Author Archives: alexfitch

About alexfitch

Co-presenter / producer of "Panel Borders", Thursdays 5pm Resonance 104.4 FM. Film reviewer for www.electricsheepmagazine.com Podcaster for www.sci-fi-london.com

Panel Borders: Comic Therapy

Panel Borders: Comic Therapy

In a panel discussion recorded at the 2010 Comics and Medicine conference, Institute of English Studies, University of London, Paul Gravett talks to Brian Fies, Phillipa Perry and Darryl Cunningham about their work in portraying aspects of medical care and therapy in sequential art. Paul and the panel discuss issues of biography and autobiography on the page, the process of portraying a narrative that has a story structure as well as an element of education to it and what they learned from the experience. (Recorded and edited by Alex Fitch)

Medical comics panellists: Paul Gravett, Philippa Perry, Darryl Cunningham and Brian Fies, photo by Ian Williams

Medical comics panellists: Paul Gravett, Philippa Perry, Darryl Cunningham and Brian Fies, photo by Ian Williams

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Official Mom’s Cancer website
Graphic Medicine website
including info on the 2010 conference
Read Brian Fies’ blog posts about his trip to London and Graphic Medicine 2011

Publisher’s page on Couch Fiction
Review by Alain de Botton
Interview with Philippa Perry in The Observer

Darryl Cunningham’s website: www.darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com
Publisher’s page on Psychiatric Tales

Listen to Philippa Perry talk about her therapy graphic novel Couch Fiction
Listen to Alex Fitch interview Darryl Cunningham about Psychiatric Tales and his other work

Info about the 2011 Graphic Medicine conference, 9-11 June 2011, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies

Horror maestro Kim Newman discusses the new, updated edition of his essential book Nightmare Movies: Horror on the Screen since the 1960s with Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy; Kim and Virginie discuss seminal modern horror movies such as Night of the Living Dead. (Previously broadcast 20/05/11 as an episode of “I’m ready for my close-up” on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman, 2011 edition, published by Bloomsbury

Nightmare Movies by Kim Newman, 2011 edition, published by Bloomsbury


For more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

In association with

Info about the broadcast of this show
Visit the page at bloomsbury.cm about Nightmare Movies
Kim Newman’s website: www.johnnyalucard.com
Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Kim Newman about Doctor Who

Panel Borders: Mom’s Cancer

Panel Borders: Mom’s Cancer

Starting a month of shows about medical comics, Panel Borders is proud to present a talk given by cartoonist Brian Fies about his web comic / graphic novel Mom’s Cancer, recorded at last year’s Graphic Medicine conference in London. Brian talks about the history of the comic, his experiences of working on a strip with such emotive content and his thoughts regarding the comics medium as a whole as a method for helping people deal with medical and life threatening situations.

Excerpt from Moms Cancer by and (c) Brian Fies

Excerpt from Moms Cancer by and (c) Brian Fies

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Official Mom’s Cancer website
Graphic Medicine website including info on the 2010 conference
Read Brian Fies’ blog posts about his trip to London and Graphic Medicine 2011

Listen to Philippa Perry talk about her therapy graphic novel Couch Fiction
Listen to Alex Fitch interview Darryl Cunningham about Psychiatric Tales and his other work

Info about the 2011 Graphic Medicine conference, 9-11 June 2011, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago

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I’m ready for my close-up: Comics and film by Javier Mariscal

I’m ready for my close-up: Comics and film by Javier Mariscal

Alex Fitch talks to internationally renowned designer Javier Mariscal about his career so far from drawing sketches in bars which got picked up by the design community as the basis of everything from chairs to Olympic Mascots to his comic strip Los Garriris, the subject of a recent exhibition in Brussels. Alex and Javier also discus the designer’s recent role as animator and co-director of the cartoon feature film Chico and Rita and how the movie was subsequently adapted into a graphic novel.

Still from Chico and Rito by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba

Still from Chico and Rito by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream / download the recording in, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

Links: Info about the Chico and Rita graphic novel from Self Made Hero
Chico and Rita official film website
Wikipedia pages on Javier Mariscal and Chico and Rita
Info about Mariscal’s Los Garriris exhibition in Brussels

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Panel Borders: Small Press Soundtracks

Panel Borders: Small Press Soundtracks

Continuing our month of shows about the crossover between music and comics, Alex Fitch talks to the creators of a couple of small press publications which feature music in their stories and contain a soundtrack to listen to while you read the comic.
Writer Sam Gardner and artists Jake Rowlinson and Lee O’Connor talk about Sioux Warrior, a new comic about a mysterious hero who is one part Sitting Bull and one part Phantom of the Opera and while enjoying his adventures, the reader is serenaded by a sound chip built into the publication itself. Alex also chats to Babak Ganjei about his graphic novel Hilarious Consequences, an irreverent but touching autobiographical book in which the author documents his travails in being a singer-songwriter and father while breaking the fourth wall in humorous asides to the reader; the book contains a compilation CD of tracks from Babak’s label, Records Records Records Records…

Sioux Warrior cover and interiors by Sam Gardner, Jake Rowlinson and Lee O Connor / Hilarious Consequences by Babak Ganjei

Sioux Warrior cover and interiors by Sam Gardner, Jake Rowlinson and Lee O Connor / Hilarious Consequences by Babak Ganjei

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: More info about Sioux Warrior at www.capefearcomics.com
More info about Hilarious Consequences at www.recordsrecordsrecordsrecords.com
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Laydeez do podcasts: London Print Studio Comics Collective

Laydeez do podcasts: London Print Studio Comics Collective

In this month’s podcast we have a recording of two talks by the London Print Studio Comics Collective – Isabel Greenberg, Rachel Emily Taylor, William Goldsmith, Joe Kelly and Freya Harrisson – alongside mentor Karrie Franzman and LPS director John Philips. Karrie and her protégés talk about their work, visiting the Angoulême comics festival in France, the process of getting published and how the internship has improved their artistic practice.
(Introduced and edited by Alex Fitch, recorded by Nicola Streeten)

London Print Studio Comics Collective logo

London Print Studio Comics Collective logo

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: London Print Studio Comics Collective blog
London Print Studio website
Panel Borders interviews with Karrie Franzman and Isabel Greenberg

Info about Laydeez do comics
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Panel Borders: City of Abacus

Panel Borders: City of Abacus

Continuing our month of shows about the connections between music and comic-books, singer / song-writer V.V. Brown and film maker David Allain talk about their serialised graphic novel City of Abacus, a comic which fuses elements of fantasy films and dystopian science-fiction, in a presentation of their work recorded in The Blue Room, BFI Southbank as part of Comics @ SCI-FI-LONDON, April 2011.

V.V. Brown and David Allain discuss City of Abacus, Comics @ SCI-FI-LONDON, BFI Southbank. Photo by Fia Eamónn Wåhlin

V.V. Brown and David Allain discuss City of Abacus, Comics @ SCI-FI-LONDON, BFI Southbank. Photo by Fia Eamónn Wåhlin


V.V. and David are then joined by moderator Alex Fitch and artists Lee O’Connor and John Spelling for a panel discussion about the project.

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Official City of Abacus website with links to iTunes downloads and back issues
Wikipedia pages on V.V. Brown and Lee O’Connor
Interview with V.V. in Amelia’s Magazine
Info about Comics @ SCI-FI-LONDON

Recommended events:

Kate Brown and Paul Duffield exhibition

A new exhibition by Paul (FreakAngels) Duffield and Kate (The Spider Moon) Brown is currently on display in the Orbital Gallery….
The show will include both original artwork and prints from Freakangels, Signal and Fish + Chocolate. (Until 26/05/11)
More info at www.orbitalcomics.com

Bristol Small Press Expo

Although the main Bristol International Comics expo is sold out, there are still tickets for the Small Press Expo at Mercure Hotel, Bristol 14+15th May, 2011 featuring panels on Image Comics and ComX plus talks on creating Weeble and Bob and The Walking Dead with the following creators in attendance: Paul Grist, Sean Phillips, Boo Cook, Richard Starkings, Charlie Adlard, Andi Ewington, Ian Churchill and many more.
More info at: www.spexpo.co.uk

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: An introduction to Secret Societies

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: An introduction to Secret Societies

Virginie Selavy hosts a discussion on secret societies to tie in with the East End Film Festival’s themed day of screenings on May 2. With her guests, Strange Attractor Press editor Mark Pilkington and horror film expert Richard Bancroft, they discuss the links between crime and the occult, looking at Jack the Ripper and the Masons theory and other filmed examples of the arcane and conspiratorial. (Previously broadcast 22/04/11 as an episode of “I’m ready for my close-up” on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Johnny Depp on the set of From Hell

Johnny Depp on the set of From Hell

For more information and a variety of formats you can stream / download, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

In association with

Info about the broadcast of this show
Read other articles on Secret Societies in Electric Sheep Magazine
Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Alan Moore about From Hell

Panel Borders: Beatles in Black (and White)

Panel Borders: Beatles in Black (and White)

Starting a month of shows about the crossover between comics books and music, Alex Fitch talks to graphic novelist Arne Bellstorf about his new book, :Baby’s in black” which retells the story of Astrid Kirchherr & Stuart Sutcliffe in cartoon form. Alex and Arne talk about the travails of depicting 1960s Hamburg on the page, what led to the creation of the graphic novel and his use of cinematic pacing in the book. (Originally broadcast 05/05/11 on Resonance FM)

Extract from Babys in black by Arne Bellstorf

Extract from Babys in black by Arne Bellstorf

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Arne Bellstorf’s webiste
More info about Baby’s in Black at www.selfmadehero.com including photos from the London and Glasgow launches

Recommended events:

Free Comic Book Day Signings

(May 7, 1:00pm – 2:30pm) with 2000AD’s Dan Abnett, Al Ewing and Robbie Morrison. Gosh! Comics, Great Russell Street, London (opposite The British Museum)

We’ll also have stacks of free comics to give away from Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, Top Shelf, and even some local small press folk.

More info at: goshlondon.blogspot.com

(May 7, 5:00pm – 6:30pm) with Shaky Kane and David Hine + film screening by Steven Cook about Shaky’s work. Orbital Comics, 8 Great Newport Street, London (near Leicester Square)

Also: Paul (FreakAngels) Duffield and Kate (The Spider Moon) Brown exhibition on display in the Orbital Gallery….

More info at www.orbitalcomics.com

Panel Borders: Nobrow Press

Panel Borders: Nobrow Press

This week’s show concludes our month of shows about comic book anthologies and collectives. In today’s episode Dickon Harris talks to Nick White and Alex Spiro from Nobrow Press in an interview recorded at the launch of their anthology “A Graphic Cosmogony” at the London Print Studio in November 2010 and Dickon is chatting to Nick and Alex about the history of Nobrow and the unique graphic design sensibilities and use of colour by the publishing company. (Edited by Alex Fitch)

Interior of People I have never met by Nick White, Exterior and interior of A Graphic Cosmogony published by Nobrow Press

Interior of People I have never met by Nick White, Exterior and interior of A Graphic Cosmogony published by Nobrow Press

For more info about this podcast and a variety of formats you can stream or download, please visit the home of this episode at www.archive.org

Links: Original listing of the event at London Print Studio
Nobrow Press website www.nobrow.net
Review of A Graphic Cosmogny at itsnicethat.com

Recommended events:

Comics @ SCI-FI-LONDON

A two day festival about the best of British Comics from the last 30 years in a lovely new space – The Blue Room – at BFI Southbank.

The event includes panel discussions, workshops, talks, a film preview and signings, with guests including Al Davison (IDW Doctor Who comic), Tom Humberstone (Solipsistic Pop), David Hine (Batman), China Miéville (Kraken), Denise Mina (The Field Of Blood), Alice Duke (Self Made Hero), Mark Stafford (Cherubs), Ian Edginton (Victorian Undead), Martin Fisher (Battle among the stars), Huw J. Davies (Freeman), Edward Ross (Parasites!), Roger Mason (The Mice), Paul Collicutt (Robot City adventures), Phillipa Rice (My Cardboard Life), Alex Milway (The Mythical 9th Division), Eddie Robson (Doctor Who adventures), (Singer / songwriter) V.V. Brown, (film-maker) David Allain, (artist) John Spelling (all City of Abacus), Lee O’Connor (Ctrl Alt Delete unmasks corruption), Zarina LiewYuri KoreClio Millett (Manga Jiman winners), Matt Jones (BERG design) and Matthew Sheret (Paper Science)

The Blue Room, BFI Southbank, 30th April / 1st May, 10am – 5pm

More info at www.scifilondon.com/bficomics

Further information is available in the May BFI Southbank programme and at www.bfi.org.uk/southbank
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