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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
Comica ‘10: It’s Not Over Yet!
Posted: November 28, 2010
A big thank you to everyone who has supported this year’s Comica Festival and just a quick reminder that it’s not over yet. Comica ‘10 enters its final lap with a programme of fantastic events throughout London:
Paul Gravett: From Escape To Now
Paul Gravett gives an illustrated talk about his lifelong passion for comics, from the 80s Escape Magazine to now. More…
Where: The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1
When: Monday, 29 November - 6.30pm to 9.30pm
Launch Party: Frank Hampson - Tomorrow Revisited
Celebrate the 60th anniversary of Dan Dare and the genius of his creator at the book launch party. More…
Where: Chris Beetles Gallery, 8-10 Ryder Street, London SW1Y
When: Tuesday, 30 November - 6pm to 8pm
Great British Comics: Steve Bell & Bryan Talbot
Two of Britain’s most brilliant graphic storytellers swap tales of their prolific careers.
Where: ICA, The Mall, London SW1
When: APOLOGIES - THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED
Launch Party: Gonzo
You’re invited to the launch party of Gonzo by Will Bingley and Anthony Hope-Smith. More…
Where: London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Road, London W10
When: Thursday, 2 December - 6.30pm to 9.30pm
David Bircham: Alien Ink
Mingle with the rising talent of the UK, experience talks and attend a comic masterclass. More…
Where: London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Road, W10
When: Saturday, 4 December - Noon to 5pm
Film: Grant Morrison - Talking With Gods
A fascinating documentary detailing the vision of one of the most popular and controversial writers. More…
Where: ICA, The Mall, London
When: Sunday, 12 December - 4pm
Girls Comics: Pat Mills & Jenny McDade
Writers Pat Mills and Jenny McDade will be discussing the world of girls’ comics. More…
Where: London Print Studios, 425 Harrow Road, W10
When: Thursday, 16 December - 6:30pm to 8:30pm
And don’t miss your chance to visit the two amazing Comica exhibitions before they close:
Graphic Short Story Prize 2010
This years best entries to the annual competition will be framed and on display. More…
Where: Orbital Comics, 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2
When: Until Tuesday, 30 November
That’s Novel: Lifting Comics From The Page!
An exhibition celebrating comics by international innovators and the British cutting edge. More…
Where: London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Road, London W10
When: Until Friday, 17 December
Book Review: Best Crime Comics
Posted: November 27, 2010
I’ve just stumbled across this rave review, which I thought I’d share with you, of Best Crime Comics, a comics anthology I edited back in 2008. The reviewer is Andrew A. Smith (a man of great taste!) who has his own web-site here.
I was prepared to unload a couple of barrels of snark on The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics (Running Press, $17.95), but was pleasantly surprised.
I sneered at the idea of an anthology collection calling itself ‘best’, when it would obviously be barred from printing anything currently under copyright. So it would have little or nothing from any existing publisher - Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc. - or any other comics whose rights were spoken for. And I was right that most of that material is excluded. But editor Paul Gravett came perilously close to ‘Best’ anyway.
That’s because Gravett has a less parochial view than I do, and thought outside the box - and outside the US. Gravett, a London-based comics historian, journalist and publisher, came up with a number of European stories that truly are excellent. I don’t know why Europe loves American noir so much, or why they’re so good at it, but Best includes a Torpedo 1936 story by Sanchez Abuli and Jordi Bernet and an Alack Sinner tale by José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo.
I did expect to see some of the famous over-the-top 1940s and 1950s material that was partly responsible for the Comics Code of 1954, because much of it belongs to defunct publishers or is in public domain. And sure enough, there are a couple of those, including the infamous Murder, Morphine and Me by Jack ‘Plastic Man’ Cole, originally published in True Crime Comics in 1947. That story was made infamous by anti-comics crusader Fredric Wertham, whose book Seduction of the Innocent used a panel showing a hypodermic needle plunging toward a woman’s eyeball to illustrate his (largely imaginary) ‘injury to the eye motif’. The heralded team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, which created Captain America, kid-gang comics and romance comics, contribute a tale from Justice Traps the Guilty from 1948.
Best includes a lengthy Secret Agent X-9 comic-strip sequence from 1934 that’s much better than the hokey name would lead you to believe, because it’s written by Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) and drawn by Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon). Others gems include stories starring modern gumshoes El Borbah, Mike Hammer and Ms. Tree, or written by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Gravett somehow includes a 1951 EC Comics story by Johnny Craig and a 1946 Spirit episode by Will Eisner, whose rights are very much locked up.
As must be obvious by now, Gravett’s book lives up to its name in another way, in that it truly is mammoth. Best clocks in at more than 470 pages - all of it in black and white, but with crime comics that’s actually a plus.
The Little Prince Revisited: Found in Translation
Posted: November 26, 2010
Last night, Thursday 25, at a Comica 2010 Festival event in association with the French Institute, South Kensington, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing two exceptional translators, Sarah Ardizonne and Ros Schwartz, who have both worked on brand-new English versions of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s deceptively profound book for the child in all of us. It was delightful discussion in the beautiful Bibliotheque revealing the careful considerations by both translators of every word and phrase and their sometimes contrasting solutions to make these fresh readings sing.
Ros has crafted hers with her daughter Chloe for the Collector’s Library, a compact, palm-sized, dust-jacketed hardback, which cleverly incorporates some passages within the outlines of de Saint-Exupéry’s delicate drawings, while Sarah has brought Joann Sfar‘s daring, best-selling graphic novelisation into English for Walker Books. I have read them both and commend them both highly. My good friend Ariel Kahn has written an excellent, insightful review of the graphic novel here.
Translation is an underappreciated art and, having done a few comics translations myself for Escape Magazine, I know these sensitive wordsmiths deepened my admiration greatly. The evening was recorded, both audio and video, and I’ll let you know when these go online. As an added bonus, Ros and Chloe Schwartz turned out to be the very same translators of Julien Neel‘s warm and witty Lou!, available in English from Highland Books and which I rave-reviewed here. The great news is that the next, fourth volume of Lou! is coming next year.
Coming back to The Little Prince, the biggest-selling French book of all time, be sure to discover or re-discover this life-enhancing miniature in one or both of these latest editions. We were trying to bring Sfar back over from Paris for this Comica event but he had to bow out due to being too busy. Still, plans are afoot to whisk him to London by next Spring.
The Genius of Carlos Nine Comes to London
Posted: November 23, 2010
I am buzzing. I have just met one of the truly great Argentine geniuses of comics, Carlos Nine, and his charming wife Alicia, who arrived in London yesterday from the BD Festival in Colomiers, France. They are staying in London for the next few days before heading over to Paris where Carlos has a major one-man art exhibition opening at the Galerie BDArtiste at 55 rue Condorcet, 75009 till January 5, 2011.
Ever since discovering Nine’s intoxicating, lushly surreal draughtsmanship, a mesmerising fusion of vintage American animation and grand Old Master drawings and paintings, I’ve been hoping his work will arrive in English. This month finally sees the first translation, a Dungeon: Monstres episode by Sfar & Trondheim published by NBM. Here’s a glimpse at one interior page from his story Heartbreaker. The interiors of this album are drawn in fevered lines with flat colours overlayered, but it’s the front cover, in its luscious tones, that hints at the wonders of Nine’s fully painted comics and illustrations. Let’s hope this might lead to more of Nine’s dazzling artworks being put into English, both his solo books, including Saubon: Le Canard Qui Aimait Les Poules which won the Best International Album prize at the Angoulême Festival, and his fruitful collaborations such as the three-volume Pampa by writer Jorge Zentner.
Come and meet this multi-talented innovator tomorrow night (Wednesday, 24 November) at the That’s Novel exhibition at London Print Studio, hub of this year’s Comica Festival, where he’ll be talking with me and Sylvia Libedinsky about his work. In fact, most of the daytime, Nine will be over at the Studio demonstrating and interacting with their Comics Interns, organised by Karrie Fransman and preparing an exclusive piece to be made into a special Comica print. To book tickets for this Nine Comica Argentina night, click here. Nine is taking comics into incredible imaginative territories - now we can start to join him on his extraordinary journeys!
Hypercomics i-Pad App Launched
Posted: November 21, 2010
Peter Webb and the team at Redrawn have just confirmed that the free Hypercomics iPad app has now launched and available from iTunes! Here’s the link. And here’s the description:
“The Hypercomics app features the work of four renowned comics and visual artists, Adam Dant, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Dave McKean and Warren Pleece. Unlike conventional comics, Hypercomics gives you the opportunity to choose your route through the branching storylines created by the artists. Created to accompany the Hypercomics exhibition at the Pump House Gallery in London, the Hypercomics app acts as a digital scrapbook and introduction to the show. It offers the viewer a chance to see how the four artists liberated their work from the confines of the printed page and exploded them into the gallery space, relating multiple narratives to one another across walls and over the four floors of the gallery. Each artist presents a newly commissioned work conceived specific to the Pump House Gallery, using its setting, history or architecture as a springboard.”
This app has arrived a bit later than intended, but serves as a ongoing documentation of the show that I curated back in August-September, as well as being a fine example of Hypercomics itself. Peter has promised there’s a sample video of it coming shortly and I’ll let you know where to take a look.
This Week’s Article: A Graphic Cosmogony
Posted: November 21, 2010
I have just posted this week’s article on to the site, which reprints my introduction to the new comics anthology, A Graphic Cosmogony, published this month by Nobrow. Read the full article here…
Nobrow are also holding a free launch party for the book next week on Thursday 25 at the Nobrow Gallery at 62 Great Eastern Street, London. This coincides with the opening of thier new exhibition Murmuring Landscapes featuring Jon McNaught and Rob Hunter, whose prints will also be available for sale. More details here…
Comica ‘10: Louis Wain & Comica Argentina Night
Posted: November 20, 2010
There a two very special Comica Festival events taking place next week at London Print Studio that I need to draw your attention to:
Louis Wain: The Man Who Drew Cats
The life and work of the Edwardian cat artist Louis Wain, whose obsession drove him into the madhouse, is being explored by writer and broadcaster David Quantick and artist Savage Pencil in their serialised biography for Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic magazine. Quantick and Pencil discuss their fascination with Wain and their approach to comics in an illustrated presentation. Full details here…
When: Tuesday, 23 November - 7pm to 8pm
Comica Argentina Night: Carlos Nine & Thomas Dassance
In an introductory illustrated talk, Thomas Dassance, director of the Vinetas Sueltas Comics Festival in Buenos Aires, will reveal the rich traditions and vital current scene of comics in Argentina. Then, making his first appearance in London, the brilliant Argentinian artist, writer, designer, sculptor and animator Carlos Nine will discuss his fascinating life and prolific career with Argentinian cartoonist Sylvia Libedinsky, my co-curator of the Comica Argentina exhibition earlier this year. Full details here…
When: Wednesday, 24 November - 6.30pm to 8.30pm
The full programme of Comica Festival events can be found here.
Not Another Blog!
Posted: November 20, 2010
So why does my site need a blog?
I already post a weekly article onto the site. You can also check out my up-to-date listing of comics-related things to do. You can even find out all the details of my books, exhibitions and media appearances. What else can there possibly be left to say?
Well, there are so many exciting things going on in the world of comics, graphic novels and manga that I also need to quickly fire short snippets of information at you as I come across them. So bookmark this page and check back regularly to keep up to date with the latest news and information from The Man At The Crossroads.
