Fay Dalton Scoops Pickled Award

British illustrator Fay Dalton has won the Pickled Ink agency's Pickled Award, launched earlier this year in a bid to find an artist to draw a new graphic novel by Super Gran creator and writer Jenny McDade.

The judges, who included 2000AD co-creator Pat Mills, felt her submission set her apart amongst entries from around the world. "Her photo-realistic characters ooze class, emotion, attitude," they declared, "and have an airbrushed quality that parallels the celebrity photographs splashed over the covers of today’s glossy magazines."

"She's the most exciting female comics artist I’ve seen since the Golden Age of female comics, which was so long ago most people have forgotten it existed (Jackie, Misty, Tammy etc) and that mainstream female comics once outsold male comics by at least a ratio of two to one," says Pat.

Fay, a Portsmouth University graduate with a first class degree in Illustration, is based in London and says she is inspired by a wide range of artists and illustrators like Gerald Scarfe, James Jean and Cindy Sherman. She enjoys illustrating current social issues such as celebrity culture and plastic surgery but also loves illustrating for children's books, and creating character designs.

"I often illustrate serious subjects with a lampoon twist," she says. "However I approach my subjects with an open mind."

“Fay has huge potential," Pat Mills enthuses. "Her work with Jenny’s great story shows that for a female audience there’s finally a British mainstream alternative to American super heroines, female “art house” comics and Manga. It’s cool and sexy, funny and emotional.
So there’s going to be a lot of blokes following it, too.“

Pickled Ink feel Fay's work will provide perfect visual accompaniment to Jenny McDade’s feisty, sexy, insalubrious, glamorous graphic novel script Party Girls and she's a richly deserved winner of the Pickled Award.

More of Fay's submission, which clinched hr win, will be revealed at the London Print Studio on Thursday 16th December where Pickled ink will be hosting a Q&A with Pat Mills and Jenny McDade as part of Comica Festival, an annual comics festival directed by Paul Gravett.

Pat and Jenny will be discussing Party Girls as well as the world of girls’ comics in general, offering an insight into why female comics dropped off the radar in Britain and the efforts that are being made to bring them back

In the meantime, Fay’s full portfolio is available to view at www.pickledink.com and whilst Party Girls is in development, Fay will be available for commissions.

• Q&A with Pat Mills & Jenny McDade: London Print Studios, Thursday 16th December 6.30 - 8.0pm. See www.comicafestival.com for more info

Last Call for Pickled Award entries

There's just six days to go before The Pickled Award deadline (Monday 8th November).

Art illustration agency Pickled Ink launched the new award  back in September in a bid to find an artist to draw a new graphic novel by Super Gran creator and writer Jenny McDade (see news story).

The winner will be awarded £1000 and a contract of representation at Pickled Ink, whose current artists include Hanako Clulow, Hattie Newman, Hannah Bagshaw and many others.

In brief, they're asking for: character design of two lead characters; and a 20 frame sample sequence and a front cover design. The winning artist must be an existing or recent graduate, able to draw modern fashion, facial expression, great storytelling, and be generally '2011'.

This competition is not limited to students in the UK, so if you’re studying in China, Brazil, Israel, Greenland, where ever... you can enter too.

2000AD co-creator and girls comic writer Pat Mills will be helping Pickled judge the award on 15th November and the winner will be announced soon after that. It’s a great opportunity to get your work seen by the ‘Godfather of British Comics' and to enter the world of commercial illustration with Pickled ink! To download the brief please click here and if you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact Pickled at info@pickledink.com.

• The deadline for entries is Monday 8th November 2010. Download a PDF of the full brief here on the Pickled Ink web site

• Pickled Ink web site

• Pat Mills on Facebook

• Creating Tammy: a downthetubes feature by Jenny McDade

Art agency Pickled Ink's hunt for new comic artists

Art illustration agency Pickled Ink has launched a new award in a bid to find an artist to draw a new graphic novel by Super Gran creator and writer Jenny McDade.

Working with Jenny, the creator/writer of the TV series Super Gran, who cut her teeth writing strips for the British girls comic Tammy, and comic book author and editor Pat Mills, the agency is searching for an outstanding character-led artist to illustrate Jenny’s first graphic novel script, Party Girls. The winner will be awarded £1000.00 and a contract of representation at Pickled Ink, whose current artists include Hanako Clulow, Hattie Newman, Hannah Bagshaw and many others.

In brief, they're asking for: character design of two lead characters; and a 20 frame sample sequence and a front cover design. The winning artist must be an existing or recent graduate, able to draw modern fashion, facial expression, great storytelling, and be generally '2011'.

"There's a huge gap in the comic market," notes Pat Mills. "In my view, 50 per cent of the population are largely not catered for. Female comics were once massive - more popular than male comics. But because the industry is now so male fan-based, this whole market disappeared.

"Girls comics like Tammy were selling 250,000 copies a week, compared with 2000AD once selling 200,000 copies a week," he points out via Facebook. "People still read 2000AD, but there's no female equivalent now. Yes, there's Manga and female fantasy, but nothing - to my knowledge - that could be called mainstream female drama, aimed at an audience who would not describe themselves as fans.

"So Pickled Ink and Jenny decided to do something about it. Jenny has put together a female graphic novel with a Sex in the City flavour.

"I think this is a really exciting move," he feels. "Bear in mind we often have to go outside the regular artpool to find the new look we are after in comics. I went outside the regulars to find Glenn Fabry to draw Slaine. The editor of Eagle went to his local art college to find Dan Dare artist Frank Hampson. With a new artist, they will often put so much more into their work because they have so much to prove.

"And Jenny's excellent story requires a really strong fashion spin, lots of drama and emotion and comedy. So many artists who could produce this kind of work are booked up forever or are locked into male comics only. So this is definitely the way to go to find someone new and dynamic.

"I can't wait to see who we discover!"

• The deadline for entries is Monday 8th November 2010. Download a PDF of the full brief here on the Pickled Ink web site

• Pickled Ink web site

• Pat Mills on Facebook

• Creating Tammy: a downthetubes feature by Jenny McDade

Creating Tammy: A True Story

Many years ago, British newsagents were awash with all sorts of comics: boys' adventure, children's titles, educational comics and more. But while humour comics reigned supreme in Britain, and still do, girls comics regularly outsold most of the more famous boys titles most fans remember today.

Sadly their history and success often remains neglected today, much to the chagrin of those who wrote and drew them.

One of the success stories was IPC's Tammy published between 1971 and 1984. Always a title keen on a good weepy, Tammy rivalled DC Thomson's Bunty in sales terms. It incorporated six other titles during its lifetime, including June, Misty and Jinty and introduced readers to strips such as Girls of Liberty Lodge, Slaves of War Orphan Farm and even re-launched the these days decidedly un-PC Bessie Bunter, created decades earlier by Frank Richards.

Now, downthetubes is proud to reveal how Jenny McDade, who today writes animation and children's TV drama (her credits include SuperGran, Mr Majeika and C.A.T.S. Eyes), really became a Tammy writer, one of very few women to regularly write girls' comics at the time. Her first strip was Star Struck Sister, drawn by Giorgio Giorgetti (pictured below).

"Although" she notes, "it probably reads more like a Tammy story - plucky little ditsy blonde with no hope succeeds in the end in cut-throat male-dominated magazine world!..."

"Just because a female readership isn't as fan orientated as male readers they tend not to be as vocal and organised," says comics writer Pat Mills who authored many a girls story for both DC Thomson and IPC, "but female comic sales sold more than double the number of male comics and those readers have equally valid nostalgia interest.

"In its heyday during the seventies our now iconic Tammy sold 250,000 copies per week, which was more than 2000AD!"

We're delighted to shed some light on just one aspect in the creation of one of Britain's best loved but seemingly forgotten comics genres... Read the feature