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

Caption 2012 - The Countdown Begins...

Limited Edition Caption T-Shirt available now, ordering details below

 This year's Caption small press and comics festival in Oxford is only 17 days away!

Guests include: Hannah Berry, Richy K. Chandler, Jade Sarson, David O’Connell, Al Davison, Hunt Emerson, Patrice Aggs, Robin Etherington, Woodrow Phoenix, Darryl Cunningham and Nicola Streeten.

Saturday 18 August

Doors open 10 a.m. Bar open from 10 for coffee, 12 for drinks.

12:00. PANEL: Good, Clean, Knockabout Fun! Publisher Tony Bennett joins artists Hunt Emerson ('Lady Chatterly's lover'), Krent Able ('Big Book Of Mischief') and Brick ('Depresso') to talk about 32 years of the controversial British comics company.

13:30. WORKSHOP with Al Davison. ‘The Alchemist's Easel: a rough guide to drawing the unconscious’

14:30. PANEL: Shedding Light on the Dark Art of Editing Comics. Woodrow Phoenix ('Nelson'), Corinne Pearlman (Myriad), John Anderson (Soaring Penquin) and Hannah Berry (First Fictions judge) discuss editing and commissioning comics and graphic novels.

16:30. PANEL: Myriad Editions. Myriad commissioning editor Corinne Pearlman discusses the output of the company alongside Woodrow Phoenix ('Rumble Strip'), Darryl Cunningham ('Science Tales'), Nicola Streeten ('Billy, Me & You') and Gareth Brookes ('The Black Project').

21:00. QUIZ by Tony Hitchman, ‘Dangerous when wet!’

Doors close 23:00

Sunday 19 August

Doors open 10 a.m. Bar open from 10 for coffee, 12 for drinks.

11.00. BOOK GROUP: Comic Gosh!p Book Club (escaping from London) discuss Maus (Art Spiegelman) & My Cardboard Life (Philippa Rice). Try to (re)read one or both of these before the informal discussion in the bar, so you can join in!

12:30. PANEL: Playing in Someone Else’s Sandbox. Cartoonists discuss the benefits of working on creator owned vs. pre-existing characters, featuring Richy Chandler ('Wallace & Grommit' in The Sun) , David Baillie (via video! - Russian 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'), Charles Cutting ('The Dream Quest of Randolph Carter') and Robin Etherington ('The Phoenix' / 'Transformers').

14.00. PANEL: The Phoenix - A Gallimaufry of Graphical Goodness. Daniel Hartwell (writer, ‘Pirates of the Pangaea’), Neill Cameron (artist, ‘Pirates of the Pangaea’), Adam Murphy (‘Corpse Talk’), Robin Etherington (writer, ‘Long Gone Don’), Patrice Aggs ('Blimpville') discuss year two of the popular British kids comic.

15.30. PANEL: America is not the Only Fruit. Manga influenced (and Manga Jiman shortlisted) small press creators Rebecca Burgess, Sarah Burgess, Jade Sarson and Joe Morgan discuss looking outside Anglo-American comics for inspiration with David O'Connell (Tozo, the public servant).

Doors Close 17:00

The website - www.caption.org - includes info on how to order the limited edition T-Shirt designed by Sarah MacIntyre, pictured above, which you can pre-order and pick up at Caption. Also, exclusively available at the event is the Caption 2012 programme featuring a brand new jam comic - 'How I spent my summer holiday' - by Hannah Berry (see above), Richy K. Chandler, Brick and more...

• Caption: 18th / 19th August 2012, East Oxford Community Centre, Cowley, Oxford OX4 1DD (Near to St. Clements 'Oxford Tube' stop)

Caption readies for another great event

The annual small and indie press event Caption takes place 18th - 19th August 2012 in Oxford.

Oxford’s annual small-press comics convention is a unique, friendly event that brings comics creators, manga artists, comic-book readers and professionals together to mingle and discuss their work. With a huge number of comic creators set to drop by, it's a great event for people interested in our lively independent scene, and, if you're a creator, a greta place to pick up tips and tricks on not only but producing but also marketing your work.

Guests include Darryl Cunningham, creator of Psychiactric Tales and Science Tales  and Nicola Streeten, creator of Billy, Me, & You and co-creator (with artist Sarah Lightman) of Laydeez do Comics, a graphic novel forum with a focus on the new wave of comic work (‘more domestic than superheroes’) based on the drama of everyday life.

Check out the official web site for more info, and for exclusive CAPTION podcasts, the first online now (recorded in 2010) in which, Paul Gravett discusses webcomics with a variety of young creators including P.J. Holden, Liz Lunney, Tim Winchester, Philipa Rice, Sydney Padua and David O’Connell, whose work varies from cardboard cutouts to historical fiction. 

• More info: http://caption.org

Panel Borders: Klaus Janson - Superhero Noir

Continuing the Panel Borders radio show's month of shows about iconoclastic American comic book artists, Alex Fitch talks to German-American artist Klaus Janson about his work from inking and eventually providing most of the art for Frank Miller's run on Daredevil and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in the early 1980s to his recent acclaimed tenures on Wolverine and World War Hulk. Klaus also talks about his love of teaching new artists and his experiences at comic book conventions over the years. (Recorded at Comics Launchpad, Birmingham 2011)

• Panel Borders: Klaus Janson - Superhero Noir airs at 8.00pm, Sunday 11th March, Resonance FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Airing tonight (8th March) is Clear Spot: The problem of autobiography. In a panel discussion recorded at the First Fiction festival (Sussex University, January 2012) author Sue Eckstein discusses the problems inherent in creating autobiographies with graphic novelists Nicola Streeten and Anuerin Wright and how creators can subvert and overcome these.

Nicola's book Billy, me and you and Aneurin's Things to Do in a Retirement Home Trailer Park couldn't be more different in their approaches, with the former combining cartoons, diary drawings and scrapbook montage and the latter depicting the author's friends and family as anthropomorphic creatures in domestic settings.

• Clear Spot: The problem of autobiography airs at 8.00pm, Thursday 8th March, Resonance FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com