Alex Fitch talks to a pair of directors of innovative short animated films; to Oscar winner (2011 co-director Short Animated film) Shaun Tan about the adaptation of his acclaimed picture book The Lost Thing and to web animator Jonti Picking about his cult animated series Weebl and Bob as well as his adverts for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (is it that time of year already?) and Anchor Butter.

Alex Fitch interviews Shaun Tan / Weebl and Bob re-enact Raiders of the Lost Ark

Visit www.archive.org, for more info and formats you can stream / download. (Broadcast 10/01/12 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Watch an extract of the Shaun Tan interview / Listen to Alex’s 2009 interview with Tan

Links: Wikipedia pages on Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Eric Khoo, Shaun Tan and Jonti Picking
Eric’s website
Jonti’s website
Shaun’s website
Official Soda Pictures Tatsumi website
Illustration Cupboard website

Recommended events:

GOSH! – UPCOMING EVENTS

COMIC GOSH!P
Free ‘Thinking Comics’ reading group discusses Phonogram: The Singles Club & Hitsville Uk by John Riordan and Dan Cox. All welcome.
January 11, 2012 – 7.15-9pm

CRAIG THOMPSON signing copies of Habibi, Blankets and more, 5pm-7pm,
Saturday 21st January

EDDIE CAMPBELL signing at 6:30pm, Friday 3rd February
1, Berwick Street, London W1F 0DR / www.goshlondon.com
Nearest tube: Picadilly Circus / Leicester Square

Other comics events:

Course: Drawing For The Graphic Novel
Stephen Marchant’s 11-week course on Thursday evenings run by Birkbeck College in association with the Cartoon Museum.
Where: Cartoon Museum, London
When: January 12, 2012

Rethinking the History of Childhood: Narratives, Sources, Debates
The history of childhood is now ripe for re-evaluation. The conference will
debate existing paradigms while welcoming the work of new scholars.
Where: University of Greenwich, Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation
When: January 14, 2012

For more info: www.paulgravett.com

Storytelling for Comics and Graphic Novels course

You will learn about comic and graphic novel storytelling techniques, and how to create your own visual narrative. Everyone will end the course with one completed comic page, and the skills to continue their work for themselves. We will look at comic and graphic novel art styles, the use of text and images, the “grammar” of comic art, use of sound effects, abstraction, and styles. You provide a story from your own experience, or one you wish to adapt into the medium.

West Dean College, Chichester (Suitable for all levels)
2nd – 4th March 2012
Details here: www.westdean.org.uk

Alex Fitch talks to director Tom Guerrier about his short film Cleaning Up, featuring Doctor Who stars Mark Gatiss and Louise Jameson as a hitman and his landlady; and to Adam Hamdy, co-director, and actors Jay Sutherland, Gavin Molloy, Simon Burbage and Lee Ravitz, about Pulp, a caper movie set in the small press comic community. Both films are starting to tour festivals and Alex talks to their creators about the making of each project and their ambitions to get the films to larger audiences.

Cleaning Up will be screening next on 10/01/12 at the London Short Film Festival at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith.
Pulp receives its UK premiere on 02/02/12 at SFX Weekender Sci-Fi convention, Prestatyn Sands, Wales.

Simon Burbage, John Thomson and Gavin Molloy in Pulp / Tom Guerrier helps Mark Gatiss get into character for Cleaning Up

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

Links: Tom and Simon Guerrier’s website, featuring info on Cleaning Up
Pulp movie website
SFX Weekender site
London Short Film Festival site

Recommended events:

Laydeez do comics, December 2011

In the last LDC of 2011, Laydeez curators Nicola and Sarah talk about their work and how it has evolved since the first LDC meeting in 2009 + a couple of designers talk about their comics.

Guests:
Rachel Abrams, designer and writer, Brooklyn NY
Sarah Lightman, artist, curator and researcher
Marcia Mihotich, graphic designer and illustrator
Nicola Streeten, illustrator and author of graphic memoir Billy, Me & You

Recommended Read:
Billy, Me & You by Nicola Streeten, published by Myriad Editions

Monday 5 December
Time: 6.30 – 9.30pm
Venue: The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

Comics Gosh!p

Another monthly event, in which hosts Mike Medaglia and Mark Haylock pick a ‘mainstream’ and small press comic to discuss in this free reading group in Gosh Comics!, Soho

This month they’re looking at “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud and John Miers‘ treatment of The Tower of Babel in his book “A Collection of Comics”
All books will be available at Gosh! and you can read ‘The Tower of Babel’ online (however the book is really nice to have!)

Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Time: 19:00 until 21:00
Gosh! Comics, 1 Berwick Street, London W1F ODR

More info: http://www.facebook.com/thinkingcomics

In this special Halloween themed episode of the Electric Sheep Magazine podcast, Alex Fitch talks to three directors who have made films about man’s relationship with the land.
At this year’s Frightfest, Robin Hardy discusses his classic horror film The Wicker Man and its new, belated thematic sequel The Wicker Tree, a pair of films about fertility and terrifying pagan rites, while Larry Fessenden talks about his eco-themed monster movies No Telling, Wendigo and The Last Winter. Also, in a Q and A recorded at the East End Film Festival, Alex interviews Steven Eastwood, co-director of Buried Land, a ‘mockumentary’ / docudrama about the real-life discovery in a small town in Bosnia of an ancient, buried pyramid which may reinvent mankind’s knowledge of pre-Christian architecture and empire building, but in the short term has changed the fortunes of people in the area.

Figures in a landscape: The Wicker Tree, The Last Winter, Buried Land

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

Links: Official Buried land, The Last Winter and The Wicker Tree websites

Electric Sheep Magazine reviews of The Last Winter, The Wicker Tree and the songs of The Wicker Man

Info about the Buried Land screening at the East End Film Festival

Recommended events:

Mike and Laura Allred signing

At Orbital Comics on Great Newport Street in London, on Sunday 29th October, Mike and Laura Allred will be doing a signing of their work, including the pop art classics Madman and X-Statics

5pm, 29th October, Orbital Comics, 8 Great Newport Street

Nobrow anthology launch

On Thursday November 3rd at the impossibly fashionable bar Jaguar Shoes, 32 Kingsland Rd, Shoreditch, the pubishers of Luke Pearson’s books Nowbrow press will be launching their new anthology from 6.30pm.

More info: www.comicafestival.com

A companion piece to our May podcast on Secret Societies, a we have panel discussion on the subject recorded in the atmospheric confines of a Masonic Lodge on Liverpool Street in London as part of the East End Film Festival, including talks on Jack the Ripper, witches’ covens and religious cults in film. Speakers include Electric Sheep editor Virginie Selavy, assistant editor Alex Fitch, Nollywood scholar Nicola Woodham, filmmaker and horror specialist Jennifer Eiss, and Jim Harper, author of Flowers From Hell: The Modern Japanese Horror Film. Includes clips from Murder by Decree, Season of the Witch, The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby.

Christopher Plummer and James Mason investigate Murder by Decree / the interior of the Masonic Lodge, Andaz Hotel, London / Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man

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 original event, in the East End Film Festival
Listen to our May podcast on Secret Societies

If you’d like to buy a copy of the most recent dramatisation of Sherlock Holmes vs. the Ripper and the Masons, head to www.bigfinish.com

Electric Sheep Magazine editor Virginie Sélavy talks to Russian scholar Sergei Kapterev (Institute of Cinema Art in Moscow) about Soviet science fiction and the connection between SF cinema and politics, the impact of the space race and the Cold War period, and Roger Corman’s re-edits of popular Soviet SF films. (Originally broadcast 15/07/11 on Resonance FM)

Plus, in a Q and A recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON, April, 2010, Alex Fitch talks to Polish poster designer Andrzej Klimowski and SF writer / journalist Wojciech Orlinski about cinematic adaptations of the work of Stanislaw Lem from Steven Soderbergh and Andrei Tarkovsky’s adaptations of Solaris to more offbeat films such as Edward Zebrowski’s The Hospital of Transfiguration.

Stills from The Interrogation of Pilot Pirx and Icarus XB-1 based on the work of Stanislaw Lem

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 partial broadcast of this show
Buy tickets for the Kosmos season at BFI Southbank
Info on British Library Lem event
Buy DVD box sets: Pojechane w kosmos – Masterpieces of Polish SF Cinema (including Test Pilot Pirxa [1978]) / the films of Piotr Szulkin (including Golem [1980] and War of the Worlds: Next Century [1981]) and the book Lemistry: A Celebration of the Work of Stanislaw Lem from amazon.co.uk
Read a discussion of Polish cinema on DVD at criterionforum.org
Previous interviews with Andrzej Klimowski
June 2010 Electric Sheep podcast with Klimowski and Andrzej ?u?awski about ‘the Polish New Wave’
Info about the 2010 SCI-FI-LONDON screening of The Hospital of Transfiguration

Recommended events:

Caption Comics festival 2011

Oxford’s small press comics festival is taking place this weekend, the 6th and 7th of August at the East Oxford Community centre.
Guests include Al Davison, Ian Culbard, Kate Brown, Paul Rainey, David O’Connell and Paul Duffield and tickets are a very reasonable five pounds per day, plus workshops on comic book creating, the annual Caption auction featuring original art pages and new pieces by attending creators and much, much more…

Find more info at www.caption.org

New Comic Internship at londonprintstudio for 21-25 Year Olds

Do you enjoy telling tall tales or scribbling stories? Do you love reading graphic novels, comics or picture books? Then look no further!
londonprintstudio is offering five carefully chosen 21-25 year olds the chance to:

-Run comic workshops for 16-20 year olds.
-Receive mentoring from top professional comic artists, anthology makers, screenwriters, print makers, comic publishers and art educators.
-Develop your own artistic comic projects with supervision from mentors and feedback from your fellow interns..
-Be introduced to the London comic scene, attend events, give presentations, network and meet publishers, editors and creators in the comic industry.
-Take part in editing, planning and creating work for a comic anthology publication and a comic exhibition at londonprintstudio.

The course is run by professional comic creator Karrie Fransman whose comics have appeared in The Times, The Guardian and who is currently working on her first graphic novel due to be published by Random House.

2 days (14 hours) per week for a six-months. Interns will receive a travel and food expenses budget for two days per week. All londonprintstudio staff and volunteers are required to have a Criminal Records Bureau Check.

Deadline for return of application form: Monday 5th September 2011
Interviews: Tuesday 13th September 2011
Start date: Tuesday 20th September 2011

For job description and application click here: http://www.londonprintstudio.org.uk/F13-intern.html
For more information on the project click here: http://www.londonprintstudiocomics.blogspot.com/

Gosh! comics events

Gosh! Comics have outgrown their happy home of 25 years and are moving to new, bigger premises in Soho!

To celebrate the opening of Gosh! Comics’ new store on Berwick Street and the opening of their new gallery space, the first event in the new premises is a signing and exhibition by celebrated comic book artist Dave McKean of his new graphic novel Celluloid.

Dave McKean will be signing at Gosh! from 2pm ‘til 4pm on Saturday the 6th of August. The exhibition runs until the 6th of September.

Then on the following week, acclaimed indie comics creator Luke Pearson will be launching his new title Everything We Miss, a book about the breakdown of a relationship and the infinitesimal events we would notice if our attention wasn’t directed elsewhere.

6pm – 8pm, Saturday 13th August, 2011

1 Berwick Street, London W1F 0DR

More info: www.goshlondon.com

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

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

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

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

With more and more people wanting to download movies off the internet, a new company has come along to help people do this legally with a wide range of films that include British gems and cult classics. Alex Fitch talks to James Rowley-Ashwood about indiemoviesonline.com: how the collection of films on the site were curated – from Evil Aliens to the site’s one playing movie A Serbian Film, short films by Lotte Reiniger and the Brothers Quay and back catalogue titles from Peter Greenaway and Alex Cox, some of which are out of print on DVD – and how the site’s funding and distribution are achieved.

Links: indiemoviesonline.com
Watch A Serbian Film

Read Virginie Selavy’s article about the censorship of A Serbian Film and interview with the director
Recent articles by Alex Fitch at Electric Sheep: the Halloween franchise / Source Code review

In the third Electric Sheep Podcast of 2011, to coincide with the Birds Eye View Film Festival’s focus on women in horror, Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy leads a discussion with three women filmmakers working in this traditionally male-dominated genre. Her guests are: Melanie Light, director of Switch, Kate Shenton, director of Bon Appetit, and Jennifer Eiss, co-director of Short Lease. All three shorts screened as part of the Horror Shorts programme of B.E.V. on Saturday 12 March at the ICA.

Still from Switch by Melanie Light

More info: www.birds-eye-view.co.uk

Read Eleanor McKeown’s rarticle about new female horror directors.

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

The latest issue of Electric Sheep Magazine looks at women in horror with articles on Ingrid Pitt, Amber Heard, Alien‘s Ripley and emerging UK female horror directors. Clouzot’s noir masterpiece Les diaboliques and intriguing Korean revenge tale Bedevilled are on cinema screens. Comedian Jessica Fostekew explores the horror genre and we have a Reel Sounds column on Delia Derbyshire’s score for The Legend of Hell House while writer Sarah Pinborough tells us why her horror alter ego would have to be Ripley.

To mark the Nic Roeg season at the BFI we have a feature on the Venice of Don’t Look Now. Also on cinema screens this month are Haruki Murakami adaptation Norwegian Wood and controversial Japanese corruption saga Confessions of a Dog – read the interview with director Gen Takahashi.

New DVDs include Czech 60s political satire Larks on a String and Lucio Fulci’s surreal zombie shocker The Beyond. We look at 70s British filmmaker Richard Woolley and we have an interview with Clio Barnard about The Arbor. Our Online Movie column looks at paper theatre and spirited indie five-piece combo Pete and the Pirates pick their favourite films in the Film Jukebox. In the Blog, we report on the Rotterdam Festival. ?

In the second Electric Sheep Podcast of 2011, Alex Fitch talks to director Ivo van Hove about his innovative theatrical production The Antonioni Project, being staged at The Barbican, City of London, a play that combines elements of cinema and theatre as it blends three screenplays by Michelangelo Antonioni with the latest technological achievements.

Photo of The Antonioni Project, directed by Ivo van Hove

The Barbican are also showing all three of the films which inspired The Antonioni Project:
L’Avventura (The Adventure) / 5 Feb 2011 / 15:45 / Cinema 1
La Notte (The Night) / 13 Feb 2011 / 13:30 / Cinema 1
L’eclisse (The Eclipse) / 20 Feb 2011 / 16:00 / Cinema 1

More info: www.barbican.org.uk

More 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

Links: Info about The Antonioni Project at The Barbican
Review round-up of the production on current.com
Toneelgroep Amsterdam website
Wikipedia page on Michelangelo Antonioni

The latest issue of Electric Sheep Magazine is now online, and is concerned with confessions -
Tricky revelations, poetic admissions and Catholic guilt – inspired by the brilliant, devilishly twisted revenge tale Confessions – read our interview with director Tetsuya Nakashima, who also made Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko, and watch the trailer. Also on cinema screens this month, Howl explores Allen Ginsberg’s revolutionary confessional poem and the obscenity trial against its publisher. We also have articles on nunsploitation, and on faith and guilt in William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, The Ninth Configuration and Exorcist III, as well as a Reel Sounds column on I Walked with a Zombie.

Other cinema releases include elegant nightmare Never Let Me Go, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro by Alex Garland, intense Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom and Mohamed Al-Daradji’s Son of Babylon. In the DVDs, we review eerie French psycho-thriller In Their Sleep, Miloš Forman’s 60s Czech New Wave classic A Blonde in Love and Fritz Lang’s 1941 espionage thriller Man Hunt, and we have a Comic Strip Review by Hannah Berry of The Last Lovecraft.

Excerpt from The Last Lovecraft review by Hannah Berry

In Short Cuts, we report on the music programme of the London Short Film Festival while writer Mary Horlock chooses an animated furry creature as her filmic alter ego. In the blog, you can read about Diana Thater’s video installation Chernobyl, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, which is part of the Japan Foundation Touring Programme, and the Berlinale

In the first Electric Sheep Podcast of 2011, Alex Fitch presents a Q and A conducted by Jasper Sharp with director Tetsuaki Matsue recorded at the Zipangu festival at London University School of Oriental and African Studies, November 2010. Jasper and Tetsuaki discuss the director’s work in independent documentary cinema, focussing on his two most recent films – Annyong Yumika (2009), a documentary portrait of the adult performer Yumika Hayashi following the discovery after her death of an obscure low-budget Korean oddity in which she starred, Junko the Tokyo Housewife, and Live Tape (2009), the one guitar, one camera, one tape and one take live concert film of Kenta Maeno’s street performance that won the 2009 ‘Japanese Eyes’ Best Picture Award at Tokyo International Film Festival.

Left to right, film director Tetsuaki Matsue, actress Yumika Hayashi in the film Annyong Yumika and musician Kenta Maeno in the film Live Tape

More 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

Links: Zipangu Festival website +
pages on Tetsuaki Matsue, Annyong Yumika and Live Tape
SOAS (London University School of Oriental and African Studies) website

The latest issue of Electric Sheep Magazine is now online, and is concerned with Fallen women, sour love and toxic memories …
Dreamy Belgian neo-giallo Amer leads us to ponder cinematic bitterness with articles on Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame and Michael Haneke’s anatomy of hatred.

In cinemas, we review the extravagant ballet melodrama Black Swan and you can read our interview with director Darren Aronofsky while John Carpenter perfects his B-movie recipe with The Ward .

Extract of Breakfast at Tiffanys review by Francesca Cassavetti

Susannha York in The Battle of Britain

Recommended events:

Screenings at The Alibi

The fun ‘Film Club’ at The Alibi in Dalston continues with more free, classic movies on the big screen in January. Now with an earlier start time of 8pm.

24th Jan // Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)
31st Jan // American Movie (1999)

Free Every Monday from 7pm (film at 8pm)
The Alibi, 91 Kingsland High St

More info: www.thealibilondon.co.uk/filmclub

Call for Mechanical Elephant strips

As part of their ‘First Fridays’ events, Marine Studios in Margate are putting together an exhibition that looks at comics, graphic novels and sequential art.

Featuring work from a range of local and international artists and writers, live talk from guest speaker Paul Gravett, more comics than you can stand, and the chance to discuss your work and ideas.

To kick start proceedings prior to the show they are inviting submissions for a two page comic under the title: ‘Mechanical Elephant’. All ideas are welcome to inspire, amuse, terrify and entertain. There are no limits other than sticking to the two page rule (206 x 280 mm each, in either portrait or landscape), and of course, don’t forget the Mechanical Elephant!
Send your entries (jpeg, pdf, tif, eps or mov format) with the subject ‘Mechanical Elephant’ to: Kam [at] hkd.uk.com or Rick [at] hkd.uk.com

The deadline for entries is 21st January 2011. Marine Studios will display the finished artwork and as much of the preparatory work as possible in their show beginning 4th February 2011 at Marine Studios, Margate.

More info at www.marinestudios.co.uk/gallery/events/

Laydeez do Comics January meeting

Guest Speakers:

Corinne Pearlman: Cartoonist, designer and illustrator.
Co-coordinator of Cartoon County, the Sussex Association of Cartoonists and Comic Strip Artists.
Creative Director of Comic Company, and Myriad Editions

Erica Smith: Editor and Creator of Girl Frenzy, the UK’s only underground girl zine. First Published in ’91.

Ilya: British comic book writer and artist.
Creator of Bic who appeared in a self-published series of comics (now collected as Skidmarks). His first (not graphic) novel The Clay Dreaming was published in 2010.

Monday 24 January 2011, 6.30-9.30pm, The Rag Factory, Henage Street (off Brick Lane), London E1 5LJ

More info at: www.laydeezdocomics.com

To compliment this month’s online theme of dangerous and desperate women in the online print magazine, we’re happy to present in the podcast a pair of Q&As recorded at Electric Sheep film club screenings. Alex Fitch talks to Zoe Baxter, the presenter of Resonance FM’s radio show about Asian culture in the UK and discuss the epic ‘wuxia’ film Hero which featured memorable roles for female action heroes Maggie Cheung and Ziyi Zhang, and in the main interview, Electric Sheep magazine editor Virginie Selavy talks to Brixton based film maker Rebecca Johnson about the classic ‘blaxploitation’ film Foxy Brown starring Pam Grier and the various themes and depictions of race and gender that are present in the film.

Pam Grier in Foxy Brown, Ziyi Zhang in Hero

More 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

Links: IMDb pages on Foxy Brown and Hero

Wikipedia pages on ‘wuxia’ and ‘blaxploitation’

Zoe’s website: http://luckykitty.blogspot.com
More info about Rebecca Johnson’s film Top Girl

Recommended events:

Panel Borders at Comica:

Nov 6th: Charlie Adlard and The Walking Dead

Alex Fitch hosts an hour long talk with British artist Charlie Adlard about drawing various strips for 2000AD including Savage, Nikolai Dante and Judge Dredd plus his ongoing commitment to the monthly American survival horror comic The Walking Dead which he has been drawing since 2004 and has just been turned into a new TV series produced by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption). Followed by a signing with the artist.

Saturday, November 6th, 4.30pm
London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Rd, London W10 4RE
(nearest tube: Warwick Avenue / Westbourne Park)

Nov 10th: Comic Cuts – controversial comic books and banned periodicals

Alex Fitch discusses examples of banned and censored comic books in the last quarter of the 20th Century with publisher Tony Bennett and (via speaker phone) writer / artist Rick Veitch.

Tony’s publishing company Knockabout has seen its titles seized by British Customs, has been taken to court for publishing “drug related titles”, and for promoting the work of Robert Crumb. Knockabout have also commissioned comic book adaptations of previously banned novels such as Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
Rick is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, including the drawing of an issue of Moore’s Miracleman comic in the 1980s which was withdrawn from many shops due to its “graphic depictions of childbirth” and then when he took over as writer on another Moore comic – Swamp Thing – left the periodical when the publisher refused to print a certain issue.

Wednesday, November 10, 6pm
Whitechapel Idea Store, 321 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1BU
(nearest tube: Whitechapel / Bethnal Green)

Nov 5th: Transitions Conference at Birkbeck College

Alex Fitch will be chairing a session on comics and academia at the Transitions multi-disciplinary research conference on comics and graphic novels with Laydeez do Comics’ Sarah Lightman and Nicola Streeten

Friday, November 5th, 1.30pm (TBC) / conference starts at 9.30am
Birkbeck College, Clore Centre, 25-27 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL
(nearest tube: Russell Square / Goodge Street)

Also:

Nov 6th: Frames of Mind: Brick and Darryl Cunningham

What role can comics play in mental illness? A conversation between Brick, author of Depresso, and Darryl Cunningham, author of Psychiatric Tales, about their moving (semi) autobiographical graphic novels dealing with depression and other issues and how creating these comics has helped both themselves and others.

Saturday, November 6th, 2.30pm
London Print Studio, 425 Harrow Rd, London W10 4RE
(nearest tube: Warwick Avenue / Westbourne Park)

Nov 7th: Comica Comiket: Independent Comics Fair

Comica Comiket, the independent comics fair, teams up with the popular, long-running National Collectors Marketplace at the Royal National Hotel, Russell Square, and taking over its own dedicated space, the plush Ellis Room from 12-5pm. The legendary Fast Fiction Table was started by Paul Gravett at the Westminster Central Hall Comic Marts in 1981 and grew into the regular hub of the UK small press scene of the 1980s and birthplace of Escape Magazine. A limited number of exhibitor tables for the Comiket will be available at affordable prices and Charlie Adlard, Darryl Cunningham, Paul Duffield, Hunt Emerson, Garen Ewing, Paul Grist, Roger Langridge, Ellen Lindner, Woodrow Phoenix and others will draw live and sign books during the afternoon. The public are admitted free.

Sunday, November 7, 2010 – Noon to 5pm
Royal National Hotel, 38-51 Bedford Way, London WC1H ODG
(Nearest tube: Euston / St. Pancras)

Alex Fitch talks to film-makers Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (a.k.a. Hammer and Tongs) about their promotion of the new Belgian feature length animation A Town called Panic which shows stop frame animated toys going on a wild adventure that involves mermen, mad scientists and a giant robot penguin. Alex also talks to Garth and Nick about the aesthetic of their films Son of Rambow and The Hitch-hiker’s guide to the Galaxy and how the demise of the UK Film Council is affecting their work and promotion of European films in the UK.

Nick Goldsmith and Garth Jennings at the cinema, Cowboy and Indian at the North Pole

To download / stream this radio interview in a variety of formats, please visit www.archive.org

Links: Wikipedia pages on Hammer and Tongs and
Watch A Town called Panic shorts and movie trailer
Hammer and Tongs’ website
Listen to Alex’s previous interview with Garth Jennings about Son of Rambow

Recommended events:

Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest

Friday 15th October

Rise of the Machines at The Royal Society, London

THE ROYAL SOCIETY plays host to an unashamedly robotic evening of discussion, demonstrations and drama. Tom Hunter is joined by Tony Ballantyne, author of Twisted Metal and Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire.
Kerstin is a pioneering researcher in robot social learning and imitation whose research interests include Human-Robot Interaction, Social Robotics, Socially Intelligent Agents and Artificial Life. Kerstin and her colleagues will also introduce us to two KASPAR robots (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robotics).

Following the discussion: We will be treated to a rehearsed reading of extracts from Karel Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R. (ROSSUM’S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS), which is noted for introducing the term, ‘ROBOT’.
SCI-FI-LONDON has commissioned a modernisation of the work for the 10th annual festival in April 2011. This will be the first public preview of the work-in-progress.
This fabulous evening is in collaboration with the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations in 2010.

6:30PM The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG (FREE!)

Technotise: Edit and I

Serbia’s first animated feature film – an eye-popping cyberpunk ride that’s calibrated to knock your socks off. Think GHOST IN THE SHELL meets WALTZ WITH BASHIR.

7:30PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Dougal and the Blue Cat

We are delighted to screen a newly-restored cult classic of a spin-off from the children’s television series, THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT, but this feature is an altogether darker affair (+ FREE BEER!)

9:30PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Saturday 16th October

Robots

Saturday morning kids screening of the popular CGI cartoon.

10:30AM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Alien Encounters: Superior Fan Power Since 1979

Documentary about Ridley Scott’s classic Alien film and its contiuning legacy

1:00PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Time Traveller: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Live action version of the brilliant anime time travel film.

3:00PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

Monsters

Preview of the new British Sci-Fi film by Sci-FI London shorts alumni Gareth Edwards followed by a director’s masterclass hosted by Alex Fitch.

6:00PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

TRON

Screening of the Disney SF classic with a special 8 min preview of the forthcoming Tron: Legacy in 3D, plus special video introductions, short film and an accompanying exhibtion…

9:00PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

SFL All-Nighters

For many people the highlight of our twice yearly festival – all night screenings of your favourite genre films with as much ice cream and energy drinks as you can consume…
Choose from:
Anime / MST3K / the best of Guillemo Del Toro / Studio Ghibli All Nighter

11.30PM Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, Lower Regent Street

More info at www.sci-fi-london.com

To coincide with the start of a month of horror film releases in the cinema and on DVD in the run up to Halloween, Alex Fitch interviews two veterans of horror cinema, Joe Dante and Tobe Hooper. Alex and Joe talk about the director’s two latest projects, Splatter, starting on the Horror Channel (Sky / Virgin / Freesat) 24/09/10 and continues over the next two Fridays, and his new 3D film currently in UK cinemas The Hole. Also, in an interview recorded at last month’s Frightfest horror festival in London, Alex talks to Tobe Hooper, following a retrospective screening of his first two films Eggshells and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which depict the end of the summer of love and the loss of America’s innocence in the 1970s; Eggshells received its UK premiere at Frightfest and will be released on Blu-Ray / DVD towards the end of the year.

Original poster for Eggshells by Tobe Hooper, Corey Feldman and Tara Leigh discuss their motivation with director Joe Dante on the set of Splatter

More 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

Listen to Alex’s previous interview with Joe Dante about his debut film The Movie Orgy / read a partial transcript of the interview, focussing on Splatter at www.electricsheepmagazine.com

Recommended events:

Laydeez do Comics September 2010

The monthly meeting for female comics creators, fans of female comic creators and female comic book fans (men allowed also!)…

Next Meeting: Monday 27 September, 6.30-9.30pm

VENUE: The Rag Factory

Guest Speakers:

Ellen Lindner (Whores of Mensa) / Patrice Aggs (The DFC) / Steve White (I Drink Coffee and Draw Press LTD) / Charlie Bowden from Pickled Ink Illustration Agency, to discuss a call for entries for The Pickled Award for graduate illustrator.

Recommended Read: Mome Vol 19. Summer 2010, the latest edition of Fantagraphics’ twice yearly anthology…

The Rag Factory
16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

www.ragfactory.org.uk

Pickled Ink‘s search for a comics artist

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

Working with Jenny, the creator/writer of the TV series Super Gran, who cut her teeth writing strips for the British girls comic Tammy, and comic book author and editor Pat Mills, the agency is searching for an outstanding character-led artist to illustrate Jenny’s first graphic novel script, Party Girls. The winner will be awarded £1000 and a contract of representation at Pickled Ink, whose current artists include Hanako Clulow, Hattie Newman, Hannah Bagshaw and many others.

In brief, they’re asking for: character design of two lead characters; and a 20 frame sample sequence and a front cover design. The winning artist must be an existing or recent graduate from the last 12 months only, able to draw modern fashion, facial expression, great storytelling, and be generally ’2011′.

The deadline for entries is Monday 8th November 2010, more info at www.pickledink.com where you can download a PDF of the full rules and conditions

Alex Fitch interviews producer Eli Roth and director Daniel Stamm about the new ‘mockumentary’ horror film The Last Exorcism which is in UK cinemas now and tells a tale of possession, cattle mutilation and murder in a small rural community. Daniel and Alex talk about how using a documentary style to make supernatural movies helps break the fourth wall for the audience to help draw them into events, while Eli talks about how his experience of producing his own movies Cabin Fever and Hostel differs from his more advisory role on this film.

Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell in The Last Exorcism

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

Links: Official The Last Exorcism website
Wikipedia pages on The Last Exorcism and Eli Roth
Interview with Daniel Stamm
Read Alex Fitch’s review of The Last Exorcism at shinyshelf.com

In association with

Partially broadcast 23/07/10 as part of an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance 104.4 FM

To coincide with the release of the new Sci-Fi thriller Splice, in which scientists Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley create a dangerous half human hybrid via genetic manipulation, Alex Fitch talks to director Vincenzo Natali about the film and the other three movies he’s collaborated on with actor David Hewlett: Cypher, Nothing , the cult classic Cube and his forthcoming adaptation of William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer…

Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody being directed by Vincenzo Natali on the set of Splice

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

Links: Wikipedia pages on Splice, Vincenzo Natali and David Hewlett
Official Splice website
Splice trailers at apple.com

Read Alex’s reviews of Splice and Cube

Listen to Alex’s interview with David Hewlett about working with Vincenzo Natali

In a pair of Q and As / intros recorded at the Electric Sheep Film Club, in the Prince Charles Cinema in London, Alex Fitch talks to BFI programmer Emma Smart about gay themes in Westerns before and after a screening of Midnight Cowboy and to Ian Rakoff about the crossover between Western themed comics and movies before a screening of For a few Dollars more…

Unusual images of the western - from left to right, Gene Autry comic no. 4, Western Fighters vol.3 no.4, Midnight Cowboy poster, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, no.1

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

Links: Info about the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on tour
Midnight Cowboy pages on wikipedia and the IMDb
Listen to Alex’s other interviews with Emma Smart

Info about Ian Rakoff‘s talk about ‘Magical realism and social realism’ in comics at the Victoria and Albert Museum on July 21st 2010
Listen to Alex’s first interview with Ian, about writing The Prisoner and his experiences in the world of film and second interview about comics at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Definition of the ‘alt.’ prefix

Recommended events:

Comica Argentina

A mini Comica festival for Summer: an exhibition of the cream of Argentine comic art accompanies a trio of events at King’s Place in Somers Town…

July 2nd: Paul Gravett gives an illustrated talk about the history of comic art in Argentina. 6.30 pm
July 3rd: The Mystery Of The First Animated Movies – Gabriele Zucchelli’s documentary film, made in 2006, explores the making of El Apóstol. 6.30 pm
July 4th: Paul Gravett talks to cartoonist Oscar Grillo and director / animator Gabriele Zucchelli. 6.00 pm

The exhibition is being held at Canning House, 2 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PJ to June 25 and then at King’s Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG from July 1st-4th.

More info at www.comicafestival.com

Comics at The London Literature Festival

The London Literature Festival runs from July 1st – 18th at The South Bank Centre in London and features a multitude of talks, panels and presentations on the world of books. Comics are represented at the festival in a couple of events including:

Martin Rowson talks about adapting the ‘anti-novel: The Life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman into graphic novel format – Saturday 3 July 2010 – 4 pm

Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá talk about their careers so far as Brazilian comic creators who have found critical acclaim producing work for the US market – hosted by Jamie McKelvie – Monday 5 July 2010 – 7pm

More info at www.londonlitfest.com

On the Silver Globe, an esoteric Polish sci-fi epic directed by Andrzej Zulawski in 1977 – then lost and believed destroyed by the authorities for a decade before its cinema release – was screened at Tate Modern last year as part of a mini-season of films titled ‘Polish New Wave – The History of a Phenomenon that Never Existed’. Looking ahead to the release of this film on DVD in the UK, Alex Fitch talks to Andrzej Zulawski about his struggles in getting the film released and the travails involved in making his horror films The Third Part of the Night (1971) and Possession (1981) under the eyes of a communist regime.
Alex Fitch also talks to Polish poster designer Andrzej Klimowski and his wife Danusia Schejbal (famously depicted as the victim of an assassin’s bullet on Klimowski’s poster for Robert Altman’s Nashville) about working on the fringes of Polish filmmaking in the late 1970s and whether the films of the time could be seen as belonging to an artistic movement. (N.B./ Shorter edits of the two interviews were broadcast in an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance FM, 11/06/10)

Still from On the Silver Globe by Andrzej Zulawski and posters for The Godfather part II, Nashville and Stranger than Paradise by Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal

Links: Andrzej Klimowski and / Danusia Schejbal‘s websites
Andrzej’s pages at www.polishposter.com and The Royal College of Art
Theatre design by Danusia: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Listen to Alex’s previous interviews with Andrzej
Info on Polish posters at Cinéphilia West

Info on ‘The Polish New Wave’ at Tate Modern including On the Silver Globe
Buy The Third Part of the Night from Second Run DVD

In the latest Electric Sheep podcast, we’re looking at apocalyptic movies: Virginie Sélavy talks to John Hillcoat, director of the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in an interview recorded at last year’s London Film Festival, plus Alex Fitch talks to Helen McCarthy, a British expert on manga, anime and Japanese visual culture, in a Q and A recorded before a screening of the film Battle Royale…

Takeshi Kitano lays down the law in Battle Royale / John Hillcoat directs Viggo Mortensen in The Road

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

Links: Wikipedia pages on The Road, Battle Royale and Helen McCarthy
Helen’s website
More info on Electric Sheep screenings

The latest online issue of Electric Sheep Magazine is available now and features Alex Fitch’s review of Cube, Mark Stafford’s review of Lebanon, Matthew Sheret’s review of The Temptation of St Tony, this month’s competition winning review of Battle Royale and Chris Doherty‘s comic strip review of The Card Player:

Excerpt from a comic strip review of The Card Player by Chris Doherty

electricsheepmagazine.co.uk avoids industry chit-chat and cheap abuse. The writing is confident and well-informed and the scope encompasses everywhere from Spain to South Korea. It writes about film for people who like film: a classic approach.
New Statesman 01/03/10

Recommended events:

City of Abacus at The Book Club

At The Book Club cafe and bar in Hoxton, London there is a month long exhibtion of the art from The City of Abacus by VV Brown and David Allain, illustrated by Emma Price and Lee O’Connor.

Opening hours: 8am-late Mon-Fri, 10am-late Sat/Sun
100 Leonard Street, London EC2 4RH
More info at www.wearetbc.com

Solipsistic Pop 2 at Orbital Comics

Pencil artwork from Solipsistic Pop 2 cover

Alex Fitch interviews Oscar nominated actress Susannah York about her career, focusing on her performances in war related productions and her interest in peace activism. Alex and Susannah talk about the latter’s narration for the 1987 Channel Four TV series The Struggles for Poland, writing the war time drama Falling in love again, her iconic role in They shoot horses, don’t they? and using her reputation and theatre tours to promote the work of the Movement for the Abolition of War.
(Partially broadcast as part of a ‘Clear Spot’ on Resonance FM)

Susannah York on the set of The Battle of Britain in 1969

‘The Struggles for Poland’ screens at the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ on January 16th (Episodes 1-4), 17th (Episodes 5-8) and 23rd (Episodes 3-5 and 9) as part of Polska! Year.

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

Links: Film at Imperial War Museum London – download a pdf of the cinema schedule
Information about Polska! Year
IMDb pages on The Struggles for Poland and Susannah York
More info about Miracles at the Leicester Square Theatre
Info about the Movement for the Aobolition of War

Patrick McGoohan filming Living in Harmony / Ian Rakoff at Comica 2003

To coincide with the 42nd anniversary of the broadcast of the episode he wrote the original script for, Alex Fitch talks to writer, editor and raconteur Ian Rakoff about his experiences working on The Prisoner and being an observer of British Film culture in the 1970s and beyond. Alex and Ian talk about the bowdlerisation of his script for ‘Living in Harmony’, the latter’s experiences with Lindsay Anderson on such films as If…. and O lucky man!, working with Nicolas Roeg, Stephen Frears and John Boorman and his lifetime interest in comic books.

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

Links: (Limited) info about Ian Rakoff at www.imdb.com
Interview with Ian at www.paulgravett.com
Info about the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s comic book collections
Buy The Prisoner on blu-ray from Network DVD
Buy Ian’s book Inside the “Prisoner”: Radical Television and Film in the 1960s from amazon.co.uk
Last month’s appreciation of The Prisoner at wired.com

Listen to / watch Alex’s interview with Malcolm McDowell and Mike Kaplan about working with Lindsay Anderson
Photo credits – Ian Rakoff courtesy of “Jinty” and Patrick McGoohan courtesy of www.amctv.com

For info on the latest issue of Electric Sheep magazine, please click here / read Prisoner inspired rock group Do not forsake me oh my darling‘s list of favourite films in Electric Sheep Magazine online

In association with

Recommended events:

Comixmas exhibition

ComiXmas: When Worlds Collide is an exhibition of fantastic images from contemporary comic books and graphic novels, featuring work by the best contemporary comic book artists, along with images from past great masters of the genre. On display in the exhibition are prints reproduced at a strikingly larger scale by artists such as Osamu Tezuka, one of the fathers of Japanese manga and anime; Hergé, the Belgian creator of Tintin; Woodrow Phoenix, creator of the award winning Rumble Strip; Andrzej Klimowski, illustrator of The Master & Margarita; Reinhard Kleist, illustrator of Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness; From Hell creators Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and many other artists. This free exhibition runs from 11 December 2009 to 6 February 2010 at the LondonPrintStudio Gallery, 425 Harrow Road, London.

Additionally, Paul Gravett will be hosting a free panel discussion How A Comic Is Made at the LondonPrintStudio on Thursday 21 January 2010, where you can discover the secrets behind writing and drawing comics, graphic novels and manga, revealed by creators featured in the ComiXmas Exhibition: Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal (Master and Margarita), Nana Li (Twelfth Night), Pat Mills (Nemesis, Slaine, Requiem) and Woodrow Phoenix (Rumble Strip). Followed by book signings and reception.

More info at www.londonprintstudio.org.uk

Also broadcast 20/11/09 as an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance 104.4 FM

Rip Torn, Joseph Strick and Henry Miller on the set of Tropic of Cancer (1969), photograph by Carlo Bavagnoli, (c) Life Magazine

To coincide with the ‘Directorspective’ of the work of Joseph Strick, currently at The Barbican centre in London, Alex Fitch talks to the Oscar winning director about his career from working as a U.S. Air Force photographer during the Second World War to directing adaptations of challenging texts such as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Portrait of the artist as a young man, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Jean Genet’s The Balcony. A selection of 6 of Strick’s films will be screened on consecutive days at The Barbican from 19/11/09 and there is also an additional daily screening of a new print of Ulysses (1967) until 26/11/09.

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

Links: Info about the Barbican ‘Directorspective’ and additional daily Ulysses screenings
Info about Joseph Strick on the IMDb and wikipedia

For info on the latest issue of Electric Sheep magazine, please click here

In association with

Originally broadcast 16/10/09 as an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance 104.4 FM

Alastair Kirton as Colin and Stephen McHattie in Pontypool

In a special early Halloween edition, 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 goes on limited release in the UK today, while Colin in released on 23rd October.

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

Links: Pontypool – IMDb page and Official website
Review at Cinematropolis blog
Alex’s mini-review as part of a Frightfest 2009 article at Electric Sheep Magazine
Listen to the radio version at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice

Colin – IMDb page and Official site
Review in Revenant Magazine
Info about the Colin panels at this month’s MCM Expo
Read a transcript of Alex’s interview with Marc at Electric Sheep Magazine

For info on the latest issue of Electric Sheep magazine, please click here

In association with

Related news:

We Are Words + Pictures stall: Saturday 17th October, Girl Germs club night @ The Camden Head (from 8pm)
Join WAW+P creators Julia Scheele and Matthew Sheret as they sell and personalise the cream of the UK’s small press output from a stall with the ‘Girl Germs’ female pop and punk night at 100 Camden High Street, London NW1 0LU

also: Hunterian Museum Film Screening – Medical Miniaturisation – Thursday 22 October, 7pm

Join us for our first ever Hunterian Museum film screening of two works on the theme of medical miniaturisation. Anime expert Helen McCarthy will introduce the classic 1963 anime Astroboy: Mighty Microbe Army about the robot boy miniaturised to fight bacteria inside the body, followed by the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage inspired by one of Osamu Tezuka’s early Manga works ‘The Monster on the 38th Parallel’. The museum and the exhibition ‘Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots’ will be open from 6pm so that you can see the mini-bots that turn fantasy into reality. Screenings supported by the Japan Foundation, the Japan Society and Right Stuf, Inc. FREE, booking essential on 0207 869 6560

plus: BLACK POWERS exhibtion at Swiss Cottage Library Gallery

As part of Black History Month, Swiss Cottage Library Gallery presents an exhibition of comics by black creators and of African-American characters in comics. The collection coheres around black representations through the imagery and language of the comic book medium: representation as markers of both historical and contemporary struggles. The theme is developed through archival works from the 1930’s to the present-day and culminates with a display of the singular comic art of Patrice and John Aggs, Paul Peart-Smith, Woodrow Phoenix and Lance Tooks.

09 October – 06 November 2009
Swiss Cottage Library Gallery, 88 Avenue Rd, London, United Kingdom

The Observer / Jonathan Cape / Comica Graphic Short Story Prize 2009
Are you an aspiring graphic novelist? Do you have an original story to tell? Win £1,000 and have your story printed in The Observer.
More info…

Deadline: 19th October 2009

and: London signings…

Fred Van Lente The third Autumnal signing at Gosh! Comics is Fred Van Lente, the award-winning writer of Action Philosophers!, Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Zombies and Incredible Hercules, among numerous other excellent titles,and is one of the most exciting writing talents to emerge in the last five years. This will be his only London signing, so take advantage of this rare opportunity to chat with him… Saturday 24th October, from 3pm-5pm

Avatar comics signing: An all-star line up will be signing at Orbital Comics courtesy of Avatar Press on Tuesday the 27th of October from 4:30 to 7:00. Paul Duffield (Freakangels), Jacen Burrows (Crossed, 303), William Christensen (Editor-In-Chief of Avatar), Kieron Gillen (Phonogram), Si Spurrier (Judge Dredd, Gutsville) and Rich Johnston (Bleeding Cool Blogsite)

David Petersen /Mouse Guard: David Petersen be signing the gorgeous Mouse Guard Winter 1152 at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Saturday 7th November 1 – 2pm

plus: Autumn comics conventions and events…

October 24th and 25th: The MCM Expo at the Excel centre in London’s Docklands includes appearances by Andy Diggle, Jock, Leigh Gallagher, Alan Grant, Ben Templesmith ,Kieron Gillen and Emma Vieceli – more info at www.londonexpo.com

Also on Sunday October 25th, there’s the Women in Comics one-day conference at Murray Edwards College New Hall in Cambridge: which includes Belgian-based artist Dominique Goblet in conversation with Paul Gravett, Corrine Pearlman and Woodrow Phoenix discussing autobiographical comics work, Helen McCarthy on women and gender roles in the work of Osamu Tezuka, and other talks by Sarah McIntyre and Asia Alfasi. More info at http://tinyurl.com/womenincomics

5th to the 26th of November: Comica, the three week festival of comics in and around the Institute of Comtemporary Arts in London includes appearances by Eddie Campbell, David Lloyd, Brian Talbot, James Jean and Tara McPherson. – more info at www.comicafestival.com

19th to the 22nd of November: The Thought Bubble sequential art festival in Leeds which includes appearances by Paul Cornell, Garey Erskin, Garen Ewing, Andy Diggle, Frank Queitly and many more – more info at www.thoughtbubblefestival.com

Clockwise from top middle, Sally Potter and the cast of her film Rage, Jude Law, Judi Dench, Dianne Wiest, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi

In an hour long talk / Q and A recorded at Cinephila West in Westbourne Grove, London, Sophie Mayer interviews director Sally Potter about her career with additional questions from the audience. Sally talks about getting advice from Martin Scorsese and Michael Powell while raising funding for her second feature, Orlando and conducting a Q & A via skype with Jude Law at the premiere of Rage at the NFT. Recorded and edited by Alex Fitch.

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

Links:
wikipedia and IMDb pages about Rage
Official movie website
Sally Potter’s website
More info about Sophie’s book The films of Sally Potter: A politics of love

For info on the latest issue of Electric Sheep magazine, please click here

In association with:

Dario Argento interview originally broadcast 26/06/09 as an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on www.resonancefm.com

Dario Argento directs Adrien Brody on the set of Giallo

In an interview recorded at the Cine-Excess cult film festival in London, Alex Fitch talks to Italian cult film maker Dario Argento about his career from writing ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ in the 1960s such as Once Upon a time in the West to his most recent film Mother of Tears. Alex and Dario talk about the importance of music in his work, why he doesn’t like being pigeon holed as a horror director and his next project Giallo.

Goblin circa 2009 - Fabio Pignatelli / Massimo Morante / Maurizio Guarini / Agostino Marangolo

Also, in a Q & A recorded live on stage at the Supersonic music festival in Birmingham, Alex talks to the Italian prog rock band Goblin – Fabio Pignatelli, Massimo Morante, Agostino Marangolo and Maurizio Guarini – about scoring Argento’s films from Profondo Rosso / Deep Red to Non ho sonno / Sleepless…

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

Links:
IMDb pages on Argento, Once upon a time in the West and Giallo
The ‘Three Mothers’ trilogy: Suspiria, Inferno, Mother of Tears and Luigi Cozzi’s unofficial sequel The Black Cat
Wikipedia pages on Argento and the giallo genre
Watch the trailer for his new film Giallo on youtube
BFI page on the rerelease of Once upon a time in the West
Cine-Excess website
Read a transcript of Alex’s interview with director Dario Argento in Electric Sheep Magazine:

Dario Argento: With Goblin or with Claudio Simonetti, it’s different. For Profundo Rosso (Deep Red), we meet in my house nearly every night and they introduce me to the work of the day and it inspires me to do the next scene. It was very important. For Suspiria we collaborated on the music – it was good to do it before shooting.

Goblin‘s official website
Info about Goblin on wikipedia and the IMDb
Visit the festival website at www.capsule.org.uk/supersonic

For info on the latest issue of Electric Sheep magazine, please click here

In association with: