36 and B04, Main Building, Malet Street/Torrington Square, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX. Be sure to register right now for your free place with Tony by emailing transitions.symposium[at]gmail.com - and I look forward to seeing you there!
Article: Previews For December 2011
Posted: October 31, 2011
Here’s what I’ve gleaned for you from what’s lined up to be released in December 2011. Read the full article here…
Article: Comics Studies In The UK
Posted: October 23, 2011
Dundee University in Scotland now offers a one year post-graduate course - MLitt In Comics Studies - allowing students to examine comics and graphic novels. Run by Dr Chris Murray, it is the only course of its kind in the UK… so I decided to find out more. Read the full article here…
Paul Gravett’s DIY Astro Boy Cosplay!
Posted: October 20, 2011
Men don’t usually make much of an effort when it comes to costume parties, but I decided to have a go for the Institut Français’ Barbarella-inspired, cosmic-comics party on Saturday October 8th, part of their BD & Comics Passion Festival organised in association with Comica Festival. Inspired by watching the Belgian-Moroccan Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s electrifying contemporary dance homage to the God of Manga, Osamu Tezuka, entitled TeZuKa, and finding a pair of red wellington boots going cheap in a supermarket, I set about putting together my own DIY Astro Boy outfit.
You can try this yourself at home, if you also have a white or cream long-sleeved top and long-johns, some black shorts and a buckle belt (it should really be green). I tried buying a black latex swimming cap for the headpiece, but it was much too tight and tore once i tried to trim or loosen it. So with a fair bit of help on the kitchen table, the headpiece was eventually made out of an old black baseball cap by cutting off the peak and slicing it into three triangular sections to form the two points on the top of his head and the V-shape at the front. A mix of black socks for covering and anchoring, glue, staples, black felt pen and paint put this all together and it didn’t look too bad in a low light. Sadly, I didn’t have time to come up with a way to imitate Astro Boy’s jets in his arms and legs, nor the guns deployed from his posterior.
Here are a few blackmailable photos of the night, in the lovely company of Hélène Fiamma, the enthusiastic festival director from the Institut Français in London, and John (Salem Brownstone) Dunning, who was instrumental in getting Comica started back in 2003 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. To see more mad costumes, including Bauble-rella and Space Cow and the wacky superhero who used aluminium roasting trays under his cape to absurdly widen his shoulders and was the men’s winner, take a look here if you dare!
Article: How To Make It In The Art Business
Posted: October 16, 2011
After his studies at Camberwell College of Arts, Neal Fox was unsure how to continue making his art and was jokingly advised by Les Coleman to “Paint cats.” Out of their shared satirical perspective evolved a stinging script by Coleman entitled How To Make It In The Art Business, which Fox illustrated as a one-page comic. Read the full article here…
