For this ninth instalment of the series, Matt chatted to Lisa Wood of the Thought Bubble comic convention, just head of this year’s Thought Bubble, which kicks off this weekend in Leeds. (NB: this will be the last of these interviews for the foreseeable future)

MB: Please tell us about a little about the history of the Thought Bubble.

Lisa: Thought Bubble started in 2007. I had been toying with the idea of running some kind of comics based exhibition or a series of workshops and the idea grew from there. I was really keen to bring a comics festival to the UK that was in the same vein as some of the European festivals; something that wasn’t just a convention but a celebration of comics on lots of different levels.

I feel really passionately that comics should be recognized as a valid art form like in France, when they are called the ninth art and regarded very highly. The public’s perception of comics and graphic novels is changing at the moment due to the popularity of comics-based movies. We are not only seeing superhero comic movies at the moment but films such as Road to Perdition, Scott Pilgrim and A History of Violence too, which are all based on great graphic novels.

MB: How is the Thought Bubble funded, by ticket sales, the exhibitors, a grant, some other means or a combination of these?

Lisa: Thought Bubble is funded by Ticket sales and exhibitors. We have also just found out that we have Arts Council funding which is amazing! It is great to know serious funding bodies such as The Arts Council are recognizing the benefits of comic books for learning and literacy. Hopefully this is the beginning of something really special.

MB: What are Thought Bubble’s overall aims?

Lisa: Our aim has always been to bring comics and graphic novels to the mainstream, and to show they can be an excellent educational tool to be embraced by libraries, schools and local councils. We want to put on a great show celebrating the amazing art and writing in comics.

MB: Who is Thought Bubble aimed at? What sort of punters do you hope to attract? Are you family-friendly?

Lisa: We are very family-friendly. We pretty much aim the con at everyone! We try and programme events that will appeal to all ages and types. At our Alea event we host panels, screenings and talks, which are for adults. However, we also run lots of workshops and events especially for young people! We recognise the importance of introducing young people to comic books so the art form can keep growing and growing.

(Yishan Li taking the first Thought Bubble workshop of 2009, pic borrowed from the TB blog)

MB: How effective have you been in getting those kind of people to attend?

Lisa: Because we run as part of the Leeds International Film Festival we tend to get a wide range of people attending our events. We also tend to get people coming along who are just curious, which is great for us because we have the chance to introduce newcomers to this wonderful art-form, this is what we always intended to do.

MB: Can you give a projected (or actual) attendance figure for the Thought Bubble?

Lisa: Figures for our festival and one day convention were: first year convention 500, festival as a whole 1100, our second year convention was 1500, festival as a whole 2500 and we are hoping this year will be 2200 for our convention and 3000 for our festival as a whole.

MB: What lessons have you learned during your time running Thought Bubble, in terms of its marketing and advertising?

Lisa: I think we are still learning how best to approach these areas. We will probably concentrate more on online advertising this year rather than printed matter, just because costs can be so high. The way we have approached this in the past is where possible find in-kind sponsorship. We have worked with various magazines to promote ourselves and in return we have helped promote them. We also work with various shops around West Yorkshire to promote our event as much as possible. Getting people on board to help us spread the word and our brand is invaluable.

MB: Do you use emerging technologies to spread the word about Thought Bubble? Do you have a website or blog, or use email mailing lists?

Lisa: We are really into using social networking sites to spread the word. We are also currently setting up a Youtube account, where we can post our favourite clips and hold competitions. We also have a Wordpress blog that is updated daily at the moment and a Twitter. Our next goal is to record all of our workshops and talks to build up an online library of educational information for anyone and everyone to access.

MB: What about print? Do you use print advertising, have a newsletter, anything like that?

Lisa: Because these cost tend to be fairly high we try and avoid buying adverts in magazines and work on in-kind deals as I mentioned before

MB: What’s the mix in terms of exhibitors at your con? Do you even have exhibitors?

Lisa: We have over 170 exhibitors. The mix is usually, small press 50%, guests and pros 20% and retailers 30%. It changes year on year though.

(last year’s over-16s comic art competition winner by and (c)  Kristyna Baczynski)

MB: What are your thoughts on the small press comics scene in this country? Does Thought Bubble support the small press and what form does that support take?

Lisa: We absolutely support the small press scene. We love it! We hold weekly small press features on our blog, highlighting some of our favourite small press people.

MB: How much are the tickets for the Thought Bubble? How did you arrive at that price? Please tell us about any concessions.

Lisa: Our tickets are £8 full price this year, half price for cosplayers and under-12s are free. For this price you get to spend the whole day listening to various talks and have the chance to take part in workshops, watch screenings, meet artists and writers and ask for sketches. It is a tough call trying to keep prices low. venue costs can be really high. There are also lots of hidden costs such as insurance and trading licence, the stage, tables. Running a convention can end up being very pricey. When dealing with ticket prices you need to look at your own costs and what your competition is charging.

(Dan Lester and Oliver Lambden at TB, pic from Richard’s 2008 report)

MB: How much are exhibitor tables for the Thought Bubble? Again, how did you arrive at that figure?

Lisa: Again we try and keep this low where possible, especially for small press as most of the time they end up losing money attending cons. Our small press and professional tables are £40, retailer and publisher tables are £60.

MB: Do you run workshops/events/panels at the Thought Bubble? Please tell us about those and how they are organised.

Lisa: Most or our programme is full of free workshops for young people and adults, our Arts Council funding helps us to do this. We invite industry professionals to come along and let people know how they write or draw and how to get in to the business. Our workshops have been incredibly successful, with most of them selling out before our brochure comes out. So far workshops have been run on a voluntary basis by industry professionals who are kind enough to give us and the public their time.

(video of Thought Bubble by and (c) Russ Entwistle, borrowed from RJaymoon’s YT Channel)

MB: As you’ve been kind enough to answer these questions, please fell free to big the Thought Bubble up a bit. Tell us what you do well, what the Thought Bubble’s main attractions are and why our readers should attend the next one.

Lisa: Thought Bubble is a four-day annual event which celebrates sequential art in all its forms, including everything from superheroes to independent small press. We are a non-profit making organisation dedicated to promoting comics and graphic novels as an important cultural art form. Taking place at a variety of venues across the city, our aim is to cater to both long-time comic book fans and those who have never picked up a graphic novel before!

Thought Bubble will take place 19th -- 22nd November 2009 with a centrepiece one-day convention on Saturday 21st.  Thought Bubble will include art and writing based workshops for young people and adults, panels and talks lead by industry professionals and a programme of sequential art related film screenings. The special one-day convention includes an incredible line up of leading artists and writers, and over 150 tables selling comics and merchandise. The day will also feature portfolio viewings and competitions. This promises to be one of the best events of its kind in the UK, where you’ll be able to meet some of your favourite comic book creators and browse the huge selection of memorabilia on sale -- brought to you by the biggest and best exhibitors and dealers from across the country.  Keep an eye on the website for more updates, or join us on MySpace or Facebook to share your thoughts and ideas.

FPI would like to thank Lisa for taking time out from a busy schedule to talk to us and Matt for a fascinating series of interviews. This year’s Thought Bubble takes place in Leeds from the 19th to the 22nd of December (you can read Richard’s report on last year’s TB here on the blog). You can read the previous Q&As with other British comics con organisers in this series here on the blog: Comica’s Paul Gravett,  Patrick Findlay of the UK Web’n’Mini Comix Thing,  Jimi Gherkin of the Alternative Fair Press chats with Matt, Matt talks with Bristol’s Mike Allwood, Hi-Ex’s Vicky Stonebridge, BICS’ Shane Chebsey, Caption’s Jay Eales and LUC’s Oli Smith.

Just as we were preparing this interview the Thought Bubble crew updated us on a whole raft of (mostly free) comics classes that will be running during the weekend for children and adults:

Digital Colouring Masterclass with Peter Doherty. 14:00-15:00, Carrigeworks, FREE, 16+. Famous for his work on The Wachowski Brothers’ Shaolin Cowboy, and Judge Death, Peter will take participants through the stages of how to digitally colour line art in photoshop. A basic understanding of photoshop is required. Places are limited, book soon to avoid disappointment, email thoughtbubblefestival@googlemail.com

Sequential Art and Literacy Workshop. 14:00-15:30, Leeds Art Gallery, 12-18 year olds, FREE. Award-winning artist, curator, and academic Sarah Lightman, who trained at ‘Slade School of Art’, will go through the stages of creating your very own publication. She will explain how young people can use the comic format to reflect their own feelings and experiences. Places are limited, book soon to avoid disappointment, email thoughtbubblefestival@googlemail.com

Yishan Studio Shojo Manga Workshop with Yishan Li. 14:30-15:30, Leeds Central Library, 7-12 year olds, FREE. Yishan Li, a leading manga artist, and creator of the Yishan Studio ‘How To Draw Manga’ books, will run this fun workshop for younger children. Yishan will take them through the steps of how to create characters and figures. Places are limited, book soon to avoid disappointment, email thoughtbubblefestival@googlemail.com

Creation of Computer Game Concept Design. 14:50-16:50, Leeds Central Library, 16+, FREE. Steve Beaumont, character design and storyboard artist, will look at how the two are produced within the video games industry. There will be an opportunity to work from a typical client brief to create a gaming character. Steve will also touch on what the gaming industry looks for to give you a heads up in this ever growing field. Places are limited, book soon to avoid disappointment, email thoughtbubblefestival@googlemail.com

Manga Character Art Workshop with Emma Vieceli. 14:50-15:50, Leeds Central Library, 12-18 year olds, FREE.  Sweatdrop Studios’ Emma, is well known for her presenting on Anime Network, and her fantastic art on the Manga Shakespeare series. In this session, Emma will demonstrate techniques used in manga styled pages and show participants the foundations needed to create their own characters. This workshop will be fun and informal. Places are limited, book soon to avoid disappointment, email thoughtbubblefestival@googlemail.com

Frank Quitely Art Masterclass. 15:15-16:45, Carriageworks, 16+, £5 Entry. Thought Bubble is delighted to welcome Frank Quitely, one of the world’s most respected comic book artists, for a special insider look at his art. Frank is best known for his work on Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, Batman and Robin, and We3. Talking to Peter Dohert of 2000AD fame, Frank will reveal the creative process he employs in this fascinating masterclass. For tickets go to www.thoughtbubblefestival.com

Young People’s Comics Writing Masterclass with Adam Lowe. 16:00-17:00, Leeds Central Library, 12-18 year olds, FREE. Local author Adam Lowe’s first novel, Troglodyte Rose, mixes sequential art and prose. In this workshop for young people, he gives tips on writing scripts for comics, including dialogue, pace, and visual cues in this fun and informal masterclass. Places are limited, book soon to avoid disappointment, email thoughtbubblefestival@googlemail.com

Related posts:

1. Thought Bubble 2009 Lisa Wood has been in touch to let us know...
2. Your weekend comic events (north) – Thought Bubble….. Thought Bubble, The Leeds Sequential Art Festival has been...
3. Small Press and so much more at Thought Bubble Hugh (Shug) Raine gets in touch to show us...

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Martin: I work as a broadcast journalist for the BBC in Scotland, working mainly in Sport – writing news, match reports and such like, in addition to broadcasting on radio. I’ve also freelanced as a writer, blogger and journalist for dozens of other companies, such as AOL. Prior to that, I worked as a psychiatric nurse for ten years in Glasgow. I’ve been interested in comics since I was a kid, but never really got into mainstream comics until my teen years, when I started picking up titles like 2000AD, Crisis, Hellblazer, Animal Man and Doom Patrol. The whole revolution that Grant Morrison and Mark Millar ushered in, as Scottish creators, prompted me to try and pursue a career as a comics writer, but I don’t think I was ready for it ten to fifteen years ago. I was too inexperienced, and ended up side-stepping into mainstream journalism to pick up the fundamental skills of writing.

After a ten year absence from comics, I felt confident enough to return and give it another go. I hadn’t picked up a comic in all that time (apart from reading some trade paperbacks my work colleagues were reading). However, once again, Morrison got me hooked – with All Star Superman, We3 and Batman & Robin. I’m also a big fan of The Walking Dead, anything by Mark Millar and Brian K Vaughn, and I still keep an eye out for anything Pete Milligan does. Of course, there’s also Alan Moore – but, he’s a given.

Will: I’ve just always been comics daft, and I keep coming back to them. They were everywhere when I was little – newsagents, sweet shops, barbers’ and doctors’ waiting rooms – and the sheer variety was incredible. I grew up on this glorious mishmash of Tintin, Asterix, the Trigan Empire, the Broons, Marvel and DC, Alan Class Ditko and Wally Wood reprints, the Beano, the Hotspur, the Warlord, 2000AD, Warrior, Luther Arkwright, Grendel, Whisper, Cerebus, Lone Wolf and Cub…

I always knew that making these things was what I wanted to do, but by the time I was ready to turn pro it was the height of the 90s speculator boom, and the whole market had become really polarised – you had a dozen different superhero crossover universes competing for attention at the top end, and then at the bottom there were all these lovely, passionate small press people who seemed quite happy to be losing money hand over fist, and I found it hard to carve out a niche in  the middle. I was too indie to break into the mainstream and too mainstream to be a credible indie – I did some self-publishing, and picked up the odd paying gig here and there, but nothing led directly to anything else and I just couldn’t sustain myself on fresh air and enthusiasm long enough to build a reputation, so I had to go off and do other things to survive. Then ten years later the recession came along and the starveling artist routine became viable again by default, so here I am.

FPI: Martin I don’t think you’re the first person to have been lured back to comics by the quality of material from the likes of Grant and Mark and I can certainly empathise with your early comics reading, Will, I suspect that mixture of imports and the then huge homegrown range of comics was a vital part of childhood reading for many of us of a certain age.

Moving on to your current book – I think Burke and Hare make great subject material for storytelling and it doesn’t surprise me that they have been re-imagined in various mediums or been used as a springboard for other tales over the last century and a half (not least by the great Robert Louis Stevenson) and yet, like Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, it’s a story lots of people assume they actually know, but most of them actually don’t know the real history (many still think they actually dug up the bodies like the Resurrection Men). What was it that drew you to them and what was it you thought you could do in a new comics interpretation that would make it different from previous works inspired by their grisly work?

Martin: Around 1994, I was writing some short stories for Caliber Comics’ ‘Negative Burn’ anthology, and I produced an issue of their popular ‘Raven Chronicles’ title, which was their take on The X-Files. The publisher, Gary Reed, approached me about writing something for their ‘Gothic’ line of horror graphic novels – which was their take on out-of-copyright classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein – and they asked if I wanted to do an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The Body-Snatcher’. Being one of only a few Scottish creators on their books, I jumped at the chance – but when I started the research, the true story of Burke and Hare emerged. I quickly discovered that Stevenson had based his story on the real exploits of the Irish serial-killers William Burke and William Hare, and then transformed it into a story about ghoulish grave-robbers with a supernatural twist.

Of course, Stevenson’s take on the tale is the one everyone knows today – the story of two “Scottish grave-robbers”. The truth is much stranger – Burke and Hare were Irishmen, and they never set foot in an Edinburgh graveyard with the intention of stealing a corpse; they murdered all of their victims and disposed of the bodies to medical science. When I was conducting my research on the story, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s ‘From Hell’ was making quite a scene – being so different from anything that had ever been produced before – with such an accurate historical take on events, backed up by extensive research notes and detailed artwork. So, I was heavily influenced by ‘From Hell’ in my approach to Burke & Hare, and I drafted it as a 48-page graphic novel, comprising 38 pages of art and 10 pages of appendix notes. Stuart Beel was brought on board to illustrate, but had to move on to other work, and another artist – Nulsh – came and went before Caliber ceased publishing, and the script fell into limbo, along with my stalled comics  career. I never gave it another thought until I spotted Insomnia Publications seeking new material. And, being an Edinburgh-based publisher, Burke & Hare seemed perfect for them. They jumped at it, and I tracked down Will Pickering (who had illustrated my issue of ‘Raven Chronicles’) and we were off and running.

Will: I got this cryptic comment on my blog saying “email Martin C”, and the whole thing developed from there. I was actually a bit hesitant at first, because we hadn’t been in touch for years and I’d only just decided a week earlier to start taking comics seriously again – I had unused ideas and incomplete projects of my own I wanted to be getting on with, and I wasn’t sure I was up to spending a couple of months on somebody else’s vanity project. But I figured I could spare a few days for an old mate, so I said I’d hack out a couple of sample pages to illustrate a pitch document, just for a bit of visual oomph – and a few weeks later we had a deal. It was a real jump in at the deep end, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it any other way, and the more I read up on the background the more into it I got.

(Martin and Will at the Insomnia stand at the recent BICS con, pic borrowed from Insomnia’s Red Eye blog)

FPI: It’s a fascinating period of history – it’s essentially one of the most important stages of the birth of modern medicine and the life sciences that we take for granted to keep us healthy today, and yet much of the pioneering work by leading anatomists was carried out in less than legal – or even ethical – ways. Its part of an era of unprecedented growth in the arts, sciences and humanities, not least in Scotland and Edinburgh, the famous ‘men of genius’ essentially laying down many of the foundations of the modern world, but just like the criminal underworld this glittering class of intelligentsia had bodies in the foundations. How did you approach the historical aspects of the period? Martin, I believe you did a lot of research, including visiting the anatomy school’s museum where Burke’s skeleton still hangs? And how did Will find illustrating the Edinburgh of the period?

Martin: I sought out almost every book, article, documentary, movie, song and poem I could find on the subject – chief among which were Owen Dudley Edwards’s ‘Burke & Hare’ and Hugh Douglas’s ‘Burke & Hare: The True Story’ – both of which reconstructed the case from historical manuscripts, confessions, court transcripts and letters and are widely believed to be among the most definitive books on the subject. We stomped the streets of Edinburgh, took photos, compared the various versions of the story and reached our own conclusions about the true facts of the case. We even visited the private Anatomy Museum at Edinburgh University to see William Burke’s skeleton, where it remains on display to this day. After he was found guilty of murdering one of the final victims, Burke was hanged for his crimes and his body was bequeathed to Edinburgh University, where it was publicly dissected and his bones put on permanent display in remembrance of his crimes.

William Hare was released as agreed in law for his part in acting as chief witness against his accomplice at the trial. In my script, I pretty much left a lot of the detail to Will (often, I just said “we need a reference for this character” or “we’ll need to find a picture of this building” and Will went and tracked them down). It was fascinating to delve so far into Scotland and Edinburgh’s history, because the crimes were committed at the height of the Enlightenment, when medicine was a growing form of education, and something of a gold rush sprung up around the medical establishments as they sought to procure medical cadavers, which were all too readily provided by grave-robbers – or ‘resurrectionists’. So it’s not too difficult to see how Burke and Hare’s tale became intertwined with the goings-on around the UK at the time.

Will: I realised early on that we had a real opportunity to do something special with this: not just to retell the story and discount some of the myths, but to make the artwork as much a work of scholarship as the writing. We’ve all seen historical dramas where Prague stands in for Regency London or some National Trust property in Hampshire pretends to be Versailles, and it would have been easy enough to set Burke and Hare in a sort of generic pseudo-Edinburgh, just throwing in enough looming tenements, shadowy closes and background shots of the Castle to give it flavour – but I set myself the challenge, instead, of getting every single physical detail as historically accurate as I could: tracking down the original locations, establishing the spatial relationships between them, the routes people would have taken from place to place and what buildings were actually there at the time.

And I did the same thing with the cast, hunting obsessively for every  portrait, sketch or caricature I could find of anyone who appears in even one panel, from Lord Boyle and Sir Walter Scott all the way down the social scale to Daft Jamie and the unfortunate Mrs Docherty. Obviously, it was just before the invention of photography and a lot of the neighbours, trial witnesses and so on never had their likenesses recorded anywhere, but as far as possible I’ve based everybody on contemporary images, and I’m pretty impressed by how many of them I managed to get. I was extremely fortunate to be working on this now rather than back in the mid-90s: the sheer amount of visual reference I ploughed through to do it this way would have been prohibitive without the Internet. I’d probably have had to move to Edinburgh for the duration, and even then it might have taken years to track down everything I needed.

As it was, I got away with doing a couple of scouting trips to familiarise myself with the lie of the land and visit  museums and such, but the vast majority of the map regression and image searches I was able to do at home. I spent just over six months working flat out once I got the final script in, and less than half of that was actual drawing time. My motto all the way through was Thomas Carlyle’s advice to David Laing about the National Portrait Gallery: “the thing can by no means be done by Yankee-Barnum methods; nor should it, if it could” – in other words, unless you’re going to get it right, why bother?

FPI: I think readers will appreciate the historical detail and the effort which goes into them – it would be too easy to simply rehash their story as a quick exploitation piece of throwaway tosh, so as someone who loves both comics and history I have to say I’m glad you opted for the slower but more thorough approach.

Star-anatomist Knox and some of his fellows may not have been the most ethical of fellows but there is little doubting the huge advancements they made to the science of medicine; I’m curious as to how you approached the moral aspect of the tale. There is murder, which is of course a vile crime to any civilised person and even the Resurrection Men who dug up fresh corpses from the cemeteries rather than murdering victims for the anatomy trade are viewed with loathing by most, but the number of lives saved through the medical progress this gruesome trade served is incalculable. How did you approach this moral quagmire in the book?

Martin: There’s no question the whole sorry mess changed medicine as the world knows it. While Burke and Hare’s antics didn’t directly bring about the change in the laws pertaining to the donation of corpses to medical science, it was referenced in the Anatomy Act of 1832 (which allowed the [legal] donation of bodies) and the whole country was aware of their deeds. With regards to Knox, I decided not to focus on the morality of his actions, as it seems fairly obvious in the story that he was receiving a steady flow of fresh bodies from Burke and Hare and would have undoubtedly been aware that two men on their own would have been extremely unlikely to be stumbling on bodies by accident, no matter how they explained it away. The duo disposed of 17 bodies in total – 16 of whom were smothered to death – over roughly nine months. It worked out at a body roughly every 14 days, which would have surely raised some suspicion. However, no evidence exists to prove that  Knox was in any way party to Burke and Hare’s reign of terror, and I wanted to make sure the story was presented in a straightforward fashion – so any involvement on his part it entirely implied.

(beware of strangers offering hospitality… Burke and Hare lure an unsuspecting victim back to their dwelling)

Will: The moral ins and outs of it all weren’t something I gave a lot of thought to, except insofar as the characters’ emotional states would be affected, which would affect how I drew them. There is a kind of queasy ambiguity in the central relationship between Burke, Hare and Knox, but it’s the same feeling you get when you think carefully about where your meat, your coffee, your cotton, your petrol comes from. Civilisation and progress are wonderful things, but who pays for them and do we really want to know how much? What’s the value of a human life anyway? It’s probably the central theme of the book, but for me it was more important to focus on what the characters were doing, saying and feeling, rather than passing judgement. That’s up to the reader.

FPI: Point taken, unless its exposed and waved in our faces most folks don’t really think did my new cotton shirt get made properly or by the sweated labour of third world orphans, or did this oil come from a company who then dumped the toxic leftovers in Africa? Knox must have been suspicious, but since it suited his agenda perhaps he decided unless clear evidence of wrong doing was right in front of his eyes he’d just go along as normal.

It’s an interesting mix of characters though, from the low to high society figures, folks in slum dwellings and anatomists who were major society figures as well as academics; what was your take on the main characters? I believe Knox himself was a real mixture of the brilliant but also terribly arrogant and determined to make a famous name for himself, while Hare had struggled up from dreadful poverty in Ireland.

Martin: Originally, I wanted Burke to be a fairly down-to-earth sort of character. Certainly, that’s how he seems to present in the various sources, and I wanted Hare to come across as the evil one. When you see the life cast of Hare’s face, he looks like The Joker – and after seeing The Dark Knight, I was tempted to make him seem like a force of nature – blitzing his way through Edinburgh and murdering with impunity. From the historical evidence we could find, there was no origin story for Hare, and his whereabouts after he was released is also unknown – so it seemed to fit. However, it would have been a bit cliché-ridden to make him a caricature of some other fictional character, so we just portrayed both of them as realistically as the historical evidence would allow us.

Which ever way you look at it – and irrespective of their personality traits – Burke and Hare were cold-blooded killers; untrustworthy fiends who extinguished the lives of 16 innocent people. When we approached the murders, we wanted to make them almost seem mundane and ordinary. Burke and Hare were two poor immigrants trying to make a living – they just happened to stumble upon murder as an acceptable way to do it. As for Knox, the historical evidence depicts him as a brilliant, engaging character – albeit an arrogant one, and Will definitely captured that side of him. He’s one of the most captivating characters in the book, with his dead eye socket, expensive clothing and swept back hair.

Will: I think Burke comes over as the most rounded character, but that might just be because we see more of him. The narrative follows his confession, so inevitably most of it is from his point of view, and we did have discussions about how reliable a narrator we wanted him to be – he seems quite determined at certain points to confine all blame to himself and Hare rather than the wives or Dr Knox or anyone else who might have had some knowledge of what they were up to, and it’s an interesting question whether that’s motivated by guilt, compassion, loyalty or a kind of sick vanity – but undercutting his version of events would have been entirely speculative, and the story’s gruesome enough as it is.

He’s kind of a tragic figure, in a way – a guy stumbling towards middle age, acutely aware of his limitations, with a failed marriage and a string of failed careers behind him, taking refuge in the bottle and then suddenly, unexpectedly, being drawn into this bizarre Gothic conspiracy that provides him with a comfortable living for probably the first time in his life – and all he has to do is bump off a few people nobody’s going to miss. I’m not suggesting he was a patsy or that he didn’t know what he was doing, but he stepped over the threshold into a world where the unthinkable was acceptable – Hare’s world – and when it all unravelled he was left to carry the can for all of them.

Hare’s like a ghost – we know almost nothing about him. How did he come to be running a guesthouse with another man’s widow in the first place? Was Old Donald’s death really accidental, or had the whole scheme been going on for a while before Burke got involved? We’ll just never know: Hare walks into history in 1827, murders some people and walks straight back out again eighteen months later, free as a bird. He and Knox, although their social positions were very different, both have this hyper-real, theatrical quality, as if they were fictional characters all along and the world was just there for them to perform in. Such people are always dangerous.

FPI: Even today when the autumn mists settle around Edinburgh’s Old Town you could be forgiven for half expecting to see Burke and Hare emerge from the fog carrying another body, its still a great setting for macabre, Gothic tales, but history aside do you think the tale still has relevance to the modern audience, especially in a world where we still have many concerns over the ethics of some medical procedures, from tales of buying human organs from third world donors to new genetic research? Do you think that like Frankenstein and his monster a shadow of Burke and Hare will always lurk in our collective unconscious?

Martin: Edinburgh is one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s a mixture of the old and new; labyrinthine stairways and alleys, bridges and closes – and the beautiful buildings of the New Town imposing themselves on the dirty, dank old town. I think the tale of Burke and Hare captivates any visitor to the city because the streets retain much of the look and feel they would have held in the 1820s. It remains relevant to a modern audience because it’s such a potent mixture of fact and fiction – people still worry about their organs being harvested or even having to receive anything from a donor – especially where blood is concerned.

Burke and Hare also crossed into the realm of pure fiction when Stevenson re-imagined them in a supernatural setting, so their place in history is assured – not just because of Stevenson, but because of the medical legacy and the sheer horror of their crimes. Burke confessed to the murders of 16 people – which outnumbers Harold Shipman, so the story is very much a fixed point in the history of Edinburgh, Scotland and the world. However, history tends to remember them as grave-robbers, so in our graphic novel, I wanted to set the record straight, and present the truth of their story in a straightforward fashion, separated from the various representations that have shrouded the story in myth.

Will: It’s funny you should mention Frankenstein, because of course it comes from the same milieu – the advance of medical science and the plundering of graveyards to ease it along. The first edition came out in 1818, ten years before the West Port murders, the second edition in 1831, two years afterwards, so they’re practically synchronous and it’s hardly surprising if people have them in the same mental box – I’m sure James Whale probably did. They’ve both passed into myth, and it’s funny how even though one’s fact and the other’s fiction, there’s so much more to both stories than the versions most people think they know.

FPI: Turning now to the book proper, Martin and Will are going to share some pages from the graphic novel and talk us through a few select scenes to give us a wee taster of what they have done with the monstrous tale of Burke and Hare (click on the images for the larger picture):

Martin: this is one of the earliest pages Will illustrated, so it’s the one that sticks in my mind the most. Originally, he did a few mock-up pages for our pitch to Insomnia, experimenting with different styles and layouts. I think this page captures two major things in the story – it sets the scene firmly in Edinburgh, at the foot of the castle and it sets the tone of the artwork to come. Will’s art takes on an ‘engraved’ feel, giving it an aged look – and this page achieves it beautifully. I also wanted Edinburgh Castle to be almost like a character in the book (it crops up in other pages), as it has such an imposing presence in the city.

Will: The big panel is based on a contemporary view from the Foot of the Vennel, which was a popular spot for artists at the time (and I suppose probably still is) precisely because it does give you that contrast between the soaring bulk of the Castle and the mundane business of everyday commerce lower down. I’ve done a bit of a cinematic trick on the bottom tier where the saltwife becomes visible as two extras in the foreground move away from each other, and then we pan round to her face and you can see a bit of the Grassmarket behind her, with Naismith’s house and the foot of Heriot Bridge – it’s a good example of what I was saying earlier about spatial relationships, getting the geography nailed right down so it feels real.

Martin: This is one of the first occasions the reader meets Dr Robert Knox, a character Will loved illustrating because of his hewn features, and that dead eye socket I mentioned earlier (he lost the eye due to suffering smallpox as a child). We also see 10 Surgeon’s Square at the bottom of the page, which no longer exists in Edinburgh, but is a fine example of the research Will carried out during the course of illustrating the book, where he had to track down representations of streets, buildings, people and places to bring the story alive.

Will: Knox’s teaching rooms are gone, and Surgeon’s Square is no longer accessible directly from the street, but it’s still more or less there, tucked away behind some university buildings between South Bridge and the Flodden Wall. The old Surgeons’ Hall, seen on the left of the panel, is still standing, although it was modified almost beyond recognition in Victorian times. Knox appears briefly on page 4, but this is the first time he speaks and his character starts to emerge – that imperious disdain for the grubby reality of the trade he’s gotten involved in. He’s an intelligent man, but just how much does he really know, or guess, by this point? We’re not saying. It’s all in the facial expression.

Martin: This page is taken from a sequence in the book that was added towards the end. Insomnia asked for a slightly longer script than my original Caliber script, so I added a section in the middle incorporating elements of Burke’s trial, the aftermath of the final murder, and the final murder itself. I wanted to experiment with the narrative flow of the story by compressing three timeframes into each page of the chapter, spreading the story horizontally across the pages. Again, Will’s artwork varies slightly with each narrative strand and captures the very essence of each component, giving the reader brief insights into what happened in each scene.

Will: There’s not much to add, except to note that the advocate in panel one is Alexander Wood, one of several bit players in the story who were frustratingly difficult to reference – in his case, because it was hard to distinguish him in searches from two much more famous Edinburgh personages of the same name. But I made a last-minute dash to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery the day before it closed for refurbishment, and they came up trumps for me. There’s something like ten different lawyers and judges named in the script, and one way or another I found portraits of just about all of them – which is lucky, because you certainly can’t tell them apart by the way they dress!

Martin: This scene depicts Dr Robert Knox walking in the Edinburgh Meadows with his friend Dr Adams. It was important for us to convey the stark differences between Edinburgh’s Old Town and the New Town and other new, open, healthy spaces – and the respective inhabitants. Will intentionally depicted scenes in the Old Town as grubby, scratchy and dark, with the New Town scenes white, fresh and clean. Even the characters in the New Town scenes have clean white clothing, and the skies seem bleached white.

Will: It’s really just talking heads. I had to imagine Adams because I couldn’t find a likeness anywhere, but otherwise this was one of the most straightforward pages in the whole book.

FPI would like to thank Martin and Will for taking the time to share their thoughts with us; you can find out more via Insomnia’s Red Eye blog and Burke and Hare is available to order now. Martin has a blog here and you can follow Will here. All art (c) Monaghan/Pickering/Insomnia, cover artwork by Rian Hughes.

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Strip! – Doctor Who and The Spiral Cage, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Continuing our month look long at ‘British Mavericks’ – interviews with artists whose work brings aspects of the avant-garde to mainstream comics – Alex Fitch talks to artist Al Davison about his career so far, from early graphic novels based on autobiography such as The Spiral Cage and The Minotaur’s Tale which depict Al’s struggle with his identity as an artist with spina bifida to his most recent book Hokusai: Demons which explores Japanese erotic art and bestiaries based on the artist’s dreams. Alex and Al are also joined by writer Tony Lee to discuss the latter’s collaboration with the artist on the American Doctor Who comic which depicts David Tennant’s alter-ego having adventures in 1920s Hollywood. Today’s interviews were recorded last month at the British International Comics Show in Birmingham.

Clear Spot – The Alternative Press Fair, tonight at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

In an hour-long collection of interviews recorded at a couple of events during August’s Alternative Press week in London, ‘zine creator Dickon Harris talks to a trio of small press creators about their work; these include Paul Rainey, whose comic book paperback The Book of Lists sees the writer / artist collating events from his life into thematic order, poet Ceri May who self publishes and performs her work at alt. press events and accomplished illustrator Paul Ashley Brown who creates a bitter sweet, whimsical ‘zine called Browner Knowle based on observation from life. The broadcast compliments the event “Are you ‘zine friendly?” which is taking place at the same time as the programme at The Foundry in Hoxton.

Recent podcasts:

Reality Check: Time travelling Hobbits and other paradoxes, online at Sci-Fi London

In a pair of Q & As recorded in front of a live cinema audience at this year’s Sci-Fi London Film Festival, Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new low budget films: The Hunt for Gollum and Cryptic. Joining Alex and director Chris Bouchard on stage, members of the cast and crew of The Hunt for Gollum talk about making an extended short film that stands up to the quality of the official Lord of the Rings movies, in an adaptation of material by J.R.R. Tolkein that was a labour of love for all involved, even when recreating Middle Earth in Epping Forest on limited resources. Alex also talks to producer / co-director Danny Kuchuck about his film Cryptic which mixes teen therapy with tropes of murder mysteries, revenge thrillers and time paradoxes to create an intriguing Sci-Fi drama .

Panel Borders: The Art of Brendan McCarthy

Starting ‘British Mavericks’ month on the show – a series of conversations with illustrators whose work is surprisingly avant-garde for mainstream comics – we have an interview with pop art surrealist Brendan McCarthy. Appropriately for Guy Fawkes’ Night, Brendan’s work is the comic strip equivalent of fireworks, mixing lurid colours with hallucinogenic rendering that he has managed to smuggle into British periodicals such as 2000AD and Crisis and more recently has led to work in the field of film and animation design, working on TV series such as Reboot and the new film ‘Mad Max 4: Fury Road’. Today’s interview was conducted by author and librarian Pedro Galvao in front of an audience of Graphic Novel fans at Minet Library in Camberwell as part of Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival during the summer. (The episode was recorded and edited by Alex Fitch)

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Strip!: The Art of Brendan McCarthy, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Starting ‘British Mavericks’ month on the show – a series of conversations with illustrators whose work is surprisingly avant-garde for mainstream comics – we have an interview with pop art surrealist Brendan McCarthy. Appropriately for Guy Fawkes’ Night, Brendan’s work is the comic strip equivalent of fireworks, mixing lurid colours with hallucinogenic rendering that he has managed to smuggle into British periodicals such as 2000AD and Crisis and more recently has led to work in the field of film and animation design, working on TV series such as Reboot and the new film ‘Mad Max 4: Fury Road’. Today’s interview was conducted by author and librarian Pedro Galvao in front of an audience of Graphic Novel fans at Minet Library in Camberwell as part of Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival during the summer. (The episode was recorded and edited by Alex Fitch)

(some fantastic art by Brendan McCarthy for Doctor Strange, due next year from Marvel; pic via Heidi at The Beat)

ELECTRIC SHEEP SUBTERRANEA: Marebito (2004) + The Phantom Empire: The Thunder Riders (1935)

Electric Sheep presents subterranean screenings of minor masterpieces, oddball B-movies and genre classics in the convivial surroundings of Cinéphilia West. Join us every second Sunday of the month for a feature film and a chat, preceded by an episode from a serial or series, which will be shown over a season of screenings. On Sunday 8th November, as part of our season of underground-related films, we will be screening Takashi Shimizu’s Marebito (Stranger from Afar, 2004), a deeply sinister exploration of fear, obsession and urban paranoia, set in the Tokyo netherworld. This will be preceded by the second episode from the sci-fi Western musical The Phantom Empire (1935), in which a cowboy, who is also a radio show host, stumbles upon an ancient but highly advanced civilisation living under his ranch… Has to be seen to be believed! If you missed last month’s instalment and want to catch up, you can do so here: http://www.archive.org/details/phantom_empire_chapter_1

Previous podcasts:

Reality Check: Time travelling Hobbits and other paradoxes

In a pair of Q & As recorded in front of a live cinema audience at this year’s Sci-Fi London Film Festival, Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new low budget films: The Hunt for Gollum and Cryptic. Joining Alex and director Chris Bouchard on stage, members of the cast and crew of The Hunt for Gollum talk about making an extended short film that stands up to the quality of the official Lord of the Rings movies, in an adaptation of material by J.R.R. Tolkein that was a labour of love for all involved, even when recreating Middle Earth in Epping Forest on limited resources. Alex also talks to producer / co-director Danny Kuchuck about his film Cryptic which mixes teen therapy with tropes of murder mysteries, revenge thrillers and time paradoxes to create an intriguing Sci-Fi drama .

Panel Borders: Banal Pigs, borrowed toilets and other manly anthologies

Continuing ‘anthologies and collectives month’ on the show, in an interview recorded at this year’s Small Press Expo in Bristol, Dickon Harris talks to Steve Tillotson and Gareth Brookes about their self published comics, including The Manly Boys Annual, Can I borrow your toilet? and The Banal Pig Landscape anthology; Dickon then catches up with Gareth again at the Alternative Press Fair Collaborama! in Borough to talk about performing small press comics as poetry.

Panel Borders: Inside the Fleece Station

Concluding ‘anthologies and collectives month’ on the show, in an interview recorded on location at the Old Police Station The Fleece Station in Deptford, Alex Fitch talks to artists Sarah McIntyre and Viviane Schwartz about their work including books such as Morris the Mankiest Monster and There are Cats in this book plus the benefits of sharing a studio that has a web and public presence.

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FPI: Matt, what’s it all about? Is this a new comics project or, as the name might imply, a fiendishly evil scheme for world domination under the guise of Project Grinder, doubtless to be conducted from some hi-tech underground lair?

MB: I’m a bit embarrassed to be answering these questions (you’ll soon see why). Still, I suppose this is an opportunity to flag up how rich and diverse the small press comics scene is in this country.

The short answer: GRINDER!! is the best deathsploitation comic I haven’t written yet.

FPI: Okay, you have me in that sort of fascinated by the promise of pulp and B movie references state I get into when I hear a new Tarantino is coming (you had me at ‘deathsploitation’), so what’s the long answer version?

MB: The long answer: last night Doug Noble (ace cartoonist) and I were chatting about the recent Cape/Observer/Comica Graphic Story competition. One question we considered was whether a genre (sci-fi, horror, whatever) entry would have any chance of winning… our thinking was that winning entries would probably reflect the sensibility of the Observer’s art pages and that would rule out genre stuff. Anyway, we started to light-heartedly discuss the idea of entering a genre story next year to test our thesis. Before we knew it, we were bandying story concepts back and forth. Out of that was born GRINDER!! The basic plot is as follows (some of this came from Doug; some from me): Max Grinder is on the run in Mexico for a crime he didn’t commit. A corrupt cop framed him (Max was having an affair with his wife). The cops catch up with him, he’s accidentally zapped with an experimental teleportation device and teleported to a hostile alien planet.

(no, they’re not talking about Matt, its a scene from a recent page of Complex by and (c) Doug Noble, borrowed from his site)

Anyway, as the night went on, I found myself thinking that it would actually be a lot of fun to write GRINDER!! And get it printed up to flog at conventions for charity or just put it online. Problem: no artist, and who was I going to persuade to draw my mad ramblings anyway?

And then, sudden inspiration. I could ask lots of artists to contribute, each one providing one panel. Asking one artist to work for free for a whole comic felt wrong, even a page felt like I’d be taking the piss. But one panel on a not-for-profit enterprise that wasn’t taking itself too seriously, that felt like it might be fun for people…

(Of course, one artist per panel brings its own problems. For a 24-page comic that’s about 144 contributor copies before I even sell any.)

Anyway, I’m hoping that I can rope Doug Noble and Andrew Cheverton into helping me write the comic, although I’m not sure Doug is aware that I’ve taken the ball and ran with it (Andrew is now credited as a co-creator along with Doug after coming up with a two-word title for the first episode, but, boy, was it a good two-word title!)

I’m also hoping that I can persuade a musician friend to do a deathsploitation ‘John Carpenter’-like soundtrack that can be mounted as a free CD on copies of GRINDER!!

FPI: This year’s Cape/Observer/Comica winner has certainly sparked a fair bit of commentary on the blog (see here) and I suspect you’re right in that something overly genre would have less chance of winning (which is also the case in major literary awards all too often as well). Back to Grinder – from what you’re saying I’m guessing we’re going to be treated to some of the beloved staples of Grindhouse and B movies and pulp novels?

MB: Well, I have certain elements that I want to include:

Scorpions.

An intelligent, talking monkey.

Nuns.

A teetotal, slipper-wearing assassin.

Alien punks.

A comedy robot.

A handgun that blows up if used by anyone other than its owner (Dredd homage).

A philosophical bomb.

Mexican wrestlers (although I’m a bit worried about whether I can write Mexico and Mexicans without falling back on slightly racist clichés).

Subterranean creatures.

Clowns.

An alien religion.

Bikers.

More scorpions. Lots more scorpions.

FPI: Hopefully scorpions of the stinging, multi-legged variety and not the band… Are you ready to name some of the names involved and what they’ll be contributing?

MB: I’ll gladly name them, but they might decide not to contribute once they’ve read this interview.

I tweeted a request for artists who would be willing to draw one panel for me for a new comic I was doing. The following artists responded (check out their blogs and websites, gentle readers, they’re all fantastic. (Well, they’re not all fantastic artists. One’s a computer programmer. They’re all great people, though.))

They are: Gary Northfield, Andrew Cheverton, Chris Doherty, Paul Harrison-Davies, David O’Connell, Rob Jackson, Sarah McIntyre, Mo Ali, Vicky Stonebridge, Neill Cameron, Jez Higgins, Garen Ewing, Mike, Dan Berry, Philip Spence, Warwick J Cardwell and Jon Scrivens (and, possibly, a 2000 AD artist).

FPI: That’s a fair old list of talent to be starting off with! Is the title a homage to the affectionate term applied to the low budget, usually exploitation movies, Grindhouse?

MB: Yes. The whole exercise is also inspired by browsing Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit in a comic shop.

(cover to Prison Pit Book One, by and (c) the one and only Johnny Ryan, published  Fantagraphics)

FPI: Good old Johnny Ryan, you can always count on his corrupting influence. Are you planning to physically print and sell it or will it be online or, as is increasingly the case, will it be both physical and digital? Any ideas when you hope to release it and is there a site where readers can follow the progress of Grinder?

MB: Who knows? I’ll start a blog if and when I finish the first draft. Determined to release it if it’s good enough, even if all the artists have dropped out and I have to self-publish it as a script book with ‘concept art’.

FPI: Are you looking for more contributors and if so where do they get in touch with you?

MB: I am, but let’s hang fire for now. I’ll be in touch with more news when I have it (i.e., when the first draft of the script is written).

FPI: Matt, thanks for that, sounds like a fun project; we’ll be sure to post more on it further down the line and meantime you can follow Matt via his Twitter.

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Matt Badham: Please tell us about a little about the history of your event and how it’s evolved over the years.

Paul Gravett: Comica started in 2003 and grew out of a couple of events I’d done with the ICA (that’s the Institute of Contemporary Arts) before, including interviews with Grant Morrison and Tetsuya Chiba and a panel with Dave Gibbons, Dave McKean and Matt Smith. The ICA is a cool venue, on the Mall, just off Trafalgar Square and up the road from Buckingham Palace. It has galleries, two cinemas, a theatre, education space, cafe, bar and bookshop. A key person there getting Comica to happen was John Dunning, their film PR man at the time and a keen comics enthusiast – and now a published graphic novelist himself with the brilliant Salem Brownstone from Walker Books which launched on 24th October at a Comica Spooktacular evening at the ICA.

Together John and I cajoled and persuaded Philip Dodd, director of the ICA, finally to let us run a pilot 10-day festival during their summer refurbishment of the galleries. They gave us the Concourse Gallery to fill, a long corridor-type space that leads from the foyer to the bar, and the use of rooms and the cinema for talks. Luckily, I knew a curator at a Spanish festival who was inviting Charles Burns, Joe Sacco and Chris Ware over and she very kindly let me bring the three of them from Madrid to London, saving on their pricey transatlantic flights. So we had three top-class guests to kick the show off. One central idea of Comica is to mix comics with all the other media, and not keep it sealed off in some specialist cocoon, so we got novelist Alex Garland, who had drawn his hit book The Beach initially as a comic (he showed it to me years ago on the train to Caption in Oxford), to talk with Chris Ware. They were both pretty shy frankly but it was a great encounter. Jonathan Ross surprised many people by being respectful and knowledgeable interviewing Charles Burns.

The pilot was an astonishing success. Instead of the ICA being a deserted building site for 10 days, it was packed with the public, the talks sold out and the bookshop shifted loads and loads of graphic novels. We got some great press coverage and even had Joe Sacco on Channel 4 News. Philip Dodd rang me right after and said “Let’s do it again next year”, and Comica was underway.

Over the years, Comica has had some amazing guests  – Craig Thompson, Alan Moore (no less than 3 times), Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, the Bitterkomix boys from South Africa, Alison Bechdel, Ben Katchor, Guy Delisle, Scott McCloud, David B. and many more. We’ve also branched out to work with other venues like The French Institute, National Maritime Museum, V&A, BookArt Bookshop and this year no less than The British Museum, but the ICA has remained the hub, the base, and the simple idea is to try to get each ICA department – film, performance, exhibition and of course talks – to programme something comics-related during the festival.

MB: How is your event funded, by ticket sales, the exhibitors, a grant, some other means or a combination of these?

PG: The ICA continue to support Comica amazingly, through their arts funding and providing the venues, technology and staff. Of course most ICA events are ticketed, so that’s the main revenue stream. From the start, Philip Dodd recognised that something was happening in comics, something they had to engage with and embrace, to be there first, ahead of their big artsy rivals like the Tate. We’ve also had huge help from publishers, other European festivals and various cultural institutes bringing artists over. We’ve never gone for the big comic-mart mixed with trade-fair approach, but we started a small press fair in 2007, Comica Comiket, and that’s growing well, with London Underground Comics teaming up last year, and this year on Sunday November 8th we expand to the ICA Theatre and have several groups supporting it, from Jimi Gherkin’s Alternative Press crew to Matthew Sheret from Words+Pictures and the Nobrow guys.

None of this Comica festival would happen without everyone involved at the ICA itself, from house management, tickets, reception, installation, bookshop and technical to director Ekow Eshun, Jennifer Thatcher in Talks, Tejinder Jouhal in Films, Emma-Jayne Taylor and Vicky Carmichael in Education, Jennifer Byrne in press, and everyone else who pulls together to make it go smoothly. And I must sing the praises of the team of volunteers who help make Comica possible, including Sarah Lightman, Vasileios Sakkos, Tom Smith, Ben Le Foe and others. In fact, if anyone reading this would like to volunteer for Comica this November, do please get in touch via the website www.comicafestival.com

MB: I understand that you run satellite events under the Comica banner throughout the year. Can you tell us a little about these and why you decided to augment the main Comica with other panels and exhibitions?

PG: Because too much is happening, comics are too vibrant to limit them to one festival a year, even one that’s grown from ten days to three weeks. With the year-round flexibility of Comica events, we can welcome major guests whenever they can make it to London, from Art Spiegelman and Marjane Satrapi to Alan Moore and Joe Sacco, only a few weeks ago, to a packed house, and Daniel Clowes lined up for next spring.

MB: What are Comica’s overall aims?

PG: To treat comics as a totally valid contemporary artform, to show where the medium is heading right now locally and internationally, and how comics can interconnect with every other artform. In many ways, the aims, the mission, of Comica are in sync with what Peter Stanbury and I envisaged when we used to co-publish Escape Magazine back in the 1980s – to escape, to break out from narrow definitions and formulas, to liberate comics to be anything they want and everything they can be.  That’s why we’ve put Spiegelman together with Philip Pullman, Posy Simmonds with Ian McEwan, Moore and Gebbie with Stewart Lee  – or this year Logicomix author Apostolos Doxiadis with Marcus de Sautoy and Ben Templesmith with Philip Ridley.  And Comica hosts the best, from whatever field of comics, from Japanese comics, with Junko Mizuno, to American superheroes, like Alex Maleev last year and Cameron Stewart this year – quality is there in every sector of this medium.

(all the girls go crazy for a sharp dressed cartoonist man! Seth at Comica, pic courtesy of Paul Gravett)

MB: Who is Comica aimed at? What sort of punters do you hope to attract? Are you family-friendly?

PG: To reach out to as broad a public as possible, to the fans and enthusiasts of course but also to all sorts of other people who are culturally alert and curious and may just be discovering the wonders of manga or graphic novels.  Among them are plenty of people who want to make comics themselves, easily half of them these days being women. Comica this year is adding a kids’ workshop, Little Pencil with Sarah McIntyre. Its identity is mostly focussed on the adult audience for comics, though plans are afoot to expand the family side next year.

MB: How effective have you been in getting those kind of people to attend?

PG: Definitely effective. One of my greatest pleasures is to chat with people queuing for an event or signing and find out how they’ve got interested in Comica. They come from all sort of backgrounds and interests and for a lot of them it’s opening up a whole world of comics culture that they are really getting into.

MB: Can you give a projected (or actual) attendance figure for Comica?

PG: We estimate over 5,000 people now attend Comica over the festival period and the numbers are still increasing as we link up with other major venues. The added plus is that the ICA no longer has to charge admission to the venue so a lot more people are visiting the free exhibitions and events.

MB: What lessons have you learned during your time running Comica, in terms of its marketing and advertising?

PG: Key to Comica’s success has been the ICA’s high profile and strong links with the cutting-edge media. People notice and pay attention to what the ICA does, so it’s been amazing working with them and getting coverage far and wide. Comica doesn’t advertise, because our newsworthy events and guests can get us valuable editorial coverage. We know word of mouth works wonders.

MB: Do you use emerging technologies to spread the word about Comica? Do you have a website or blog, or use email mailing lists?

PG: Yep, vital – first through my own website www.paulgravett.com and since this year through www.comicafestival.com , its own site, both doing extremely well with thousands of visitors. And we’re using Facebook now. I’ve got some great help with these from Tim Webber, who runs Read Yourself Raw, and Ben Le Foe. And the ICA’s own site always highlights our events.

MB: What about print? Do you use print advertising, have a newsletter, anything like that?

PG: Instead of a convention booklet only for paying attendees, we print a Comica programme that gets widely distributed across London so people can pick it up and get an overview of the whole season. On top of this, the ICA always highlight Comica in their monthly agenda which gets to lots of outlets. And yes, people can sign up to the email newsletter via the Comica site to get first alerts on upcoming events to be sure to book those tickets early.

MB: What’s the mix in terms of exhibitors at Comica? Do you even have exhibitors?

PG: As I said, that’s one aspect of traditional conventions that we’ve not gone for. Instead, the ICA’s own Bookshop stocks all the relevant books by the guest creators and since 2007 we invite small presses, self-publishers and independents to sell their wares at the Comica Comiket.

(a triple header from Roeg and Gebbie, not sure who the bloke in the middle could be...)

MB: What are your thoughts on the small press comics scene in this country? How do you use Comica to support it (do you try and support it)?

PG: Again, as above, the Comiket is an important part of the festival. We also spotlight small press creators on panels and in exhibitions such as the Potential Comic or PoCom wall that ran in 2003 and again last year. In 2007, Comica hooked up with The Observer and Jonathan Cape to launch the Graphic Short Story Prize, to give newcomers the chance to win £1,000, get published in a national Sunday paper and be talent-spotted by a mainstream graphic novel publisher. Last year’s winner, Julian Hanshaw, has his debut graphic novel, The Art of Pho, out from Cape next Spring. It’s a real opportunity for small pressers to get noticed. This year we’re getting four full pages in the glossy Observer magazine for the winner’s strip – that’s great exposure and will come out the Sunday before the Comica Festival begins, so great pre-publicity. And plenty of emerging UK talents have been nominated for the Arts Foundation’s first £10,000 fellowship for a graphic novelist  – we’re announcing the finalists at Comica. The first of many, we hope.

MB: How much are the tickets for Comica? How did you arrive at that price? Please tell us about any concessions.

PG: The ICA sets the prices for all its Comica events, and there are always discounts for concessions, and even bigger discounts if you become an ICA member. We also offer reduced rates for an afternoon of three Comica Conversations in a row. I’m well aware that Comica can be pricey for many people so I’m pleased this year that thanks to sponsors Ctrl.Alt.Shift and The Arts Foundation we’ve got some totally free panels, you just need to book. And the exhibitions and Comiket comics fair are always free admission.

MB: How much are exhibitor tables for Comica (if you have any)? Again, how did you arrive at that figure?

PG: We try to keep Comiket prices deliberately low just to cover costs, as low as a tenner, to give people a chance to attend and reach out to the public.

MB: Do you run workshops/events/panels at Comica? Please tell us about those and how they are organised.

PG: Yep, the ICA now has a Reading Room and Student Forum where we’re holding an afternoon workshop with Bryan Talbot, Pat Mills and other major creators dropping in to give advice and guidance. There’s another workshop at the new Book Club in Shoreditch to design cartoon posters. Organising panels, or Comica Conversations, is one of the most complex parts of programming the festival, co-ordinating guests’ schedules to bring amazing people together, like last year’s underground comix reunion of Spiegelman, Shelton and Spain, their first three-way conversation in many, many years. Vital to making these work are my years of working in comics, getting to know creators, publishers and festival organisers worldwide. Getting Sacco over, for example, was possible only because he was in Europe between two weekend festivals in St. Petersburg and Italy.

MB: As you’ve been kind enough to answer these questions, please fell free to big Comica up a bit. Tell us what you do well, what Comica’s main attractions are and why our readers should attend the next one.

PG: I really think there should be something for everyone who loves comics at this year’s Comica. We’ve teamed up again with the brilliant, unmissable Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds to bring Ben Templesmith over. As Thought Bubble run their big Saturday during the Comica season again this year, I deliberately don’t programme major events to clash on that day. For one thing, I want to get to Thought Bubble myself. I can see the advantages of holding a one-day event like this, or the weekend approach of Bristol or Birmingham. But you never have time to see everything and everyone you want to, especially as there’s often parallel programming going on. Comica is different because it can stretch across two, even three weeks. It does kind of favour people already living in or near London who can get here easily, but out-of-towners can choose the weekends which are often the busiest parts of the festival.

I’m especially excited by Comica ‘09 because we’ve hooked up with a fantastic sponsor, the youth charity Ctrl.Alt.Shift, and I’ve helped them co-edit the first anthology comic published for Comica, Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption. It really is a first-class international anthology of reportage/exposé comics with Bryan Talbot, Dave McKean, Woodrow Phoenix, Peter Kuper, Pat Mills, Dylan Horrocks, Dan Goldman and more. Through Ctrl.Alt.Shift we’re hosting NY musician Lightspeed Champion, who’s created one story and scripted a second in the book, for a live-gig to launch the comic. And it’s great to have a month-long exhibition to promote it through the ultra-cool Shop at Lazarides gallery in Greek Street, Soho. This show is going to stun people, situating comics alongside agit-prop graphics and the whole plethora of activist and political comics and cartoons from May ‘68 and Black Panthers to today and Sean Duffield’s forthcoming Paper Tiger War anthology and Alan Moore’s new venture Dodgem Logic.

The other startling thing is the number of related exhibitions linking up with Comica this time, from the British Museum’s manga show spotlighting the genius Hoshino Yukinobu and Swiss Cottage Library’s Black Powers display, to solo shows by Robert Crumb at Scream Gallery, Mayfair, Philip Marsden at Riverside, Richmond, and John Miers at The Flea Pit in the East End. Our catch-line this year is totally accurate – “London is bubbling over with comics!” On top of this are the exceptional theatrical/live performance events this year: David Lloyd himself kicking off the festival appropriately on November 5th with live drawing and music with a V for Vendetta theme – it’s a free party at the ICA bar – so remember, remember, the 5th of November! Then there’s the darkly funny, adults-only Uncle Hans-Peter Party by comic artist and animator Richard Squires where everyone in the audience has to wear an identical creepy mask, and the equally edgy play Busted Jesus Comix, based on the conviction of Florida teen Mike Diana, forbidden to draw his crazed Boiled Angel comix.

(Chris Ware bestows his comics benediction at Comica; pic courtesy of Paul Gravett)

In the end, what makes Comica worth doing is having remarkable guests, like Gerry Finley-Day who had never appeared at a comics event before, and this year reuniting Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons with retail pioneers Phil Clarke of Nostalgia & Comics and Derek “Bram” Stokes, founder of Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed, a thrill for me as DTWAGE was the first comic shop I ever visited for my 12th birthday, a life-changing experience! It’s also so special to have Eddie Campbell over, launching his massive omnibus Alec: The Years Have Pants, some of which we serialised in Escape and collected in three graphic novels. Eddie and I go back ages and I’ll never forget being at Ian Wieczorek’s home with Phil Elliott in Chelmsford, Essex when we were first discovering his autobio self-published stripzines.

Comica 09’s line-up also includes wunderkinds James Jean and Tara McPherson, thanks to the great support of Offset, the design conference in Dublin, and Reinhard Kleist talking with music critic Charles Shaar Murray about his Johnny Cash bio, and Willy Linthout with his stunning graphic novel about losing his son to suicide, talking with former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen. These are the sort of unique encounters that make all the hours of organising and teamwork worthwhile.

You know, these are incredible times, comics are everywhere and Comica invites you to celebrate them together, with panache and passion.

FPI would like to thank Paul and Matt for sharing their time and thoughts with us. In addition to his not inconsiderable Comica duties Paul is highly respected as a promoter and writer on comics culture and you can follow him via his site. Comica ‘09 is just about to hit London with a slew of great events, guests and exhibition, as well as various other events sprinkled throughout the year, so check out the Comica site. The winner of this year’s Comica/Jonathan Cape/Observer short graphic fiction prize should be announced this Sunday (November 1st) in the Observer magazine.

You can read the previous Q&As with other British comics con organisers in this series here on the blog: Patrick Findlay of the UK Web’n'Mini Comix Thing,  Jimi Gherkin of the Alternative Fair Press chats with Matt, Matt talks with Bristol’s Mike Allwood, Hi-Ex’s Vicky Stonebridge, BICS’ Shane Chebsey, Caption’s Jay Eales and LUC’s Oli Smith.

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Strip!: Banal Pigs and Constabulary Sheep, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Concluding* this month’s series of shows on “collectives and anthologies”, we’re looking at two very different animal themed collectives. In an interview recorded at this year’s Small Press Expo in Bristol, Dickon Harris talks to Steve Tillotson and Gareth Brookes about their self published comics, including The Manly Boys Annual, Can I borrow your toilet? and The Banal Pig Landscape anthology; while in an interview recorded in the Old Police Station, Deptford, Alex Fitch talks to Sarah McIntyre and Viviane Schwartz, who illustrate books for children such as Morris the Mankiest Monster and There are cats in this book respectively, and share a studio with Beano artist Gary Northfield that they affectionately call The Fleece Station…
(*an additional clear spot about the Alternative Press Fair will be broadcast in the second week of November)

Reality Check: Time travelling Hobbits and other paradoxes

In a pair of Q & As recorded in front of a live cinema audience at this year’s Sci-Fi London Film Festival, Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new low budget films: The Hunt for Gollum and Cryptic. Joining Alex and director Chris Bouchard on stage, members of the cast and crew of The Hunt for Gollum talk about making an extended short film that stands up to the quality of the official Lord of the Rings movies, in an adaptation of material by J.R.R. Tolkein that was a labour of love for all involved, even when recreating Middle Earth in Epping Forest on limited resources. Alex also talks to producer / co-director Danny Kuchuck about his film Cryptic which mixes teen therapy with tropes of murder mysteries, revenge thrillers and time paradoxes to create an intriguing Sci-Fi drama .

Previous podcasts:

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: New approaches to Zombie cinema

In a special early Halloween special, Alex Fitch talks to Jeffrey Coghlan, the producer of the innovative Canadian Horror film Pontypool and Marc Price, director of the excellent British living dead film Colin about their new approaches to the zombie genre on a limited budget.
Pontypool and Colin are currently on limited release in the UK, and are an ideal way to spend Halloween in the cinema… The October online edition of Electric Sheep Magazine is available to download or purchase now

Panel Borders: Eclectic Micks and stars of Solipsistic Pop

Continuing ‘anthologies and collectives month’ on the show, Alex Fitch talks to four members of a group of Irish comic book artists – Stephen Mooney, PJ Holden, Will Sliney and Declan Shalvey – who work for a variety of British and American comic publishers and collectively promote their work through a blog with the title “Eclectic Micks”.
Alex also talks to the creator and editor – Tom Humberstone – and some of the contributors – Julia Scheele, Matthew Sheret and Stephen Collins – of the new anthology “Solipsistic Pop” which intends to bring the sensibilities of high-end American Indie comic anthologies to the under represented world of British small press creators. Julia and Matthew also talk about disseminating their own self published comics – “We are words and pictures” – to the public via market stalls and club nights

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“SFX: What appealed to you about the Black Widow?

Paul: I like her longevity (she was born in the 1920s!) and how she’s always been seen as thoroughly capable, right back to her first appearances. She’s kind of this icon of glam confidence and ability. And I think such a long lifespan has given her this pitch black cynical sense of humour. She talks a bit like Daniel Craig in my version. And thumps like him in fights in aircraft cockpits too.”

(fab cover to Black Widow Deadly Origins 3, art by Adi Granov, (c) Marvel)

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(cover to Unwritten Volume 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity, written by Mike Carey, art by Peter Gross, cover by Yuko Shimizu, published DC)

On a related topic Mike’s latest prose novel with his freelance exorcist Felix Castor came out very recently from Orbit; The Naming of the Beasts. That makes five books in the series so far and I stand by my previous assertion that it’s one of the best series going at the moment. In fact I’d have to say each new installment has drawn me in deeper and deeper – the damned things are addictive! While each volume has its own main story there is a strong feeling of continuity from novel to novel (so its best to start at the beginning with Devil You Know) and the background details that have been hinting at a larger picture developing across each novel are getting stronger with each book, which just makes them even more absorbing. Highly recommended.

(The Naming of the Beasts, the fifth Felix Castor novel from Mike Carey, published  Orbit)

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“I first used the name Dodgem Logic on a fanzine that I attempted to do back in 1975, when I was in my early 20s. To be honest it doesn’t really mean anything specific, it’s just suggestive of what we’re going for. On the first issue we’ve used the tagline ‘colliding ideas to see what happens’, which is as much of an agenda as you’re going to get from us. It’s the idea that, if we just connect all these various diverse people and enterprises that we’re in touch with, then there might be something quite lovely and extraordinary come out of the interaction.

We want to provide something that is going to illuminate the rather dismal times that we are currently going through – and which I tend to suspect will be getting a lot worse – as well as giving people some practical information. Whether that’s under the rubric of our recipe pages, DIY clothing pages, articles on squatting or the more political articles. To keep people informed in a way the conventional media doesn’t do anymore.” (link via Jeff Newelt)

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