Medicine and Comics merge for unusual conference

Ethics Under Cover is an interdisciplinary conference in July in Brighton, intended to appeal to a wide audience, including healthcare professionals, comics creators, students, academic scholars, comics enthusiasts and various stakeholder groups.

The meeting, organised by Brighton and Sussex Medical School in collaboration with Brighton and Sussex University Hospital Trust, the Wellcome Trust and Graphic Medicine will consist of a mix of peer reviewed academic papers, lectures and workshops. Guests include Paul Gravett and Nicola Streeten. There will also be an exhibition and stalls for participants’ work.

The organisers of the event are Muna Al-Jawad, Bobbie Farsides, Sue Eckstein, talented comic creator Ian Williams, Susan Squier, Michael Green, Shelley Wall, MK Czerwiec and Lydia Gregg.

Graphic Medicine is a web site created by Ian Williams, who coined the title as a handy term to denote the role that comics can play in the study and delivery of healthcare.
Ian writes papers and articles on comics and medicine, and has just started to run a medical student module at the Medical School in Manchester and also makescomics under the pseudonym Thom Ferrier. He's currently working on a graphic novel, to be published by Myriad Editions in 2014.

"I did an MA in medical humanities (looking at the discourse of medicine using the conceptual tools of the arts and humanities)," Ian explains, "and am a member of the advisory board for the International Health Humanities Network.

"I wrote a dissertation on medical narrative in graphic novels - it's my contention that comic/graphic fiction could be a useful resource for healthcare professionals, patients and carers. Soon after I set up the Graphic Medicine site, one of the first people to get in touch was Michael Green of Penn State University Medical School, who had started to teach a comics class to medical students around the time I was doing my MA.

"It seemed like a critical mass was starting to build, and it has gotten more exciting over the last few years, and will continue to gain momentum over the next few, as people realise that comics can articulate profound truths about the discourse of medicine, and healthcare in general."

• For more information visit: www.graphicmedicine.org/comics-and-medicine-conferences/2013-brighton

"first fictions" Graphic Novel competition shortist announced

A Rat’s Tale by Adam Blackman &
Dylan Shipley: one of the shortlisted entries.
It's based in modern Britan
and aims to warn young people about
the hazards of 'drug use' and 'addiction'

Myriad Editions has announced its shortlist for its "first fictions" competition which we reported on earlier this year.

The nominees include Hannah Eaton, Thom Ferrier and Tom Eglington, who is paying for his art career by writing comics stories, including the first Tharg’s 3riller which debuted in 2000AD Prog 1740 - "Silver -Tongued Exploits of Cosmo Nibs", drawn by John McCrea.

Novelist Ian Rankin, cartoonist Steve Bell and graphic novelist Bryan Talbot were among six judges that have selected the seven-strong shortlist, joined by graphic novelists Hannah Berry and Ed Hillyer (who is also a début novelist published by Myriad Editions), and Corinne Pearlman, commissioning editor for Myriad’s growing series of graphic titles, now published with the support of Arts Council England.

The shortlisted entries were chosen from a longlist of 21, described by Ian Rankin as "a very high standard overall". Entrants were asked to submit 15–30 pages of a graphic work-in-progress, either fiction or non-fiction, in black and white.

The winning author or team will have their work published by Myriad Editions in 2013.

In all, 74 qualifying submissions were received. The shortlisted entries will be showcased,
and the winner announced, on Saturday 21st January 2012 at First Fictions, a weekend of events championing first novels past and present, jointly organised by Brighton publisher Myriad Editions and the English Department at the University of Sussex.

"We were amazed by the quantity, quality and diversity of the entries," says Corinne Pearlman.

"It was difficult to pick a longlist. It was difficult to pick a shortlist. And it will be difficult to pick a winner."

The seven shortlisted entries include six sole creators and a writer and artist team. They are:

• Adam Blackman & Dylan Shipley: A Rat’s Tale
• Gareth Brookes: The Black Project
• Konstantinos Chrisoulis: Dryland
• Hannah Eaton: Naming Monsters
• Tom Eglington: Amber Sands
• Thom Ferrier: The Enlightenment of Iwan James
• Paula Knight: The Facts of Life

Candidates had to submit between 15 to 30 pages of a graphic work in progress for consideration. The winner will be announced at the First Fictions event, organised by the University of Sussex and Myraiad, on January 21st 2012 and work from the shortlisted entries will be showcased there too. The outright winner will have their graphic novel published by Myriad in 2013.

• For more information, visit www.firstfictions.com

Myriad Editions announces First Graphic Novel Competition

Scouting through the large number of graphic novel publishers at the London Book Fair, I came across news of a graphic novel competition being run by Brighton-based publisher Myriad Editions, publishers of the brilliant Rumblestrip album by Woodrow Phoenix some time back.

This is their first ever competition for a first graphic novel; the entry may be by a single author or may be a collaboration between a writer and artist. The winner will have the opportunity to develop their work in progress with Myriad's creative and editorial team with a view to being offered a contract and publication by Myriad in 2012/13.

The winner will be announced in January 2012 at the First Fictions Festival, organised by Myriad Editions in partnership with the University of Sussex and the closing date for the competion is Monday 1st October 2011.

The winning entry will be an extract from a narrative work in progress – fiction or non-fiction – and will be chosen purely on the strength and promise of the art and writing by a panel of expert judges, including: Steve Bell, cartoonist (Guardian); Hannah Berry, graphic novelist (Britten & Brulightly); Ed Hillyer (Ilya), cartoonist (King Lear, Skidmarks) and author (The Clay Dreaming); Corinne Pearlman, Creative Director, Myriad Editions
Ian Rankin, author (Inspector Rebus series and other novels); and Bryan Talbot, graphic novelist (Grandville, Alice in Sunderland, The Tale of One Bad Rat)

The competition is open to all cartoonists, writers and artists who have not previously published a graphic novel. A completed entry form, submission of a one page synopsis and between 15-30 pages of a graphic work in progress (fiction or non-fiction, with or without words, capable of being reproduced in black/white/greyscale) should be sent by post, with a covering letter and a cheque for £10 (made payable to Myriad Editions) to the address on the publisher's web site here.


(The entry fee is towards the administrative costs including photocopying, printing and postage and is a pretty standard thing for such competitions - when I ran the Lancaster litfest poetry competition it was accepted the entry fee was to cover costs).

The shortlist will be decided in December 2011 and the winner will be announced in January 2012 at the First Fictions Festival.

The submitted works must be intended for printing in black / greyscale only; in English;

submitted by email (PDF) or posted (photocopy of an original work) together with a cheque made payable to ‘Myriad Editions’ sent to the address on the web site. Entries that are not accompanied by the entrance fee cannot be accepted.

• For full conditions of entry or to download an entry form go to www.myriadeditions.com/FGNC

In Review: Rumble Strip

If you want to get away with murder, buy a car. That could easily be the "message" of Woodrow Phoenix' latest graphic novel, Rumble Strip - except that of course, the reality is never that simple. The truth is far more complex and, as Woodrow outlines our increasingly dangerous relationship with cars, deeply disturbing.

Perhaps best known for his work in the 1980s on magazines such as Escape, Blaaam and Blast - and strips such as Sumo Family and Liberty Cat - Woodrow makes no secret of the fact that he himself is a car driver. But neither does he hide his anger at the reckless way people use our roads, endangering not just other car drivers but cyclists and pedestrians... and, the world over, those who cause accidents invariably get away with murder.

Using stark, haunting and attention-grabbing imagery to illustrate the complex mania that road use and road building engenders, Woodrow reveals the terrible effect our "love affair" with cars and speed has had on so many people who have suffered at the hands of incompetent drivers. His powerful polemic is backed up by a huge amount of statistical data -- for example, that over 1.2 million people are killed in road traffic accidents around the world each year. By 2020, road traffic accidents could outstrip stroke and HIV as one of the main causes of preventable deaths.

Want more? In the UK, although cars are regarded as safer, the number of child deaths in road accidents has increased in recent years. (Perhaps because more children are now driven to school rather than walk there, because it's 'safer' -- when it seems it clearly isn't).

Whether you're a pedestrian or a car driver, Rumble Strip does more to illustrate the dangers of the conflicts and accidents of poor road use than any dry statistics: it holds up a mirror to the way cars are used, the way pedestrians are regarded, and the reflection is distinctly ugly,. It's also getting uglier as demands increase for more bypasses, more flyovers, more freedom to use cars - anything that will maintain car drivers pretence of "freedom of the open road". After reading Rumble Strip, I'd say that freedom that is a illusion to the point of delusion, and a general failure to recognise that has comes at a terrible price society as a whole seems incapable of recognising.

This is a timely, well researched and fascinating novel and one which Jeremy Clarkson would probably hate. Surely yet another reason for getting out there and buying a copy...

• Buy Rumble Strip from amazon.co.uk

• Broken Frontier Review
"This is not a book for car lovers, or maybe it is. It would be too easy to say that this is a manifesto against cars. It is not. What it is, is a strong statement about the dangers of the road." Read the Full Review...

• More reviews on publisher Myriad Edtions web site

• See below for detail of a special launch event for Rumble Strip in Brighton on 12 June 2008