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THE BLOG AT THE CROSSROADS
June Is Busting Out All Over With Comics Events!
Posted: June 2, 2012
June is busting out all over with some great comics events in London, across the UK and abroad. I’m involved with a fair few, so here’s some of my mad itinerary. I hope some of you can catch up with me at some of them.
First up, I am heading off for the first time to Norway and have the wonderful opportunity to interview the evocative Canadian graphic novelist Seth on Saturday June 9th, 4.00-4.45pm at the Oslo Comics Expo. Other international guests include Marc Bell, Tom Devlin, Jillian Tamaki, Chris Ware and Joost Swarte, so it’s going to be a fantastic weekend. I am also taking part in a seminar on a national centre of comics art in Norway, on behalf of Oslo’s comics library Serieteket at 11.30am on the Friday June 8th.
I’m jetting off from Oslo direct to Brussels next to put the finishing touches on the exhibition I have curated entitled Retrospective Posy Simmonds: Essentially English, opening June 12th at the Belgian Comic Strip Centre. It’s been a privilege to rummage through Posy’s drawers and collaborate with her to select some marvelous originals covering her entire career, including her earliest childhood comics and unpublished ‘deleted scenes’ from Gemma Bovery, for her first ever complete career survey. It’s on till November 25th, so there’s no excuse not to pop over to Brussels to see it!
Then the following weekend there are two great events in London. On Saturday June 16th Foyles Bookshop in Charing Cross Road holds its first Illustration Day as part of the Sketching The City Season. As well as a talk by legendary illustrator David Gentleman about his new book on London and ace demos by Karrie Fransman and Simone Lia, I’ll be giving an illustrated talk at 3.15pm on The Pleasures of Reading Comics. To come for the whole day, you need to book and pay £8/6 concs. for tickets, but to come just to my talk, there is no charge, so go ahead now and email events[at]foyles.co.uk and simply request a free ticket for it. Do come along.
Then on the Sunday June 17th, I’ll be at Nobrow’s first East London Comics & Arts Festival or ELCAF at Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3PQ. I will be interviewing the brilliant French artist and writer Blexbolex, creator of Abecedaria and Dog Crime, who is launching his latest dazzling graphic novel No Man’s Land from Nobrow. I am really looking forward to our conversation which runs from 3.30 to 4.30pm - and admission to ELCAF is free.
Don’t forget that Arvon Foundation are offering their acclaimed, intensive Graphic Novel Residential Course in Shropshire from June 25th to 30th with top tutors Bryan Talbot and Hannah Berry - if you’re lucky, there are still a few places left if you book up very soon. Otherwise, if you’re in London, drop by the Comica Social Club on Wednesday June 27th, the city’s buzzing monthly hub of comics connectivity on the last Wednesday of every month in the ballroom bar of the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank from 6-9pm or later. You can join via the Comica Social Club 2012 Facebook page.
As June comes to a close, where better to be that down at the seaside in beautiful Bournemouth? I’m taking my bucket and spade there and giving a paper on adapting comics into dance with a focus on Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s TeZuKa at the Third International Comics Conference, entitled appropriately Comics Rock! on June 28th and 29th at Bournemouth University. The first day looks at comics and education with David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Kickback) and Steve Marchant from Cartoon Classroom, and the second day examines comics and multi-modal adaptation, with Ian Edginton and I.N.J. Culbard on the guest list. Come and join in this stimulating exchange between creators, theorists and readers at the cutting edge of today’s thinking about the medium.
And finally looking ahead into July, I’m producing and presenting a Comica Festival panel at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield on Thursday July 5th, 5-6pm, entitled Reading Between The Panels: Comics, Kids, and Verbal, Visual & Critical Literacy. Joining me to discuss the validity of comics as a literacy catalyst and tool will be cartoonists/educators extraoridnaires Hunt Emerson and Jim Medway, comics scholar and activist Mel Gibson and filmmaker Russell Wall. It’s going to be a lively session ahead of the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards being announced on the Friday morning.
You know, these really are amazing times for comics, and I hope you can join me at some of these upcoming events. Say hello if you do. Enjoy the summer, come rain, come shine!
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