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Keel Square, Sunderland
The laying of the flags for the 1st phase of the new Sunderland city square is almost finished. Bryan Talbot and I went over to investigate today.Based on Bryan’s design, the ‘Keel Line’ runs the length of it, listing the ships built on the Wear with accompanying illustrations about Sunderland history. It has a rope border motif that crosses every fifteen flags, creating areas that contain the illustrations. And it’s in granite! Here’s an illustration of Washington Old Hall and George Washington’s family crest, the origin of the stars and stripes, facing one of keelmen hauling coal up the Wear:
And here’s the first iron bridge over the River Wear and Sunderland hero Jack Crawford nailing Admiral Duncan’s colours to the mast during the Battle of Camperdown, 1797:
If you know the statue in Sunderland’s Mowbray Park, or if you’ve read Bryan’s graphic novel Alice in Sunderland, you’ll already be familiar with him, and with many of the other subjects illustrated. The square has fountains too:
There are currently hoardings on the site with explanatory text and previews of the illustrations:
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A Vision of Utopia at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival
Tickets are now on sale for LICAF 2015, so if you’re planning to attend it’s time to start browsing the website. I’ll be presenting my next graphic novel, due out next year. I’ve been keeping quiet about it up to now, but Bryan is busily working on it, in fact he’s working on page 94 right now…
But what is it about, you ask? Well, it’s a biography of a powerful, larger-than-life female historical figure, it’ll have 118 pages of artwork plus endnotes. As Bryan’s said, “She’s such an astounding character, we don’t want anyone else quickly researching on her and knocking out a graphic novel before ours!”
Come and find out about it in Kendal
:Saturday 17th October 10-11am
A Vision of Utopia – Mary Talbot
Chaired by Dr Mel
Comic Clock Tower
Tickets £8Bryan will also be making these two appearances:
Saturday 17th 1-3pm
How I make a Graphic Novel (Workshop) – Bryan Talbot
Brewery Arts Centre: Art Room 2
Tickets £15Sunday 18th 12-1pm
Arkwright: Where British Graphic Novels Began – Bryan Talbot
Chaired by Peter Kessler
Brewery Arts Centre: Screen Two
Tickets £8
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Counting down to Wonderlands
With just over two weeks to go, expectations are high for the U.K’s first ever graphic novel expo, Wonderlands. We’ve a long list of guests that includes Posy Simmonds, Dave Gibbons, Hunt Emerson, Paul Gravett, Steve Bell and Dylan Horrocks, a full day of talks and panels on different aspects of the graphic novel form and an alternative schedule of workshops and master classes, so this promises to be a unique event. The publisher’s hall, hosting a range of exhibitors and publishers from biggies to small press, the showing of the documentary The Graphic Novel Man, the giant graphic novel She Lives being presented throughout the day by creator Woodrow Phoenix and a “how to” forum on self-publishing are all icing on the cake. Being a one-day event means that attenders don’t have to stop overnight and, to top it off, the whole event is FREE, even the panels and workshops, though booking in advance for the workshops – through the website here – is advisable, as places are limited. Schedule organizer, writer/artist Bryan Talbot, who’s also one of the founders of the Lakes International Comics Art Festival, said “For any lovers of the comics medium, or for artists in search of a publisher, this will be an unmissable event.”
I’ll be there, of course, and I’ll be involved in a panel discussion on historical and biographical graphic novels, along with Kate Charlesworth, Darryl Cunningham and Al Davison (chaired by Paul Gravett).
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Read Regional tour update
As April draws to an end, we’re just over halfway through our tour with Read Regional 2015. We’re delighted that Sally Heathcote Suffragette has been selected for this promotional campaign bringing authors together with readers, especially since it’s the first time a graphic novel has been chosen. I say more about it here and here. We’ve just returned from our fifth event, in Skipton Library:
Last week saw us in sunny Bridlington, where we did our our illustrated talk in North Bridlington Library for about forty 13-year-olds from two local schools. We decided to stop overnight in York to break up our journey there. It was an opportunity for Bryan to take lots of reference photos in the Railway Museum (think steampunk detective thrillers) and just to relax walking around the lovely old city.
Here we are with some of the Year 9s from our Bridlington audience:
And here with Edward, one of the two raffle winners:
And here I am chatting with Ann, one of the librarians, while Bryan sketches in her copy of Sally.
We were also in equally sunny Middlesbrough last week, presenting our illustrated talk for a World Book Night event in Teesside University Library.
For a bit of variety, I thought I’d have a go at throwing my voice. As you can see, here I’m ventriloquising through Bryan while drinking a glass of water:
For each of these events, thanks to the library staff for their friendly welcome and enthusiasm.Teesside photographs by @TeesUniLib and Thomas Robinson
Skipton photos by @ScaryClaire
Bridlington photos by David Roberts -
Back from Barcelona comics festival
We had a very pleasant few days in Barcelona last week, where we’d been invited to attend as guests at FICON, the city’s International Comics Fair. With three new books out in Spain, between us we had a lot of promotion to do. The Spanish Sally – Sally Heathcote Suffragista – came out in February, so we were signing copies at the La Cúpola stand, as well as doing two talks and numerous interviews with journalists in the press room. It was good to see that the Spanish Dotter – La Niña de sus Ojos – is still selling well.
The third and fourth Grandville books have recently been published in Spanish, so Bryan was kept busy at the Astiberri stand too.
Though we didn’t see much apart from the convention centre, it was great to socialise with our hosts as well as with fellow guests. Here we are out to dinner with some of the Astiberri crew and friends.
Left to right: Bryan, Laureano, Frederik, Jason, me, Héloïse and Javier. Thanks for dinner, Laureano!
The convention centre was just off the Plaza España. On our last afternoon we had time to walk up the hill towards the Catalonia Museum of Art, so we could take in the view.
Then on our last evening we had a quiet meal in the hotel with Scott and Ivy McCloud. The Sculptor sounds like a phenomenal success.
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Dance/theatre adaptation of Dotter of her Father’s Eyes
This is so exciting!
On Sunday 15th March, the final event of the Huddersfield Literature Festival showcased the first three completed pieces of music and dance of a work-in-progress: the dance/theatre adaptation of Dotter of her Father’s Eyes by composer Gary Lloyd and choreographer/performer Bettina Carpi. The extracts were three scenes, clearly distinguishable by the lighting in the photographs below. They depicted Lucia and James Joyce, myself and my father, and Lucia’s incarceration in mental institutions (all partnered by the dancer Christopher Owen). Expect to see this exciting project premiered sometime in 2016. Complete with interviews with Gary, Bettina, Christopher, Bryan and me, this was a pretty unique event for a lit fest. Bryan said “I can’t wait to see the finished performance, complete with sets inspired by the graphic novel illustrations, and a live orchestra providing the music.”
Photographs by Jonathan Jacob -
Sally Heathcote Suffragette picked for Read Regional 2015
As one of ten books selected for this year’s Read Regional campaign, Sally Heathcote Suffragette will be appearing from March to June at libraries and literary festivals in Yorkshire and the North East. That is to say, Bryan and I will be on tour across the region presenting illustrated talks about the book. It’s the first time a graphic novel has been included in the campaign, so we’re delighted to be taking part.Read Regional is a promotional campaign connecting writers living in Yorkshire and the North East with local readers. It’s run by New Writing North teamed up with the region’s library authorities. Some of the talks for the campaign will be to reading groups and young people invited to libraries from local schools.
Most will be open to the general public, however, including our first, which is part of an International Women’s Day event taking place at Hull Central Library. Other events will be part of World Book Night at Teesside University, Middlesbrough, and the Crossing the Tees Book Festival, Stockton. Details to follow…
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Dotter at Huddersfield lit fest in Storytelling & Adaptation event
There’s an exciting event coming up on 15th March, concluding the Huddersfield Literature Festival. We’ll be taking a break from promoting Sally Heathcote Suffragette (more on that next week…) in order to revisit Dotter of her Father’s Eyes in what promises to be an amazing collaboration:
‘Storytelling & Adaptation: graphic novels, music and dance’ with graphic novelists Mary and Bryan Talbot, choreographer Bettina Carpi and composer Gary Lloyd.
Tickets are available through the festival website.
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Sally Heathcote Suffragette in Spanish
Spanish-speaking friends may be interested to know that the Spanish edition of Sally Heathcote Suffragette is scheduled for publication by Ediciones La Cúpola, Barcelona, on the 27th February 2015.
The international interest is very encouraging. Sally recently appeared in a Best-of-Year list on a Singaporean blog The Daily Seni.
Below is what the Spanish publisher’s newsletter has to say about it (in Spanish, obviously):
Púrpura, blanco y verde. Tres colores representan a la National Women’s Social and Political Union, una liga de mujeres extraordinarias que lucharon por conquistar derechos humanos que en el contexto rígido y clasista de la Inglaterra eduardiana brillaban por su ausencia.
Sally Heathcote es una trabajadora doméstica al servicio de Emmeline Pankhurst, una de las fundadoras del movimiento. La proximidad de ese entorno comprometido y militante irá concienciando a la joven en la causa sufragista, que reclama el derecho al voto para las mujeres. La desobediencia civil, la estrategia política, el aprendizaje de la acción directa y la reivindicación a pie de calle van a dictar la trayectoria feminista de Sally, que no dudará en enfocar su vida como una carrera de obstáculos pero también de grandes logros para las generaciones futuras.
Mary M. Talbot, Kate Charlesworth y Bryan Talbot construyen una historia apasionante sobre la lealtad, el coraje y la dignidad de un grupo de mujeres que lograron abrir, en el ámbito laboral, social y educativo, una serie de puertas que habían estado siempre cerradas.
¡A LA VENTA EL 27 DE FEBRERO!
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A return ticket to Grandville, please!
I
t’s a hard life. We went on a fact- and image-finding mission last week. It began with an early train to King’s Cross in order to catch Eurostar to Paris. About eight and a half hours in total, from our front doorstep to the hotel in Montmartre, with a leisurely lunch in London between trains. Amazing. That even included a half-hour delay because of partial tunnel-closure.
We stayed at a little hotel on rue Aristide Bruant, just off rue Lepic. It was really handy for the Museum of Montmartre, where there’s currently an exhibition of “The Spirit of Montmartre, 1875-1910”. Lots of old magazine illustrations and some very familiar-looking posters. I’d like to go back when there’s more to see in the surrounding gardens. They still have a productive vineyard there. It being January, the vines didn’t appear to be producing much, however.The streets of Montmartre look pretty much the way they did a hundred years ago or more. Compare the old postcard below with the photo Bryan took last week at roughly the same spot. There are a lot of cars now, of course, more street furniture and presumably better street lighting. But it’s recognisably the same place. I love that.
Bryan was, naturally, taking location shots throughout. These are fine-looking cobbles, aren’t they? Look out for them in the next Grandville! It’s highly likely they’ll turn up there.We looked around the Carnavalet Museum too, in the 3rd arrondissement. It’s well worth a visit, with a wide range of stuff to pore over, including this lush shop interior designed by Alphonse Mucha for one Georges Fouquet, jeweller. It’s extraordinary. It’s odd to think that it dated very rapidly; it was only in place for a few years. To me it looks timeless.
One last photo to finish. Passing the Hôtel de Ville we noticed this Charlie Hebdo tribute.
