Brighton Festival offers graphic novel events with Woodrow Phoenix, Laydeez Do Comics

Yes, yes, we know it's short notice. (We probably did get an email. Have you seen my inbox?)

There are two comic-related two Brighton Festival graphic events this week on Wednesday evening, at the Brighton Dome Studio Theatre, put on in association with Myriad Editions. 

When is a graphic novel not a comic? When it's a... starts at 8.00pm and features Nye Wright (Things to Do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park; Sprout's Book Club), Hannah Berry (Britten & Brulightly; Adamtine), and Woodrow Phoenix (Rumble Strip; Nelson) - plus special guest, Woodrow's giant book, She Lives. The debate will be curated by Tim Pilcher (mentor of the comic ALT-Brighton).


A panel debate at the Brighton Festival exploring the dimensions of narrative art.

"The graphic novel as a literary form is really coming into its own at the moment, and we're very lucky that we have one of the best graphic novel publishers here in Brighton – Myriad – so we're putting on an event with them that I'm very excited about" says Mathew Clayton, Literary Programmer, Brighton Festival.

Woodrow Phoenix produced a giant comic for his MA at Brighton University, exploring – literally – the dimensions of what a comic is. Co-winner of Best Book in the British Comics Awards, he and fellow graphic novelists Nye Wright and Hannah Berry debate the different ways of creating narratives: whether pen and paper, ceramics, embroidery or sculpture. Art schools are now hot-beds of new cartoonists, and the traditional US comic is giving way to a more modern, domestic graphic memoir. How did this sea-change come about? What makes a comic, when does it become a graphic novel, is it all just marketing? A panel debate at the Brighton Festival, chaired by comics guru Tim Pilcher and in association with Myriad Editions.

• Tickets: £10 More info here:  http://www.myriadeditions.com/events?item=294&itemoffset=3#.UY-urqV8sy8

• Visit the Brighton Festival website to book tickets

Laydeez Do Comics at Brighton Festival starts at 9.00pm - or as soon as they can start. This is a free event in the Studio Bar, in association with Myriad Editions, and featuring the artists, authors and organisers of Laydeez Do Comics, Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman, with guests: illustrator and manga artist Chie Kutsuwada and artist curator Kim Pace.

Taking place after the panel event in the Studio Theatre, the audience is invited to join the legendary Laydeez Do Comics, the UK’s first women led graphic novel forum – get along and have your eyes opened to some of the amazing work going on in the comics world.
Laydeez Do Comics regularly attracts more than 100 guests at its monthly meetings in London, and groups have now set up in Chicago, San Francisco, Bristol and Leeds with pop-ups in New York - and now, for the very first time, Brighton!

Nicola Streeten's first graphic book, Billy, Me & You, was published by Myriad in October 2011. It first appeared in serialised form in Liquorice Magazine.
Sarah Lightman's first graphic book The Book of Sarah will be published by Myriad Editions in 2015.
More info here: www.myriadeditions.com/events?offset=0&item=319&itemoffset=4#.UY-uzqV8sy8

• For full event details, visit the Brighton Festival website

Panel Borders: The Danger of Romance

Concluding a months of shows about genre in comics, Panel Borders Alex Fitch talks to writer and manga translator Sean Michael Wilson and lecturer and author Ian Rakoff about romance comics this Sunday.

Sean is the editor of AX Volume 1: A collection of Alternative Manga and author of The Story of Lee and Yakuza Moon, two manga novels with varying degrees of biography about the fortunes of young women encountering different cultures across Asia.

Ian is about to give his latest lecture about comics (on 30th November) at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and this month is discussing the subject of romance comics, with a focus on how they were an antidote to McCarthyism in 1950s America.

Online later this month from panel Borders are three sperate talks recorded at Laydeez do Comics - cartoonists Woodrow Phoenix, Kripa Joshi and Mawil (Markus Witzel) discussing their work. If there is a common theme between the three, it's a sense of magical realism in their art which juxtaposes the ordinary with the out of the ordinary, from Woodrow's use of road furniture in Rumble Strip, to Kripa's use of Indian mythology in her tales of domestic incidents and Mawil's blue collar stories of life in Germany through the lens of his alter-ego Sparky O'Hare.

The interviews were recorded by Nicola Streeten and Alex Fitch and are introduced by Nicola Streeten.

• Panel Borders: The Danger of Romance airs at 8.00pm, 27th November 2011, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

• Laydeez do comics: Magical Realism is online from 29th November 2011 at laydeezdopodcasts.wordpress.com

Laydeez Do Comics: Ellen Lindner Talk

Whores of Mensa 5 - On Sale Now! from Ellen Lindner on Vimeo.

(with thanks to Peter Lally at Alternative Press): Comics’ artist Ellen Lindner will be discussing the process of putting together the just released issue of comics’ anthology Whores of Mensa at the next Laydeez Do Comics event in London (Monday 27th September).

The latest issue of WOM, on sale now, features comics by Cliodhna Lyons, Maartje Schalkx, Jeremy Day, Richard Cowdry, Peter Lally, and many more.

Ellen will also explain why she feels anthologies matter, and self-publishing in general - especially her experience self-publishing her graphic novel, Undertow.

Ellen’s talk should be very informative as she has a very full experience of this whole field and the issues creators may face, including fundraising, editing, launching, selling, t-shirt /badge/merchandising, cake-making, etc. -- all while still carrying on a personal artistic career, having an outside life, being a married woman, and her budding film actress career.

All to produce a small-press work - what madness!

• Laydeez Do Comics – Talk by Ellen Lindner - Monday 27 September, 6.30pm, The Sewing Room ,  The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ
• Laydeez do Comics  - www.nikjep.demon.co.uk/layindex.htm

• Whores of Mensa: www.whoresofmensa.com
• Buy Issue 5 of Whores of Mensa here