Panel Borders: Jim McCarthy, Music Biographies
Starting a month of shows about the depiction of musicians and music culture in comic books, Alex Fitch talks to Jim McCarthy about writing graphic novel music biographies of musicians and groups such as Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, The Ramones and Metallica. Fitch and McCarthy talk about the varying difficulties of depicting late musicians on the page, writing authentic voices for real people and taking a docudrama approach to graphic novels. (Recorded at Cartoon County, Brighton, January 2014)
Originally broadcast Monday 7th April, Resonance 104.4 FM (London)
Excerpts from Sex Pistols, Ramones, Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain graphic novels, written by Jim McCarthy
For more info and a variety of different formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org
Links: Jim McCarthy’s website and page on Omnibus Press website
Listen to Alex’s previous interview with Jim as part of a tag team conversation with four 2000AD creators
Recommended events:
Comics at SCI-FI-LONDON
Dave McKean doesn’t really need an introduction here – from his Sandman covers to Arkham Asylum to his books with Neil Gaiman, through to his own books and illustration and graphic work, he has shaped and changed the look of comics for decades. Apart from his well-known photo collage work, he is also extremely adapt at the good ol’ ink and brushwork.
Alex Fitch will be interviewing Dave McKean at Gosh! on Saturday, the 26th of April, from 7.30pm onwards.
Emma Vieceli, you may know from SelfMadeHero’s Manga Shakespeare adaptations, Young Avengers, her work on ambitious webcomics The Thrill Electric for Channel Four with John Reppion and Leah Moore and Breaks with Malin Rydén, plus most recently in print, the graphic novel adaptations of the ever-popular Vampire Academy series.
Emma will be conversation with Alex on Sunday, the 27th of April, from 7.30pm, Gosh! Comics, 1 Berwick Street, London, W1F 0DR
Nearest tube for Gosh! is Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square
Mike Carey is a much loved contributor to Vertigo Comics’ John Constantine: Hellblazer title, he also enjoyed a seven year tenure as the writer of the Lucifer comic. He will be discussing his career so far, plus his latest acclaimed horror novel The Girl with all the gifts and graphic novel X-Men: No more humans.
Saturday 3rd May, 2.30pm, The Club Room, 2nd Floor, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL
Nearest tube to Conway Hall is Holborn on the Central and Piccadilly Lines.
First Fictions Festival 2014
For those who like to mix their fiction with a dose of graphics there’s a heady mix of novelists with more than a cartoonist twist on the Saturday at the First Fictions Festival in glorious surroundings at West Dean College near Chichester. Nye Wright is holding up the flame in a panel on New Forms of Writing, while Broken Frontier’s Andy Oliver debates New Forms of Reading with Hannah Berry and the aforementioned Brookes and Phoenix. See the full programme here. The prices are set by the College, sadly, so you would need to think of it as pampering yourself with literature, good food, and beautiful spring walks: if, however, you are a student it all becomes deliciously affordable, so call the West Dean booking office on 01243 818314.
Gareth Brookes was winner of the First Fictions 2012 First Graphic Novel Competition, organised by Myriad Editions, and the long list for the 2014 competition will be announced on the same day, Saturday 12 April.
More info at www.myriadeditions.com
Sponsor UNFINISHED CITY by Ben Dickson, Sylvija Martinovi? and Robert Solanovi?
Unfinished City is a powerful, stylish thriller with a sharp, East-European edge. Nadja’s home town of Nikši? is a real place; many elements of the story are drawn from Sylvija’s experience of living in the city, and the stories that circulated at the time. This will undoubtedly be a controversial book in the Balkans – so much so that Sylvija and Ben had to consciously distance some elements from real life!
The book is being illustrated in glorious, shadowy black and white by cult Croatian artist Robert Solanovi?. A highly-regarded artist in the Balkans, this will be Robert’s first English language work.
Incentives include a first look PDF, signed paperback and hardback editions of the graphic novel, an exclusive T-Shirt and much more. Info at: www.kickstarter.com
