The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

This summer the world’s largest literary bash, the Edinburgh International Book Festival (itself part of the world’s biggest annual cultural event, the madness that is the Edinburgh Festival, an event which sees the city almost double its population for a month), will again play host to creators from the world of comics and graphic novels. Regular readers may recall last August’s Book Fest was the first time the venerable institution had featured graphic novels and it was, I’m delighted to say, a very successful undertaking, with good audiences (of all ages), decent sales in the on-site bookstore and the staff I’ve talked to have all been very enthusiastic about the medium.

This August they’ve added more to the slate – there’s a good presence from Jonathan Cape, which seems highly appropriate since this British book publisher has been working in the medium long before it became fashionable in the mainstream. Three Cape artists will be attending the Book Fest: Hannah Berry (interviewed recently here on the blog), Bryan Talbot and Posy Simmonds. Bryan will be holding a comics masterclass on the morning of Friday 22nd of August before going on to join Alan Grant and Hannah Berry at 8.30pm that evening for a panel discussion. Posy Simmonds will be at the Fest on Sunday 24th and Dave McKean will be returning to Edinburgh (he was here for the screening of MirrorMask at the Edinburgh International Film Festival a few years back) on Tuesday 19th of August. Paul Gravett will be talking with Robert Deas and Emma Hayley about the Manga Shakespeare on August 14th while one of the best British cartoonists, Martin Rowson, will be present on Saturday 23rd.

If you are in town you should try and avail yourself of some of the other multitude of global authors who will be present, including some fine SF&F scribes such as Iain Banks, Alan Campbell, Ken MacLeod, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Lawhead. As well as writers and poets from around the world there will be the usual extensive children’s programme too (including the wonderful Julia Donaldson and Mick Inkpen, a brilliant illustrator of children’s picture books) and panels on every subject, from crime novels to hard science. Not to mention that on a nice summer day its incredibly pleasant just to soak up the atmosphere in the Book Fest’s Charlotte Square location, an 18th century square of beautiful Georgian buildings and part of an official World Heritage site. The Edinburgh International Book Festival hosts some 800 authors and runs from the 9th to the 25th of August; for more details check the official site. You can still listen to a recording (courtesy of our friends at the Book Festival) of one of last year’s graphic novel events with Ian Rankin, Denise Mina and Alan Grant here.