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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
1001 Comics: Coming to Cheltenham & Dundee!
Posted: October 13, 2011
I’ll be spreading the ‘gospel’ and exploring the massive brick-like guide I have just edited, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die at two exciting events around the country later this month.
First up on Wednesday October 26, I will be speaking in the early afternoon at The Cheltenham Illustration Awards Presentation and Symposium Event at the Parabola Arts Centre, Cheltenham. I will be joining acclaimed artist, illustrator and RCA tutor Anne Howeson, and two representatives from Biografiktion, a young German illustration collective, all of us chaired by illustration educator Brian Love. This year’s Awards have been judged by Shaun Tan, whom I hugely enjoyed interviewing recently at Waterstone’s Piccadilly. Tickets to the Cheltenham event are only £15, (£10 for students) - click here to buy now!
Then the next weekend I am traveling all the way to the Scottish ‘capital of comics’, the birthplace of The Dandy and The Beano, home to publisher D.C. Thomson - Dundee in Scotland. I’ve been invited to their special Comics Day organised by Dr. Chris Murray as part of the Dundee Literary Festival. I am the opening ‘act’ at 11am for their Dundee Comics Day 2011 on the theme ‘Wot Comics Taught Me…’. There’s an impressive line-up of writers and artists presenting, including John Wagner, Frank Quietly, Cam Kennedy, Colin MacNeil and Robbie Morrison, plus Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering, creators of the Burke & Hare graphic novel, and Phil Vaughan and Jamie Bryan, who work on the interface between comic, computer games and animation. There’s also a Battlelines Exhibition, featuring artwork from Commando Picture Library, 50 years young this year, and the much-anticipated announcement of the Dundee Comics Prize Winners. It all takes place in the D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre, Tower Building, University of Dundee. Tickets cost £10 all day, £5 for children under 13, and can be bought from the University’s Online Store.
Do come along if you can. I look forward to meeting you and sharing our passion for the wonders of comics!
Comics Gosh!p: New London Discussion Group
Posted: October 11, 2011
Tomorrow night, Wednesday October 12, at the palatial new premises of Gosh! Comics at 1 Berwick Steeet in Soho, movers-and-shakers Mark Haylock and Mike Medaglia of Thinking Comics are launching their monthly comics discussion group, Comics Gosh!p (as in gossip!), as a relaxed get-together for readers to examine both mainstream and independent titles. For their inaugural meeting they will be looking at both Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and Tozo: The Public Servant by David O’Connell, whose first chapter is readable online.
Last Saturday at the BD & Comics Passion weekend, Mike and Mark were able to collar an exclusive video interview with Dave Gibbons and they plan to show it tomorrow night. All are welcome at these free gatherings on the second Wednesday of the month. M&M have got their dates and ‘set texts’ all sorted for the next five meetings till March 2012, so put them into your calendar.
And die-hard Gibbons fans may also want to go his talk, also tomorrow night, at The Cartoon Museum, related to their galaxy-spanning survey of Doctor Who in comics.
1001 Comics: Database Now Online
Posted: October 9, 2011
1001 Comics: Covers to the UK (left) and US (right) editions.
My new book, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, is an attempt at an historical survey of the best or most significant works in the medium. A ‘canon’ is of course almost impossible to fix and tie down definitively, especially in a medium that is so international and in constant flux. But perhaps now, in this internet era, we can really build a broader international perspective on comics, and get some grasp of the bigger picture.
With this aim in mind, certain titles have been included in the 1001 Comics list that are currently out of print or have yet to be translated into English. To have excluded them would have meant leaving out a vast wealth of top-class material. The 1001 Comics online database will be kept updated with details of available editions and translations, and will include extra cover images and extracts which I couldn’t squeeze into the book.
Also, you can find more background information on how I put the book together in these interviews and discover the reaction to the 1001 list in these book reviews... and I look forward to receiving your online comments.
Article: Great British Comics Now
Posted: October 9, 2011
In 1990, I curated an exhibition entitled God Save The Comics! at the Angouléme International Comics Festival, one of the launch exhibits at the brand new Centre National de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image opened by Culture Minister Jack Lang. Twenty-one years later, I am delighted to report that British comics are enjoying rude health and vital diversity in this second decade of the 21st century, despite some rumours to the contrary and some misperceptions about the medium’s current state and status. Read the full article here…
Article: Dave Gibbons Interview
Posted: October 4, 2011
This coming weekend is the ideal time to indulge in your BD & Comics Passion as the Institut Français in association with Comica Festival present a whole star-studded weekend of exciting activities bringing together the best of British and French comics professionals and connoisseurs, from China Miéville and Audrey Niffenegger to Bastien Vivès and Bryan Talbot.
Among others, British artist and writer Dave Gibbons will be meeting the co-creator of Valérian, French phenomenon Jean-Claude Mézières at the Institut Français, 17 Queensberry Place London SW7 2DT on Saturday, 8 October, 2-3pm, for an unique ‘happening’. Prepare to witness an incredible meeting of minds, as two outstanding comics creators talk about their shared fascinations, and draw their visions of the future before your very eyes. Tickets cost £10, concessions £8 and can be booked online or by calling 020 7073 1350. Early reservations recommended.
Dave Gibbons generously gave an exclusive interview to discuss his love of Valérian and the work of Jean-Claude Mézières. Read the full interview here…
Comics At The 2nd DSC South Asian Literature Festival
Posted: October 3, 2011
Cherished classical comic books and smart, cutting-edge graphic novels from India are both highlighted again this year at the 2nd DSC South Asian Literature Festival opening this coming weekend with a weekend of exciting events all held at Rich Mix, London. I will be joining acclaimed Indian graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee and publisher Bhavit Mehta, also co-organiser of the Festival, on Sunday 9 October at 12 noon for Indian Mythology: A Graphic Look, spanning from the much-loved Amar Chitra Katha series to the latest comics interpretations. You can get an all-day ticket for the Sunday for £12 or a weekend pass for only £20 and get your money back as book vouchers to spend there on the day.
Further ahead in this festival, I will be meeting again with Sarnath Banerjee to discuss his own graphic novels, including his latest, The Harappa Files. selected as one of the 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You DIe. This illustrated discussion entitled Slices of Indian Life is being held on Sunday 23 October at the Chelsea Theatre and costs £5 or £12 for the whole day’s events. Look forward to seeing some of you at one or both of these occasions.
1001 Comics: Big In Belgrade & Algiers!
Posted: October 3, 2011
Thanks to my being invited to the 9th Salon Stripa Comics Festival in Belgrade last weekend, the very first print review coverage anywhere in the world (as far as I am aware) of my new book on sale today in the UK, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, made it into Serbia’s most respected serious newspaper Politika yesterday, Sunday, 3 October, in this feature article by Vladimir Vukasovic. I was also interviewed twice for local television programmes and will add the online links for these clips as and when they show up.
And next stop for me is the 4th Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Algiers, whose theme this years is ‘Bubbles without Borders’. I will be giving two talks at FIBDA, including an illustrated lecture about the 1001 Comics book, in French, on Thursday, 5 October, from 2-4pm at the Esplanade OREF, Riadh el Feth. All are welcome. Joining me as the other UK guest this year, courtesy of The British Council, is Oscar Zárate. I am looking foward to this adventure immensely and to meeting other guests such as Frenchmen Alex Barbier and Jacques Ferrandez as well as Algerian cartoonist Slim, all of them spotlighted in this truly global guide!
Article: 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die
Posted: October 2, 2011
From tomorrow, Monday 3 October, you should be able to buy my new book, 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die, in shops and online. To give you a bit of background on this book, here are three interviews I’ve given recently to Comic Heroes, Broken Frontier and Bleeding Cool. I look forward to hearing your comments on 1001 Comics, your reactions to what we selected and your suggestions for what we should have included. Because, as we all know, even 1001 is not enough to encompass all the worldwide wonders of this medium! Read the full article here…
Greetings From Belgrade!
Posted: October 1, 2011
Greetings from Belgrade! I’m enjoying the 9th Salon Stripa at the Student Cultural Centre here in the Serbian capital. Thursday night’s opening was jam-packed with honours to winners of their competitions and to national and international guests, including the talented Italian artists Marco Nizzoli. The festival paid a moving tribute to Sergio Bonelli, the Italian comics publisher who passed away last Monday aged 79. The other Italian guest of the festival, Luca Enoch, could not join us for the opening ceremonies because he was due at Bonelli’s funeral. Bonelli’s imported, translated titles are by far the most popular comics in Serbia, especially Dylan Dog and Zagor. The local publisher here, Happy Thursday (the day when their new comics come out) even runs 30 shops of their own, selling newspaper and other magazines but stocking only their full range of Bonelli comics.
As well as meeting local creators, publishers and experts, I’ve been interviewed about my new book 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die for both Politika, the leading quality newspaper here, and for a news agency. Today, Saturday, I’ll be giving an illustrated lecture about Great British Comics at 6pm in the Main Hall, and on Sunday I’ll be explaining the genesis and revealing the list of works that made it into the 1001 Comics book, which is officially available from Monday October 3rd via Amazon.co.uk (and from 25 October from Amazon.com in the US).
The book is unofficially being launched at the Institut Français’s BD & Comics Passion weekend October 7th to 9th in South Kensington, London, in assocation with Comica Festival. Several members of my Team 1001 who helped compile and review this massive global listing will be present and the book will be on sale at the Cosmic Comics Costume Party on Saturday October 8th from 10pm (preceded by a screening of the Barbarella movie). I’m preparing my costume and have already bought some red Wellington boots! Who will you dress up as? And then on Sunday, again tying in with 1001 Comics, I will be debating which creators from the book should be selected as the ‘Five Geniuses Who Transformed Comics Forever’. So which writer / artist / publishers / editor would you pick? It’s sure to be tough choice! Hope to see many of you over this star-packed weekender.
Article: PG Previews For November 2011
Posted: September 25, 2011
Gosh! It’s another bumper harvest of comics, graphic novels and manga this month. Far removed from the American Big Two‘s corporate desperation to perpetuate their properties at any cost, back in the real world the fully fledged medium we love is more fearless and fertile than ever. Rather than wade through forests of perfunctory product, you can choose from these goodies which I’ve gleaned for you from what’s lined up to be released in November 2011 (although actual dates may vary), all based on publisher advance listings. Happy reading ahoy, me hearties! Read the full article here…
