The road to Brighton Pier

 It seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition that my blog comes out of it's dormant state every year in preperation for the next Graphic Medicine conference and this year is certainly no exception. Having been pretty blown away by the range of speakers  and the general atmosphere in Toronto last year I have to admit I was saddened by the prospect of it potentially being in the US whilst I was in the middle of my studies and very likely to not be in a good enough place financially to attend. So you can imagine my relief when it was revealed that it was going to be in Brighton this year! Sun, sea, and sanctioned misery: what more could a boy ask for!

As the finalised timetable is not yet posted I will refrain from rolling off a list of speakers I am looking forward to seeing in action, however as per usual there is so much great stuff going on that there are bound to be multiple clashes (although I'm glad to see the organisers have taken on board the critique of last years conference and will have the workshops running separately from the talks). All I can reveal at this point is there will be a great mix as usual of medical professionals, artists/writers, and academics, new authors, independent creators, and slightly more established names (Nicola Streeton and David B are the keynotes this year). Paul Gravett will once again be opening proceedings, hopefully with more obscure examples of medical themes in comics read out in silly voices.

One thing I enjoyed about last year was the range of innovative approaches being taken to narrative and to the comics medium itself and with any luck this year won't disappoint on that front. One of the conference organisers Muna Al-Jawad is currently doing a Phd using the comic form as  a research method, something that interests me greatly and seems to be slowly picking up a bit of steam in both the academic and medical worlds.

So what will I be talking about this year? Well this year I won't be the only one doing the talking, much to the dismay of the second speaker who gains no pleasure from massively editing down my words.  I will be giving a joint paper with my less publicity hungry creative partner in crime, Emma Mould (the second half of Sicker Than Thou). Emma is a writer, blogger, and animal lover (amongst other things), and I have had the pleasure of illustrating two issues of her autobiographical accounts of her struggles with Borderline Personality Disorder, and her two month stay in a psychiatric ward (A Life Of Noise & Special Language). What makes this collaboration particularly interesting in light of this years loose conference theme of ethics, is that I'm not just some artist that Emma found on the street, but have been friends with her for close to eight years-whereas we only started collaborating in the last year or so. Effectively the story she is telling in these comics is one that I myself was a (partial) witness to, and that its own had effect on me, much in the same way that the story of my own illness might possibly be viewed differently through her eyes. In our talk we will hopefully address wider questions of responsibility (to friends and family as well as to other people with illnesses), the ethical implications of representation, , as well as questioning whether our collaboration has helped shape our understanding of each others illness, and finally we will no doubt be talking about that age old bugbear: catharsis. All with a splash of humour with any luck.

So if you can make it, I would highly recommend it. The Graphic Medicine conferences act as a springboard for people to tell a whole range of potentially traumatic stories, but despite this, there is usually a whole lot of happiness, humour, and togetherness to come out of this so-called misery, and I can guarantee you'll leave feeling creatively and intellectually rejuvenated.

The 4th International Graphic Medicine Conference, Ethics Under Cover, runs from the 5th-7th of July at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, for more info and for registration click here.

'Depressing subject matter' (or) The stigma of graphic medicine. Leeds 17/11/11

Having read a lot about the previous two graphic medicine conferences it was very exciting for me not only to finally get to go to one, but also to be able to take part.

For some people the idea of an all day conference on stigma, which covered such potentially depressing subject matter as disability, death, illness and decline, probably sounds like the precursor to a bottle of wine and a handful of sleeping pills, but the atmosphere in Leeds on the day was fantastic.

Thriving, eclectic, warm, encouraging, inspiring, and with plenty of laughs to be had, this open discourse between artists, academics, and health care professionals is surely an optimistic sign of the times.

Comics as a medium is pretty used to being stigmatised, as sub-literate rubbish for children, as well as being a dangerous influence on children's behaviour, morals, and intellectual growth. So what better medium in which to explore the different ways in which stigma works and ways in which to overcome it?

Many of the artists/authors at the conference talked about the troubles they faced trying to tell their stories in comic book form. People often found it offensive that such serious topics were to be reduced to cartoons. Even my dad when I told him that my talk had got a lot of laughs, thought that this was a bad thing, after all, surely my work was meant to be serious? There is an assumption that no humour can be found in these situations and that medical narratives are always to be dry, bleak, and depressing. As the experiences written and drawn about in these comics are very much real, and have happened, then it is safe to assume that the humour that is found in these situations is very much real as well.

Another stigma that faces the comic artist/writer of graphic medicine (and indeed in any writer who chooses to write about such things) is this idea of catharsis. A view that a majority of the speakers shared was that labelling their work as cathartic was perhaps oversimplifying things. For example Nicola Streeton does not consider her graphic novel 'Billy, You, and Me' (written about the death of her two year old son) to be cathartic. For her the catharsis took place at the time, and she wants her work to be considered simply as art, as a story. Sixteen years has passed since her sons death and while she can never consider herself to be truly 'over it' (the heading of her talk was 'The stigma of mourning too long') she is a little taken aback when the media interest surrounding her book has people asking in depth details about her son's death.

Nicola combats all these possible misconceptions by (in my opinion) exaggerating certain aspects of her personality both in person and within the pages of her graphic novel. This helps to put us at ease, and shows us that we can laugh alongside her, we become much more empathetic because of this. Despite the 'depressing subject matter' Nicola is by no means (to quote the title of the graphic novel by cartoonist Brick) a Depresso. Her talk is a performance, her slightly eccentric, cheerful demeanour reels us in. Nicola's background may be academic (she self-referentially quotes Freud and Foucalt and talks about her and her husbands unshakable belief in 'the talking cure') but she is by no means stilted or boring. Have you ever seen anyone use a tap dance routine to make a point about stigma and memory or interview themselves using a woolly hat to distinguish themselves as interviewer and interviewee? Nicola ties academia to passion, frees it from it's cage, and makes it relevant.

Sarah Leavitt talked specifically about the stigma of the caregiver and much in the same way I am trying to approach the idea of the model illness sufferer in my own comic, she deconstructs the notion of the perfect caregiver. She is incredibly open about moments of anger and frustration, both towards her mother during her decline, her father's treatment of her mother, and even her jealous rage towards the family cat. She also talked about about her sadness at the removal of boundaries not previously crossed and intimacies previously shared between her parents when helping to clean and dress her mother. Central to Sarah's story was her finding love with her partner Donimo at such a difficult time. Now without intending to put a heteronormative spin on things and thus discredit the importance of Sarah's lesbianism to the story, I would argue that this segment of the story is still entirely relatable to a heterosexual readership. Anyone going through or having gone through similar things to Sarah with her mother would probably would have had someone close to them (a partner or a friend) on whom they could unload all their ugliness, their sadness, their weakness, and frustration, without judgment and with total support.

Sarah also made one last interesting point. As a writer/artist she found herself going through these painful experiences whilst at the same time knowing she had to record them. There is a strange doubleness going on as the person living the experience and the persona already editing it down in their minds, sometimes you forgot that it might be painful for other people close to you or the person the work concerns, to read these things at a later date.

Paula Knight talked about her graphic memoir in progress The Facts Of Life, a very refreshing look at miscarriage and the child-centric view of women's role in life. Paula is clearly a feminist pro-choice, and not a firm believer in that whole anatomy is destiny stick. However she wanted children but sadly, this was not to be. In becoming a woman without purpose (as some people might say) she began to notice even more society's attitude towards motherhood and non-motherhood.

The subtle language pressed upon would be mothers, those who choose not to have children, and those who wait until it's 'too late' always point the finger of blame upon the woman (the word 'barren' certainly has judgement overtones). In Billy, You, and Me Nicola Streeton goes through the motions believing her sons death is her fault because she had an abortion when she was younger, and Paula too listed all the possible reasons she might be to blame for losing her child, including the fact that on a subconscious level she might not have been ready to have one.

Paula was self-conscious that he work was dressing, but many people reassured her that she had extracted humour from the situation, especially the awkward conversations with old friends who wondered, given her age, why she hadn't had any children yet. A wonderful device in comics is to be able to have more than one thing going on in a panel and both Nicola and Paula use this to humorous effect, projecting what they think people might be thinking whilst they are saying something entirely different. Paula's style is much cleaner than Nicola's (not that Nicola's scratchy style doesn't suit the story perfectly) but doesn't suffer from being boring because of this. There is some fantastic use of paint and collage and the symbolism I have seen of hers so far is inventive and funny. As what we were privy to at the conference was only the tip of the iceberg I look forward to seeing more in the future.

MK Czerwicz (a.k.a Comic Nurse) gave a talk about her ongoing graphic novel project, an oral history of the aids unit in which she worked for a number of years before it shut down. In her talk she tipped her metaphorical hat to Studs Terkel the great oral historian famous for the set text 'Working', in which he extracted a large amount of blood from a large amount of stones and painted a huge sociological landscape of race, gender, class, sexuality, and more. MK talked about her unit as one that broke all the rules when it came to patient care, by really emphasising the care part. Sitting on patients beds, visiting patients outside of hospital, forming close personal bonds with patients, all of the things that they were taught in nurses school, were a big no no. She came to write this history because her Internet searches came were fruitless, and she could not believe no one had done in before. She missed and wanted to make people aware of the 'community of crisis' that had formed in the unit at the time. Indeed even as a heterosexual male (watching documentaries like We Were Here and The Times Of Harvey Milk, I find myself getting nostalgic for what were incredibly painful times for a lot of people, purely because whist a lot protest these days seems to me to be without focus and to go nowhere, back then (and I know my vision is extremely rose-tinted) they seemed to be fighting for something worth fighting for, and they were actually making a difference. Testament to this is the fact that despite having the highest mortality rates in the country MK's unit was constantly referred to as a fun and supportive place. Like a lot of the other artists I've already discussed, MK's is a very personal history as well as being a straight up oral history, something which her simplistic cartoony style conveys brilliantly. I had more to say on MK's work, but realising that this is becoming a bit of an essay, I think it's best to let her work speak for herself. You can read the first part of her oral history online here and read an interesting article on a talk she gave on her talk to make World Aids Day here.

Also speaking at the conference was the cartoonist Brick ,Lu Miranda (who talked about the visually stunning La Parentheses, a graphic novel about epilepsy and memory loss, that sadly I think is only available in French) and Mita Mahato who talked about the use of silence in David Small's brilliant Stitches.

Finally fellow Bristol artist Katie Green (whom I spoke with at Laydeez Do Comics in June) talked in further detail about her forthcoming graphic novel about anorexia and sexual abuse Lighter than my shadow. In particular she opened up a little more about her experiences with sexual abuse and the stigmas surrounding it. She tapped into the patriarchal blame the victim mentality which she admitted was even ingrained into her brain as a young adult, a mentality that that is still very much prevalent in society today. I always admire Katie's bravery talking about such difficult subjects.

My own talk went pretty well, I had planned some humorous moments but due to nerves had sounded pretty robotic when running through it in front of friends, so I was a bit taken aback when I had to pause for the audience to stop laughing. The Q+A session at the end gave me a lot to mull over as well, which was good.

The day ended with a keynote speech by Darryl Cunningham (complete with irate accusations of exploitation during the Q+A session) and a final summary by Ian Williams before we went and gorged ourselves silly on Chinese in the evening.

The popularity of mine and Emma's moniker 'Sicker than thou' has also got us thinking about the possibility of maybe doing badges and t-shirts in the future.

Thanks to the two Ian's and Maria, and all the other speakers and people I met over the weekend. Probably the best academic conference I've been to (OK so I've only been to two, i may be a little bias) so let's hope they keep on going into the future!

Laydeez Do Comics 20th June with Katie Green, Charles Hatlfield, Joumana Medlej, and myself

It's something of an extreme rarity for me to blog about something I have done rather than something someone else has done but on the 20th of June I had the extreme pleasure and the honour of speaking at the monthly event Laydeez Do Comics in London. Laydeez Do Comics was founded by comic artist and curator Nicola Streetham and artist, writer, curator, and academic Sarah Lightman. What started out as more of a reading and discussion group which set out to prove that ladies not only read but DO comics, has now blossomed into something of an institution. Dropping the book group aspect to focus more on bringing the best in speakers from the comics and illustration world, both established (Trina Robbins, Melinda Gebbe, Posy Simmonds) and non-established, male and female, LDC boasts a fantastically friendly and thriving atmosphere, which is inspiring and warm. It's a great place to meet people for whom the medium of comics is a passion, and to discover new things along the way.

I was hugely nervous about speaking myself, but having witnessed the general atmosphere of these events a number of times before, I was more nervous about the act of speaking in front of an audience than the response I would get (although I was perhaps a little self-conscious of looking like the dud in the room went put up against a soon to be published artist, a published and highly regarded academic, and a comics artist from Lebanon). Thankfully, the obligatory round-the-room introductions with the added question 'name something that has scared you recently' was a nice ice-breaker and it was reassuring to see some of my fellow speakers also admit to nerves.

I was speaking about my autobiographical comic in progress about my life with the terminal illness Cystic Fibrosis. The one thing that's always drawn me to autobiographical comics is their non-idealised humanity, and this was something that I really hoped to try and achieve with my own work. I wanted to talk about all the things that I had done, or thought, concerning my CF that didn't exactly make me the model CF sufferer (which is why I called this first issue of the comic The Selfish Gene). I wanted to offer an alternative to what I like to call (in a typical nod to my Cultural Studies background) 'the poster-child syndrome', the image of the angelic smiling child with a terminal illness which to me is completely devoid of personality and places the person with a terminal illness way too easily into the role of passive victim. My biggest inspiration since the age of 17 is a guy called Bob Flanagan (I showed a clip from the documentary film Sick, which is about Bob, during my presentation). Bob Flanagan was an American performance artist, poet, and writer who at the time of his death at the age of 43 was the longest living survivor of CF. He was also a masochist, a submissive, and a prominent member of the S+M scene who combatted the pain of his illness, with more pain, but ultimately pain he was in control of. He was also an incredibly intelligent, warm, and funny figure whose gallows humour*(1) (along with the discovery of the hilarious and inappropriate gag cartoons of John Callahan) helped me determine the way I wanted to write and draw about my own experiences. After all, if you can't laugh about terminal illness what can you laugh at? I finished off my presentation by talking about another comic that I am working on, the semi-autobiographical 'Confessions of a self-hating male' which was inspired by my best friend calling me a self-hating male after spotting that I was reading a book called Women without men. This collection of strips is a chance for me to have fun by exaggerating aspects of my personality as a 'cowardly feminist', a straight white male who often gets mistaken for being gay because he doesn't like football or making noises like a baboon when he's drunk. A man ashamed, fearful, and disgusted by traditional masculinity, but also finds it difficult to stand up to it, and who is also very much afraid of women. A man who doesn't really identify himself as a man. These comics are going to explore this mainly through trivial events such as getting the train home from London after a big football match, somehow always being the target for blokes who like to shout stuff out of cars at strangers, and that grey area I like to call sex. I've got lots of ideas for this comic, as stuff that happens in my day to day existence tends to inspire it.

The response was far better than I could have possibly imagined, it was slightly surreal and astounding but a massive confidence boost as well. I'd been a little worried that my style was slightly too rough around the edges, but judging by the response, I needn't have.
There were many routes suggested to me but I think perhaps the first one I aim to explore is to tweak to perfection the pages I've got so far (I think there's about 28) because they are a perfect lenght to enter into the Myriad editions First Fictions Graphic Novel competition. In the meantime I'm going to work on developing it into graphic novel lenght, which is a very exciting prospect.


Next up was Katie Green who is also from Bristol and who is currently working on her graphic novel about recovering from anorexia and sexual abuse entitled Lighter Than My Shadow due out sometime in 2013. I admire Katie's bravery to be so open about these very painful experiences in her life, not just on paper, but in front of a room full of people. Katie's talk was very enlightening, and she peppered it with humour to put everyone at ease (talking about the surreal nature of these experiences being talked about in an editorial fashion, her editor at one point saying 'there are too many suicidal moments'). Katie said some very interesting things, for one thing, we often assume that the process of writing something like this is cathartic, but Katie questions this assumption herself, wondering if rehashing these events over and over again really is the healthiest thing. But then Katie has made a wonderful sacrifice in this respect because her intentions with this book is to write the book she wished had been there when she was suffering. I think the decision to make this book more aimed at secondary school children and beyond, as a realistic manual on recovery, is a fantastic one. The pressure on women to loose weight far outweighs realistic depictions of eating disorders in the media. As for the artwork Katie's childlike and naive characters perfectly juxtapose the dark underbelly of the story and I love the fact that something that was purely accidental (a crease in the paper she was scanning for her background) has become a crucial element in the structuring of her work. Katie you see doesn't like to use panels or speech bubbles(*2), so this crease became a way of separating the images although her splash pages and double page spreads are defiantly a thing to behold. Her representation of her eating disorder as a dark forboding shadow with whom she can have conversations is also a brilliant idea. I for one am highly looking forward to when Lighter Than My Shadow comes out.

After Katie's talk was American professor of English and published academic Charles Hatfield (he wrote Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature). A highly articulate and energetic guy Hatfield talked to us about his job teaching comics based courses at Calafornia State University and for one thing it was refreshing to have an academic openly demystify the process of academia. Hatlfield who was in the UK partly as a research trip (lucky man!) broke down his ideas into several areas which I'll try to remember off the top of my head (I was still in a post-nervous haze and foolishly didn't take down any notes). First and foremost Hatfield confessed to being a formalist at heart, encouraging his experiences to take from the formalists toolbox of terms. Hatfield talked about the influence of Thierry Groensteen's semiotic study The System Of Comics (which is one of the academic books on comics I've struggled with the most).
He then went on to talk about cartooning, and interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary being the area that most interests me. Comics more than any other medium seems to be able to borrow from a whole range of other mediums, and cross other into respected disciplines, such as medicine, history, sociology, anthropology etc. It was also interesting to hear him discuss certain limitations in alternative comics, mainly that culturally it is something that it is created in the majority by middle class white males (although I think this is changing quite rapidly) and creators of colour are still something of a rarity. I look forward to hearing Hatfield talk again at the Manchester conference and picking his brains afterwords.

To finish the night we had Lebanese comic artist Joumana Medlej who is the creator of Lebanons first superhero. Inspired by the her childhood in war torn Beirut and taking the city as her main setting Joumana's presentation was a testament to the fact that you can get used to anything if it is part of your everyday life (something I myself am very much aware of). For Joumana the reality of war was simple: bombs meant no school, and no bombs meant school. Surprisingly life during wartime could be boring and Joumana took to drawing as a means of escaping that boredom. Her superheroine Malaak (Angel of Peace) is by day your average teenage Lebanese girl but by night is an ass-kicking bringer of a justice with a bumbling male side kick who thinks he is stronger and more fearless than he actually is (a nice touch). Also a nice touch is the creation of a league of civilians who help Malaak along her way (which Joumana confessed, was an easy way to meet the demand of friends begging her to put them in the comic). Malaak, Angel Of Peace is a refreshing reinvention of the superhero genre which far outweighs some small press attempts I have seen her in the UK (which tend to follow the superhero soap opera line) by being firmly placed in a reality familiar to Jouamana.

So overall the night was fantastic, and if there are any budding comic book artists out there or simply if you have a passion for the medium, I highly recommend you get yourself down to a Laydeez event in the future.

The general euphoria of getting a good response however could not match the hilarity of me falling down the gap between the platform and my train home. Pure class!

Expect a blog post from Mike Medaglia soon on the Laydeez Do Comics blog, and you can read Katie's two part summary of the evening here.

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(*1) For example singing 'um diddle diddle I'm gonna' die to the tune of supacalafragolistic
(*2) This is something I can sympathise with having put off starting my comic for so long perhaps partly out of an unnatural fear of square boxes and sraight lines.

Comics & Academia: Where we are now, where we are going, and some great conferences to look out for....

It seems that something has defiantly been brewing in the world of comics and graphic novels which certainly seems to be reaching a new level of intensity in the last year or so. With more and more glowing reviews of comics in the mainstream press (although papers like The Guardian and The Times are still slightly more switched on than the rest) as well as interviews with UK creators such as Darryl Cunningham appearing everywhere from the much respected Comics Journal in America to BBC Radio 4's mental health and brain focused programme All In The Mind, it seems like the only way is up. Not to mention the fact that Dundee University have just announced that from next year they will be doing an MA in comics studies, focusing on the medium academically as well as creatively and helping to push potential comic academics, creators, and publishers into their chosen careers through work experience, guest speakers, expert knowledge, and the building up of contacts. Comics have been called by one particular online literary journal 'the only true new art form of the twentieth century' and while it isn't really as new as they may think (there are people that argue the roots of comics all the way back to cave paintings and the Bayeux tapestry) what the medium is beginning to do is certainly new. For me there hasn't really been much in the way of truly great, groundbreaking modern literature or modern art recently. Modern art especially (I find) is derivative, pretentious, and doesn't really tell us much about us or the world we live in (even if it claims to do so, the message is so detached and distorted as to be rendered useless) . Whereas comics for the most part are all about us and the world we live in and not just us specifically but a multiplicity of us from all around the world, we now have access to a wide range of experiences we know nothing about and may never come into contact with. For me comics are literature, but they also are art, these two things work together and feed off each other in comics. But it's because comics are so versatile that I like them so much. I believe it was Scott McCloud the great sage wisdom of comics theory that was very fond of pushing this particular line: comics is a medium, NOT a genre. Within comics you get a wide range of different approaches. From history to philosophy, journalism, autobiography, political commentary, satire, allegorical or just plain off the wall sci-fi, fantasy, horror, thriller, literary adaptations, I could probably mention more if I wanted to. It seems people are constantly reinventing what we can do with comics, not just artistically and formally but it terms of narrative as well.

So it gives me a great thrill to see some really interesting academic conferences popping up across the UK.

The first of which is the Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Bandes Dessinees and Comics 2011 to be held at Manchester Metropolitan University between the 5th and the 8th of July. This four day conference will be split into two parts, the first two days focusing on Anglophone comics and Manga, the last two days focusing on European comics. It will feature some fantastic keynote speakers such as women's underground comix legend and co-conspirator behind Alan Moore's Lost Girls, Melinda Gebbie, as well as British underground staple Hunt Emerson and French artist Edmond Baudoin. But for me it would be equally exciting to hear talks from critics such as Ann Miller and Bart Beaty who have written some fantastically indepth books about European comics, and American academic and editor Charles Hatfield (who I had the pleasure of speaking alongside at Laydeez Do Comics last Monday). Flying the flag for the UK will be academics such as Chris Murray (who will be running the MA in Dundee) giving what looks to be a fascinating talk on pyschogeography in comics, Melanie Gibson a consultant who gives training to libraries and schools on how to stock graphic novels and comics (amongst other things), Studies In Comics editor Julia Round, and Graphic Medicine guru and comic artist Ian Williams. This event is probably really only for real die-hard enthusiasts as (a it's quite expensive and (b four days of academic talks might get a bit much, but for me I approach it with as much anticipation as someone might await something like Glastonbury Festival. Check out the full programme here. Expect a report and a selection of interviews with some of the speakers on this blog.

Next up is the Comics and Conflict Conference taking place at The Imperial War Museum in London between the 19-20th of August as part of their Children's Literature Festival (although I'd hardly call the way some of the authors/artists speaking choose to tackle war child-friendly) Again featuring some fantastic guests in the form of 2000AD writer Pat Mills who created his own World War I series Charley's War, Mikkel Sommer writer/artist of Obsolete (which I reviewed here), Francesca Cassavetti who has turned her mothers wartime diary into a comic, and academics Roger Sabin and Martin Barker who will be discussing the long-running Doonsbury series.
Sadly French comic artist Jaques Tati who was going to be one of the keynote speakers is no longer on the bill, for reasons I do not know. Tati created a fantastically bleak and human tale of trench warfare in It Was The War Of The Trenches (which you can now buy as a hardcover book published by Fantagraphics as part of their Tati reprint series). Comics/graphic novels about war and conflict appeal to me as a pacifist because they look at the very human toll of war, not just that of civilians but the people fighting as well(*1), of course if you seek it out a lot of classic fiction does this as well, but comics of course have the bonus of interesting and expressive artwork.

Next up is the second Transitions Comica Symposium chaired by Dr.Roger Sabin, on the 5th of November at the School of Arts, Birbeck, London University. This conference will be look specifically at new emerging research in comics studies spanning across multiple disciplines and featuring work from postgrad students and early career lecturers alike. An event without the restrictions of theme, this promises to be a melting pot for new ideas, and they are calling for papers, so budding comics theorists apply!. (Deadline 31st July)

Finally, following on from a highly successful conference in London last year (and an even more successful one in Chicago this year, but I'll post about that later) Leeds Thoughts Bubble will be playing host to a one day conference on Graphic Medicine subtitled Visualising The Stigma Of Illness, on the 17th of Novemember. Again there is a call for papers, so you know what to do! (Deadline 18th of July) There are two other conferences, one on scultpure and comics, the other on the way in which the material form of comics affects our reading experience, but fo my money the Graphic Medicine one looks the most interesting.

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(*1) An early example of human tales of war in comic book form would be the classic EC series Frontline Combat which managed to be historically accurate while carrying a strong anti-war message and featured the artwork of such luminaries as Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, and Jack Davis.

Latest comic events

Here's some worthwhile comic events happening in the next month:

That's Novel! Exhibition at London Print Studio. 22nd Oct-18th December

Following the huge success of the Hypercomics exhibition ( which was Time Out's exhibition of the week, and got a pretty rave review from Canadian comics critic Bart Beaty) Paul Gravett is curating what will no doubt be another fantastic exhibition entitled That's Novel! Featuring work from international stars like Ho Che Anderson (artist and author behind the Martin Luther King graphic biography) and Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) as well as members of the British small press scene Paul Rainey, Savage Pencil, Darryl Cunningham, Philippa Rice, etc
Also featuring work from the artists of illustration/comics publisher Nobrow and a first chance to see the work of Argentian artist Carlos Nine. Like Hypercomics this exhibition will also be free!

Paul Gravett hosts comics panel at DSC South Asian Literature Festival. Sat Oct 23rd. Q Forum, London. 7pm


Paul Gravett will be hosting a panel discussion called A Visual Renaissance: The Rise of Graphic Novels in South Asia. Joining him on the panel will be Mustashrik who was the artist for Julius Ceaser for SelfMadeHero's Manga Shakesphere line as well as being a very successful commercial artist in his own right, working with Coca Cola, Stella Artois and The Department for Transport.
Also joining him and representing the small press scene will be Kripa Joshi a former graduate of New York's School of Visual Arts from Nepal whose folk art inspired comic adventures of Miss Motti are available for purchase in Gosh Comics and The Cartoon Museum in London. Finally the third panellist will be British talent and author of Rumble Strip Woodrow Phoenix, who visited India last November through The British Council to lead comics workshop, meet graphic novelists, and check out the current comic scene (lucky git!). The panel will be held at Q Forum, and tickets will cost £8 including drinks.

Melinda Gebbe @ Laydeez Do Comics Monday 25th October The Rag Factory, Brick Lane, London. 6.30pm-9.30pm

Having immensely enjoyed the atmosphere of their last meeting, a special talk given by underground comix legend Trina Robbins, I look forward to taking the trip up to London again this month. This months meeting returns to its usual multi-speaker format but is headed by another pioneering figure in the wimmin's comix movement, Melinda Gebbe, who is now based in Nottingham with husband Alan Moore with whom she collaborated on the jaw-dropping three volume ode to Victorian porn and childhood fairy tales, Lost Girls. Also speaking will be Lisa Gornick, a London based filmmaker who keeps a blog of daily drawings about her film making, Sina Shamsavari, an autobiographical comic artist currently doing a PhD about queer alternative comics at Goldsmiths in London, and artist Michael O'Mahony. It costs a measly £1.50 to get in and you get free homemade cookies in the bargain, plus you're welcome to join them for curry in brick lane afterwards.

Spice Arthur 702. Live manga storytelling with instrumental accompaniment. 26th October. Soho Theater, Dean Street, London. 8pm.


A modern take on the traditional Japanese art form of picture storytelling Kamishibai which gave birth to Manga as we know it today. Although this is all in Japanese, an English synopsis will be provided for each tale, and the combination of crazy voices, sound effects, and trumpet and drum accompaniment should make this an exciting and once in a lifetime event. Click here to view a YouTube video of the group in action.

Thought Bubble Leeds & Women In Comics Conference II. 18th November. Leeds Art Gallery, Lecture Theater, Henry Moore Room. 10.30am-5pm.

As part of the annual Thought Bubble sequential art festival in Leeds which takes place between the 18th and the 21st of November, there will be an all day academic conference concerning the role of women in the comics industry, and the representation of women in comics, amongst other things. The guest speaker of the conference will be Suzy Varty who published the first all women comic in the UK (Heroine) in 1977. Email i.hague@chi.ac.uk for tickets. For more information of the rest of the Thought Bubble events click here.

Comica Festival 2010: Trina Robbins and Roger Sabin

Copied directly from the Comica site incase you miss it are two forthcoming events that have got me very excited indeed:


Comica & Laydeez Do Comics Present: Trina Robbins

For the first time, Comica Festival and Laydeez Do Comics are thrilled to be teaming up to invite to London the important comic artist and writer, from the seminal underground comix of the Seventies to such icons as Wonder Woman, Barbie, Powerpuff Girls and her own GoGirl!, lecturer, curator and America’s foremost comics ‘herstorian’, Trina Robbins. She is coming over to present a paper at the academic conference Motherhoods, Markets, and Consumption at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford on Monday 13 September and has kindly agreed to visit London for this special extra event on Tuesday 21 September.

Ms. Robbins will present a lively and provocative illustrated lecture entitled: HERE ARE THE GREAT WOMEN COMIC ARTISTS, in which she introduces a whole slew of brilliant and talented women cartoonists from the early 20th century who are not included in histories and major exhibits by men, and explains why. Among others, she will be speaking about Nell Brinkley, the proto-feminist whose sumptuous portrayals of women inspired Mae West’s screen persona, as collected in the acclaimed deluxe edition from Fantagraphics, The Brinkley Girls. Her earlier biography of Brinkley was reviewed by Comica Festival director Paul Gravett here. She has also just written the introduction to Fantagraphics’ first edition of Moto Hagio’s historic shojo or girls’ manga entitled A Drunken Dream & Other Stories.

Doors open at 6.30pm and Trina Robbins will be speaking from 7pm. Following this, there will be an informal discussion and Q&A session and conclude by 9.30pm after a book signing and refreshments. The evening will be held at the regular venue for Laydeez Do Comics, The Rag Factory , 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ. For directions: Nearest Tube: Aldgate East. Follow the exit which directs you to the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Turn LEFT out of the tube into Whitechapel High Street. Take the first left into Osborne Street and carry straight on into Brick Lane. Take the fourth turning on the right into Heneage Street and The Rag Factory is a little way up, on the right.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear and meet a pre-eminent figure in contemporary American comic books, graphic novels and comics studies. To help cover costs, there will be a modest charge of £5 for a ticket, which you can pay on the door on the night. As we expect a lot of interest and places are limited, you can reserve your tickets by emailing Nicola Streeten at: info@laydeezdocomics.com. Sarah Lightman and Nicola Streeten from Laydeez Do Comics and Paul Gravett from Comica Festival look forward to welcoming you on Tuesday 21 September for a truly memorable evening.

Comica 2010 Festival opens with Free Exhibition, Symposium & Comiket

Here’s the first news about this year’s exciting edition of Comica, the London International Comics Festival, back for its 7th annual season. A major new element will be a three-month exhibition curated by Comica director Paul Gravett entitled ‘That’s Novel : Graphic Novels Now’ which will celebrate current innovations in the comics medium in Britain and internationally, both on and off the page. This evolving show will be held at The London Print Studio Gallery and tap into their amazing printing facilities, from etching and lithography to silkscreening and the latest digital methods, to offer invited artists the chance to work on special new works and in media they may never have tried before. Admission to the exhibition will be free and a variety of talks, panels, workshops, masterclasses and more will also be taking place at the Gallery.

To kick off Comica 2010, the festival is collaborating with The School of Arts at Birkbeck, University of London, in association with the British journals Studies in Comics, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and European Comic Art, to hold a one-day Comica Symposium on Friday 5 November in a 180-seater conference room shown below. Entitled ‘Transitions’, this will promote multi-disciplinary research of comics and graphic novels, manga, bande dessinée, webcomics and other forms of sequential art.

Rather than being restricted by a specific theme, the aim of the symposium is to highlight research from postgraduate research students and early career lecturers bringing together different perspectives and methodologies, whether cultural, historical, or formal, thereby mapping new trends and providing a space for dialogue and further collaboration to emerge. Dr Roger Sabin, Reader in Popular Culture at Central St. Martins and author of Adult Comics and Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels, will introduce the event and respond to the panel papers. Following the papers and response, there will be a roundtable discussion from artists/scholars who will reflect on the links between the two practices. Work will be on display throughout the event. Organised with Tony Venezia, the day will conclude with a wine reception. Details of how to register and participate will follow soon. And best of all, the whole event is free!

And Sunday 7 November brings the next Comica Comiket Independent Comics Fair, teaming up with the popular, long-running National Collectors Marketplace at the Royal National Hotel, Russell Square, and taking over the (Warren) Ellis Room from 12-5pm. A limited number of exhibitor tables will be available at affordable prices and there will be several special events and surprise guests throughout the afternoon. The public are admitted free. Booking arrangements for tables will be announced shortly, along with much more of the Comica 2010 Festival programme. Meanwhile, put these dates in your diary now and tell all your friends!

Considering this is just a taste of things to come, we can except an even better Comica Festival this year! Also if you haven't done so already, you should check out the Hypercomics exhibit running until the 26th of September at the Pumphouse Gallery in London's Battersea Park. Featuring boundary pushing work from the likes of Dave McKean, Adam Dant, and Warren Pleece, you check out the exhibitions mini site here for more info.

Comica Social Club

I recently went down to London to take part in a monthly social get together and networking event for comic lovers, writers, artists etc called Comica Social Club run by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury (who between them organise a whole host of exciting comic events under the banner of Comica, which are well worth attending). Held on the last Thursday of every month at the Royal Festival Hall Bar in London (next to the Southbank Centre) the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed and you are encouraged to bring along examples of your work to show to everyone. It's a great chance to let off steam about comics and make friends with some like minded people, like children's author/illustrator. Whilst I was in London I also got a chance to see Gerald Scarfe give a witty and informative talk at Tate Britain and check out the Comica Argentina exhibit, which acted as a nice introduction to some great work.

Check out the groups for both the Comica events and the Social club here and here, and the main Comica website here.

The next Comica event of note is the Hypercomics exhibition to be held at Pumphouse Gallery in London's Battersea Park between August the 11th and September 26th which will feature the work of Dave McKean,, Warren Pleece, Adam Dant, and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey.

Nova Doba Festival

All the way in Belgrave Serbia there took place an amazing looking comics festival at the beginning of June which not only showcased some fantastic lesser known Serbian talent (click here for an earlier blog entry I did on one particular Serbian artist) but a whole host of interesting talent from Eastern European and Nordic countries such as Croatia, Norway, Sweden, Slovania etc. By the looks of some of the photos posted up on Facebook the festival looked like an intimate and thriving affair with workshops, screenings, music, and much more. It also played host to some forminable comic collectives, anthologies, and publishers as Komikaze, Stripburger, Turbo Comix, and Le Dernier Cri and boasted some well designed posters and decoration to boost.

Oh well, maybe next year...
(Check out the translated webpage here.)

Also check out Crack a great looking festival that has just passed in Rome.

Date for your diary: UK Web and Mini Comix Thing 27th of March (Saturday) 2010, London

A chance for you to explore the cream (or sour milk?) of the UK small press scene at this annual event. Held in the Great Hall of Queen Mary University, Mile End, London, it will be home to 82 exhibitors, various panel discussions, film screenings, and a reading and a drawing room. Open from 10am to 5pm. Click here to take a look at the list of exhibitors, and if you want to know how to get there, follow the instructions below.
Mile End station is not open for exit/entry until after 12.30pm on the 27 March due to planned works, full information can be found on the Transport for London website at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/livetravelnews/realtime/tube/station-closures.pdf

Stepney Green station, served by the District and the Hammersmith and City Lines, is open; upon leaving the station you would turn left and continue straight along Mile End Road until you reach the Clock Tower turning into the college at this point and the Great Hall will be on your left; it is approximately an 8 minute walk.

I will hopefully be attending and reviewing a pick of comics from the event, as well as the event itself.

Date for your diary: Comica Argentina

On Friday the 2nd of July at Kings Place, St Pancras (London) 'Man at the crossroads' Paul Gravett will give a talk about the history of comic art in Argentina to accompany an exhibition and the screening of a animated short 'For a tango' by Sylvia Libedinsky. Tickets for the event cost £6.50. For more details, click here.