On 8th and 9th June, we were at the warm and welcoming Enniskillen Comic Con in Northern Ireland, with numerous other guests, including 2000AD veterans Garth Ennis, Will Simpson and John Wagner. The organisers were proudly showing us the comic they’d facilitated, written and drawn by all the pupils at Irvinestown Primary School.

On 21st June, we were down  in London for a Cape Graphic Novels one-day event at Foyles bookstore. The day was showcasing Alison Bechdel’s new book, Spent, which she presented in lively fashion in the last session. Before it, there were three panel discussions, pictured below.

The Italian edition of Bryan’s Legend of Luther Arkwright launched last week. ARF! Il Festival del Fumetto and Tunué, the publishers, invited us to a small, friendly festival in Rome to promote it. Bryan was kept busy with interviews, panels and signing sessions, though we took a morning off to do some sightseeing.

Our hotel balcony had a fine view of the festival site – a former abbatoir!

On the way to Rome we stopped over in Paris and then in Milan, where Bryan did a signing in a comicshop called Supergulp. As we were staying close to Gare de Lyon in Paris, we checked out the Cinématèque that’s close by. Well worth a visit! There was a extensive exhibition on the work of Wes Anderson. We looked around that and then the permanent exhibition on the beginnings of cinema, with particular focus on Georges Méliés.

We came home to the splendid news that Bryan’s Granville series has won a French literary award: the 2025 Prix Graphique of the ActuSF Prize for Uchronia! Each year, ActuSF rewards the best works relating to alternative history. The prize will be given the weekend of Sept 20th-21st, at the Hypermonde Festival held in Mérignac, near Bordeaux. We’ll be there!

Just back from Angoulême’s 52e Festival de la BD!

Grandville Force Majeure, the fifth volume in the series, was published in France last September and it was great to see it among the books honoured in the festival’s Official Selection. Bryan was at the Delirium stand in the Nouveau Monde tent for the whole weekend. In there he was as busy as ever, signing and sketching – not only in multiple copies of all five Grandville books but also in advance copies of L’histoire d’un vilain rat. This is the new French edition of The Tale of One Bad Rat, an interesting new departure for Laurent Lerner’s independent publishing house, Delirium.

On Saturday morning, Bryan was on a panel co-chaired by Damien McDonald and Paul Gravett, with two other British creators whose work is published in France, Joff Winterhart and Jon McNaught.

Of the many exhibitions at the festival we went to see just one: Posy Simmonds. Herself. When the crowds had dispersed on Sunday afternoon, I nipped back with my camera. Here’s a few photos:

Since we were travelling down to Angoulême by train, we stopped over in Paris. We were able to spend a few days there before the festival, doing some visual research for the next project. On the journey back, we had a free day there. It was bright and sunny, so we checked out the Jardin des Plantes. A bitterly cold day in early February – not the ideal time, perhaps.

Practically everything was asleep, both in the garden and  the zoo, apart from this hardy little chap – a red panda:

and these harbingers of spring:

Just back from another comics festival, this time a small, friendly affair in the Pyrenees. We had the pleasure of introducing more French readers to Bryan’s Grandville series and to Louise Michel, la Vierge Rouge, the only one of our collaborations out in a French edition, so far, at least.

We had an on-stage conversation about our work on Sunday afternoon, but mostly we were sitting at the signing table, chatting with readers and getting to know some of the other festival guests, which was great.

We’ve had the UK media at the door twice this month, wanting to speak to Bryan about his long career. Why now? Because he’s been chosen for the highest accolade in the English-language comics world: entry into the prestigious ‘Hall of Fame’ of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. It’ll be presented to him at the San Diego Comic-Con in July. Finally!

Here are links to the excellent coverage by Duncan Leatherdale for the BBC, published last week, and by Tom Barton for ITV, broadcast yesterday evening.

A Spanish edition of Armed with Madness – Armada de Locura: Leonora Carrington, la Última Surrealista –  was published last month by Ediciones la Cúpola. In early March we were in Spain to promote it, along with all our other books in print there, as guests at the Salón del Cómic de Valéncia. We were signing at the La Cúpola stand on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd. Some of Bryan’s other work is published by Astiberri, so we spent some time at their stand on the Sunday.

A lot of Spanish comics fans – and a lot of cosplay!

The French edition of Grandville Noël (volume 4 of Bryan’s series of anthropomorphic detective fiction) launched at the 51st Festival de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême. We were in attendance at the Delirium stand – and so were the fans.

It was our first time since 2019. As huge and as crammed with people as ever, it was hard to move around at all on the Saturday.

Here’s a post-meal photo with some friends on the last evening: Charles Ferreira, who works for Joseph Gibert, Laurent Lerner, Delirium publisher, and Xav Cazuax-Zago, writer on Lone Sloane.

For the rest, I’m still laid low with the bug we picked up on our travels, so the pictures can speak for themselves.

It seems like an age since Bryan and I did an interview for this new journal from the International Society for the Study of Surrealism (ISSS). In fact it was just in May, when Armed with Madness first came out. Here’s the open access version of volume 1, number 1: International Journal of Surrealism. This first issue deals with The “Problem of Woman” in Surrealism.

The live event we’re doing via Memberplanet for the ISSS is fast approaching. Here’s the link:

An Interview with Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot, creators of ARMED WITH MADNESS: THE SURREAL LEONORA CARRINGTON

14th January 2024 6.30pm BST – be there or be rectangular!