In Rome for a Festival del Fumetto

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!