Women in Comics project gets European face

A number of women comic creators have set up a European arm of the Women in Comics project, with a public page on Facebook and a private group for further discussion of the industry.

Set up by comics journalist Laura Sneddon and comics, prose and screenplay writer Maura McHugh, the public page will promote work by women in the Comic Book Industry in Europe, as well as sharing information and resources of interest to everyone.

This is the public face of the private group, Women in Comics, Europe, where the creators plan to share information with everyone about what women in the comic book industry are doing, and circulate articles and resources of interest to everyone.

So far these include such things as links to a recent Los Angeles Times feature on women's contribution to comics, particularly on the indie scene with links to follow up posts;a plug for Karrie Fransman's The House That Groaned; and plugs for upcoming Laydeez do Comics meetings.

The team at British publishers Blank Slate have popped by in the past few days to promote their plans to publish work by plenty of European women artists including British artist Donya Todd, Nine Antico (from France), Line Hoven, Anke Feuchtenberger (five books in the works), Marijpol, Isabelle Kreitz and Brigit Weyhe (all German). 

"Europe is overflowing with talented female comic makers," enthuses publisher Kenny Penman. "Blank Slate Books is determined to continue to present their work to English speaking audiences."

They welcome thoughtful discussion of posts.

• If you are a woman working in the comic book industry in any capacity (journalist, academic, writer, publisher, letterer, comic book seller) why not apply to join the group? https://www.facebook.com/groups/341472425930685/

Comics Creators At Hi-Ex 2012: Part 2

Having taken a lot of photos of the various creators at the Hi-Ex comics convention, which took place at the Eden Court complex in Inverness last weekend, there was never going to be enough room in the main downthetubes review of the con to include all the images. Instead we present a selection of those images of the creators along with links to their websites, blogs and/or Facebook pages. They are in no particular order and the first part of this photo feature is here.

Artist Nigel Dobbyn has an eclectic selection of titles to his credit from The Beano's Billy The Cat to 2000AD via Thunderbirds and Transformers. The image he is showing here is entitled Primeval Priest and is available to buy from his website.

There are more details of Nigel Dobbyn's work on his website.

Glasgow's small press Team Girl Comic have four issues to their name as well as a selection of individual contributors' own titles and did a good trade, particularly on the Saturday. Shown here are editor Gillian Hatcher (left) with contributors Coleen Campbell (centre) and Clare Yvette (right).

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website and Facebook page.

French artist Michel Rodrigue is currently resident in Scotland and having been at the previous Hi-Ex was back this year on the Cinebook stand. His Cinebook titles are the two modern Clifton titles Jade and Black Moon which he was signing and sketching over the weekend. He is also the writer of the French series Sybil La Fee Cartable which is on its third book in France and the first book of which has just be translated into English by Papercutz as Sybil The Backpack Fairy and he was more than happy to sketch and sign copies of it as well.

There are more details of Michel Rodrigue on Lambiek.

There are more details of Sybil The Backpack Fairy on the Papercutz website and of Clifton the the Cinebook website.

From pink fairies to something rather darker and artist John Higgin's RazerJack, the death-bitch from the Twist Dimension. To promote RazerJack, John produces illustrations at each of the conventions that he attends and here is the image that he was working on on the Sunday at Hi-Ex.

There are more details of John Higgin's work on his website and of RazerJack on its Facebook page.

Write and artist Ian Sharman is also editor of Orang Utan Comics and AAM/Markosia as well as writer of Alpha Gods and Hero: 9-5. He took part in the Hi-Ex Pitching and Portfolio session on the Sunday. His latest title, as seen above, is Hypergirl.

There are more details of Ian Sharman's work on his blog and on the Orang Utan Comics website.

Perhaps the most unusual graphic novel available over the weekend was writer and animator Leslie MacKenzie's Gaelic title Cuir Stad Ak An Stoirm Shneashda which translates as Stop The Snow Storm. With art by Shona Shirley MacDonald, it uses the idea that the first peoples of Scotland were not from the south and Europe but from the north and the Arctic regions. As part of the publishing deal with the Gaelic Books Council the title will not be published in English for several years.

There are more details of Leslie MacKenzie's work on her website while Cuir Stad Ak An Stoirm Shneashda will be available from the Gaelic Books Council website.

A comic strip with killer STDs in it just sound like the sort of thing that should be in CLiNT magazine and the editorial team of CLiNT obviously thought so too. As can be seen above, artist and writer Monty Nero's Death Sentence started life as a small press comic but will get a new lease of life, and a lot more exposure, when it begins in CLiNT Vol 2 No 1 very soon.

There are more details of Monty Nero's work on his website and blog.

Artist Will Pickering worked on the Burke and Hare graphic novel published several years ago as well as contributing to a number of Glasgow based small press titles. He was also displaying Black Hearted Press' Gabriel title written by Jim Alexander.

There are more details of Will Pickering's work on his blog.

Londonderry's Uproar Comics came together through the city's 2D Comics Festival and its 2D Collective offshoot. They publish the Zombies Hi title which is an anthology of the main ongoing Zombies Hi story backed up with short zombie text stories and comic strip and has reached its fourth issue. Set after a zombie apocalypse within the defensive walls of the City of Derry, the comic is widely distributed within Northern Ireland. Artist Kevin Logue (left) drew attendees as zombies while writer Danny McLaughlin (centre) drummed up support and artist John Campbell (right) worked on pages for forthcoming issues.

There are more details of Zombies Hi on the Uproar Comics website.

Last and by no means least, especially since one of her titles is Eagle Award nominated this year as Best European Comic, is Irish writer Maura McHugh. Her two titles for Dublin's Atomic Diner Comics are the Eagle Award nominated 1920s mystery Jennifer Wilde and the supernatural Roisin Dubh as seen above.

There are more details of Maura McHugh's work on her website.

There are more details of Jennifer Wilde and Roisin Dubh on the Atomic Diner website.


The first part of Comics Creators At Hi-Ex is here.

The Hi-Ex website is here.

The downthetubes review of Hi-Ex 2012 is here.

In Review: Jennifer Wilde Issue 1

Set in 1921 Jennifer Wilde is the Eagle Award nominated lightly supernatural title from Atomic Diner, written by Maura McHugh, illustrated by Stephen Downey and based on a plot by Maura McHugh and Robert Curley.

Jennifer Chevalier is an artist based in Paris who is visited there by her father. As Jennifer walks to the restaurant the next day to meet him for lunch, she discovers that he has been knocked down by a car and killed. While the French police accept this as an accident, Jennifer believes that he may have been pushed. Visiting her father's hotel room she discovers more about her father than she ever knew before - secrets that her mother had kept from her - including his male lover.

Dublin's Atomic Diner Comics have been putting out a selection of US format comics that in the last year or so have included the WWII team title The League Of Volunteers and the Victorian horror title Roisin Dubh.

The supernatural part of the Jennifer Wilde plot is that Jennifer sees ghosts and this is presented in such a matter-of-fact way that it does not strain the reader's credulity. Jennifer's ghost partner is the Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde, who died in Paris in 1900, who joins her because her dead father's locket, as shown on the front cover, contains a picture of him as well as Jennifer. Stephen Downey uses a much more pencil-like style when drawing the spectral Wilde as opposed to the harder blacks that he uses for his living characters.

A letter to her father from London and written in Gaelic intrigues Jennifer and sets her and Wilde off to London to investigate. Quite where the story is leading plot wise I'm not sure, but that is a good thing as it makes me want to read on. Geographically the plot is heading from France to England and apparently onwards to Ireland at a time when the region that is now the Republic Of Ireland was separating itself from the rest of the United Kingdom and was about to descend into civil war.

To describe Jennifer Wilde as Adele Blanc-Sec meets Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) is an apt, if somewhat brutal, description of what is a lovingly crafted comic. Maura McHugh's script mixes intrigue, scandal and the supernatural in fairly equal measures which, along with Stephen Downey's moody artwork, makes sure that I am already looking forward to future issues.

There are more details of Jennifer Wilde on the title's website

There are details of other Atomic Diner titles on their website.

There are more details of Maura McHugh's work on her website.

There are more details of Stephen Downey's work on his website.

Maura McHugh will be appearing as a guest at the Hi-Ex comics convention in Inverness on Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April 2012.

Wild about Jennifer Wilde

On sale now from Irish independent publisher Atomic Diner is the first issue of a three-part series Jennifer Wilde, written by Maura McHugh (from a story by Rob Curley & Maura McHugh) with art, lettering and covers from Stephen Downey.

Set in Paris in 1921, the tale is an engaging mystety story, centring on a young French artist, Jennifer Chevalier, who becomes embroiled in death, espionage and revolution taking her across the three nations of France, England and Ireland – ably assisted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde.

The story opens as Jennifer gets a visit from her estranged father, only for him to die in a street accident. His death raises many questions about her father, who has left behind items suggesting he was a very different man to that of his public persona as a war hero.

In a Randall & Hopkirk-style twist, Jennifer's talent for seeing ghosts brings her into contact with the spirit of Oscar Wilde, who offers to help the young artist solve the mystery of her father's untimely death.

The book is an intriguing tale with some deft charecterisation and gorgeous art from Stephen Downey, and the 1920s setting offers rich, largely untapped setting.

This is a great first issue and a title fully desrving wider reading. Check it out via the links below.

Atomic Diner, which also runs the 'Free Irish Comic Day' events in Dublin, was set up in 2004 by Robert Curley, primarily to produce and publish a line of cross genre titles from horror to detective and of course good time super hero's. The company is 100 per cent independent and prides itself on good story telling from Ireland's top creators.

Over the past seven years it has helped launch the careers of artists such as Stephen Mooney, Declan Shalvey, Will Sliney, Stephen Thompson and Bob Byrne and the publishers say they're proud to continue this tradition by working with people such as Terry Kenny, Maura McHugh, Stephen Daly and Gareth Gowran.

To date they have released titles such as Freak Show, Atomic Rocket Group 66 and Gerry Hunt's In Dublin City, all to positive sales and reviews. Other projects include Roisin Dubh, Glimmer Man and The Wyndham Twins, with many more in the pipeline.

- Jennifer Wilde Issue 1 is on sale now in SubCity Comics, Dublin or online via the comic's official web site: http://jenniferwildecomic.com

- Read a review of Jennifer Wilde #1 on Irish Comic News by Hilary Lawler