Monthly Archives: May 2010

Panel Borders: From Wonderland with love

Panel Borders: From Wonderland with love

In the last of this month’s shows about ‘cross-cultural comics’, Alex Fitch talks to Steffen P. Maarup about the collection of Danish comics he’s edited and translated into English: ‘From Wonderland with love – Danish comics in the third Millennium’, an anthology that surveys the current comics scene in Denmark and collects creators from outside the world of comics also, including illustrators and fine artists alongside their sequential art peers. Alex and Steffen also talk about the wider world of Danish comics, including Danes who have found work on American titles and the controversy over the dozen cartoon illustrations printed in the Jyllands-Posten (Jutland Post) which led to death threats for the creators.

Extracts from From Wonderland with love by Jacob Ørsted with Søren Mosdal and Simon Bukhave

Extracts from From Wonderland with love by Jacob Ørsted with Søren Mosdal and Simon Bukhave

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: Steffen’s publishing company – Aben Maler
The Comics Journal message board thread on From Wonderland with love
Info about Komiks.dk – the International Comics festival in Copenhagen

Recommended events:

London ‘zine symposium

Saturday 29th May 2010, The Rag Factory, off Brick Lane, London sees the finest ‘zine, small press comics, art pamplet and radical literature creators convene for this one day festival. Badges, cakes, prints and comix!

The Rag Factory, Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ / www.londonzinesymposium.org.uk

Spring 2010 MCM Expo

…or heading further East, is this first of this year’s MCM Expos in the London Docklands – cast and crew from SF series Caprica, Fringe and Stargate: Universe rub shoulders with some of the top UK comic creators such as Ben Templesmith, Jock, Paul Cornell, Richard Starkings, Andy Diggle, Paul Duffield, Marc Ellerby, Kieron Gillen, Gary Northfield, Jamie McKelvie, Daniel Merlin Goodbury, Emma Vieceli, Jon Scrivens, Sarah McIntyre, Melody Lee, Gary Erskine, Oliver Lambden, John Aggs, Lizz Lunney, Ilya, Ian Churchill, Simon Spurrier and Kevin Maguire!

Saturday 29th / 30th May, Excel Centre, Docklands, London E16 1XL / www.londonexpo.com

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I’m ready for my close-up: A lifetime of Cult films by Joe Dante

I’m ready for my close-up: A lifetime of Cult films by Joe Dante

Coinciding with veteran genre film maker Joe Dante receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Cine-Excess Cult film festival in London, Alex Fitch talks to the director about his career so far, concentrating on his new / old film The Movie Orgy (1968) which premièred at the festival. The Movie Orgy was initially a 5 hour film made of found footage spliced together by the director in the 1960s as a calling card for editing work in the industry. It succeeded in this aim, leading to a job under Roger Corman and Dante has just finished a new 90 min cut of the film for 21st Century audiences. Alex and Joe also talk about his shift from ‘adult’ horror films such as The Howling and Piranha (which also screened May 1st at Cine-Excess) in the 1970s to subversive family fare such as Gremlins in the 80s and the possibility of that film receiving a belated second sequel.

Director Joe Dante and his most famous creation

Director Joe Dante and his most famous creation

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

Links: Cine Excess website
More info about the cult film archive and MA course at Brunel University
Wikipedia and IMDb pages on Joe Dante

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Reality Check: The Arthur C. Clarke Awards 2010

Reality Check: The Arthur C. Clarke Awards 2010

In the first of this year’s podcasts recorded at the most recent Sci-Fi London Festival, Graham Sleight and Alex Fitch talk to nominees for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke awards for SF literature and Graham also discusses this year’s short list with critic Niall Harrison. Authors discussing their work include China Miéville, Gwyneth Jones and Adam Roberts…

Three of the Clarke Award nominees: Spirit by Gwyneth Jones, Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts and The City and The City by China Mieville

Three of the Clarke Award nominees: Spirit by Gwyneth Jones, Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts and The City and The City by China Mieville

For more info about this podcast and a variety of other episodes you can download, please visit the home of this episode at www.sci-fi-london.com

Links: Clarke Awards website
Graham Sleight’s website
Niall Harrison‘s magazine Vector
Adam Roberts’ website
Gwyneth Jones’ website
China Miéville’s author’s page at Pan / MacMillan
2009 / 2008 Clarke Awards podcasts…

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I’m ready for my close-up: Shooting Paradise

I’m ready for my close-up: Shooting Paradise

Alex Fitch talks to Michael Almereyda about his new film Paradise, which is currently screening at the ICA and shows the director’s typically avant-garde approach to the travelogue film by collating his home movie footage from the last decade into a thematic sequence of vignettes about the modern world. Alex also talks to Michael about working with David Lynch on the belated Dracula sequel Nadja, Wim Wenders on the script for Until the end of the world and making Hamlet with Ethan Hawke…

Still from Paradise by Michael Almereyda

Still from Paradise by Michael Almereyda

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

Links: Buy tickets for Paradise at the ICA
Michael Almereyda pages on Wikipedia and the IMDb

Recommended events:

Ladeez do comics – Cancer and Psychotherapy

In this month’s meeting for female comic book creators and fans of female comic book creators, the guest speakers are: Philippa Perry, Psychotherapist and author of Couch Fiction: A Graphic Tale of Psychotherapy and Ian Williams AKA Thom Ferrier , plus Columba Quigley leading the discussion on our reading book of the month: Our Cancer Year by Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner

Monday 24 May 2010, 6.30-8.30pm, The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

Please visit the Ladeez’ website for more info
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I'm ready for my close-up: Shooting Paradise [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hooting Yard: That Awful Mess At Sludge Hall Farm.

In a cardboard box on a wooden shelf in a broom cupboard behind a door in a corridor on the ground floor of a shabby house on an ill-lit lane winding towards the sea in a land whipped by blizzards and gales, there is an old picture postcard, stuffed in among a jumble of papers and scraps and cotton-reels and bobbins and pins and clinker and orts and scantlings. The picture on the postcard is of a pavilion on a green by the sea. On the other side of the postcard, to which in one corner is stuck a postage stamp, there is scrawled in fading ink an illegible name and address, and a message, written in block capitals and unpunctuated, and it says DO NOT FORSAKE ME O MY DARLING.

This episode was recorded on the 17th December 2009. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the four publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

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Hollingsville: Episode 5, Dreams – While the City Sleeps

Episode 5: Dreams: While the City Sleeps

Welcome to the fifth episode of ‘Hollingville’. My studio guest is Julian House of Ghost Box. Be on the lookout for deep-water soundings, lurking sea monsters, phantom sonar activity, the ruins of Atlantis and spectral dream broadcasts from beyond. Specially commissioned musical interludes will be by David Knight with additional moods by Indigo Octagon and the ‘Hollingsville’ composer in residence, Graham Massey. Ins and outs, as usual, are by Indigo Octagon.

‘What precisely is a dream?’ asked William Burroughs. ‘It is a specific juxtaposition of word and image.’ This connection of word and image to create heightened states of perception which are neither precise nor specific in any way: technology can still offer only offer external proof of internal activities that evade rational understanding. We either find ourselves on dry land or all at sea. Starting with Salvador Dali’s ‘Dream of Venus’ pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, we will be journeying through a submerged paradise of glass, steel and Manhattan tap water on a voyage to the bottom of our minds.

After visiting Mars, where next? Welcome to Hollingsville: the new twelve-part series from writer Ken Hollings. A World’s Fair of the airwaves, the shows focuses each week on a different aspect of our historical relationship with technology. From machines to monsters, spaces to dreams, this Radio Expo offers an unscripted tour through the chosen theme, utilising voices and sounds from special guests and presented by Ken Hollings with his usual idiosyncratic flair.

Ken Hollings is the author of Welcome To Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century 1947-1959, available from Strange Attractor Press. For more information go to http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk or http://www.kenhollings.blogspot.com

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Panel Borders: Manga Jiman 2010

Panel Borders: Manga Jiman 2010

Continuing ‘cross cultural comics month’ on the show, we’re looking at the winners of last year’s Manga Jiman (Pride in Manga) competiton run by the Japanese Embassy in London to find the best new Japanese style comics made in the UK. Dickon Harris talks to the runners up – Zarina Liew and David Lander – about their entries to the competition and the crossover between British small press and manga styles in their work; while Alex Fitch talks to Yuri Kore about her winning entry “The boy who runs from the sun” and drawing comics again, having moved to Britain from the Manhwa industry in Korea.

Excerpts from Manga Jiman winning entries in 2010 by Yuri Kore, Zarina Liew and David Lander

Excerpts from Manga Jiman winning entries in 2010 by Yuri Kore, Zarina Liew and David Lander

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: Info about the winners on the Embassy of Japan website
Read an ebook about the winners, including extracts from the ten shortlisted comics
Winners’ websites: Yuri Kore / Zarina Liew / David Lander

Listen to Alex’s interviews with the winners of the 2007 competition
Listen to Dickon’s previous interview with David Lander about his work

Recommended events:

City of Abacus at The Book Club

Throughout May 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
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Art Monthly 14th May 2010

It Was What it Was: Modern Ruins– Gilda Williams discusses her feature in the May issue of Art Monthly pinpointing the difference between a building that has become a ruin and one that has become derelict.  She uses examples of artists that have made works that hinge on this difference. She is joined by Maria Walsh who discusses the films of Hannah Sawtell developing ideas on Entropy and the digital..

www.artmonthly.co.uk

Art Monthly magazine’s talk programme on Resonance FM started in February 2009 and is broadcast on the second Friday of each month at 5pm. In each show Art Monthly critics discuss their writing in the latest issue.

The programme is presented by Matt Hale who has worked at Art Monthly since 1991

Previous episodes are available on Art Monthly’s website www.artmonthly.co.uk/events.htm

Art Monthly magazine offers an informed and comprehensive guide to the latest developments in contemporary art.

Fiercely independent, Art Monthly’s news and opinion sections provide regular information and polemics on the international art scene. It also offers In-depth interviews and features; reviews of exhibitions, performances, films and books; art law; auction reports and exhibition listings

Art Monthly magazine is indispensable reading!

Special magazine subscription offer for Resonance 104.4 listeners.

Subscribe now and save 40% on the cover price at www.artmonthly.co.uk/sub09

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Bermuda Triangle Test Transmissions – October 22nd 2009

“Which is the Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission’s investigation of Interiority.” Sending out from the inside. Immersed in concentration. Slow and deliberating. Time re-establishes in the present moment again and again. Are we moving at all or are we static? It has perceivably slowed into contemplation concentration time. Readings on Gilles Deleuze/Interiority proceed. Sound re-animates the insistence of time. Hefty theoretical readings skip and flutter along followed by zen garden trio sound meditations. Acoustic and electronic interiorities then, while hypnotized In deep theoretical ‘right in there’ interiority payoff, a song is spontaneously cancelled. Rolling loud sound sounding like an abandoned sailing ship lurching on the waves is calmed by a melodic chord trance repeat pattern. Sonic gardening and more from our Interiority correspondent. Time is almost flowing normally again. Humorous animal type noises and real laughter! creaky, thumpy, clumpi, fini.

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Hooting Yard: Tull, Cloth, Eel.

Cadmium! So soft, so ductile, so bluish-white, so bivalent, so high in fatigue resistance! And yet so toxic! Is there a better metal with which to electroplate your bird table?

This episode was recorded on the 10th December 2009. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the four publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

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