Hooting Yard: The Puckington Tunnels

It was a big fort, with delightful crenellations, and many flags, and it had the shiniest portcullis outside of Navarre. This was Fort Hoity, sister fort of Fort Toity, and an extremely interesting fort in its own right. For underneath Fort Hoity ran the Puckington Tunnels, those tunnels you may have come across in your reading, if, that is, you have been reading about tunnelling systems as a change from your usual diet of chicklit, gitlit, and zadiesmithlit.

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This episode was recorded on the 19th Feb 2009. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the three publications Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

Panel Borders: The art of Rutu Modan part two

Panel Borders: The art of Rutu Modan part two

Originally broadcast 25/06/09 in an edited version as part of an episode of Strip! on Resonance 104.4 FM

Panel from Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

Panel from Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

Concluding cross cultural comics month on the show: In an interview conducted live at the Jewish Community Centre in North London, Roehampton University Illustration lecturer Ariel Kahn interviews award-winning graphic novelist Rutu Modan about her work from the acclaimed Exit Wounds to her new collection Jamilti and Other Stories. Rutu and Ariel talk about the use of computers in her work, being inspired by life and family and doing an illustrated blog for The New York Times. (part two of two)
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

Listen to part one of this interview

Links: Rutu’s wikipedia page
Review of Jamilti and other stories in The Times
Rutu’s webcomic blog in New York Times
Article on Jewish Graphic Novels by Ariel Kahn in Jewish Quarterly
Info about Ariel winning the Bloomsbury New Voices writing competition
Info on Ariel’s courses at Roehampton University
Article on Jewish Graphic Novels in The Reporter
London Jewish Community Centre website
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Hooting Yard: Inky Puck Stampings

In his later years, Blodgett amassed a collection of inky puck stampings, kept in an album bound in the starch-stiffened fleece of a lamb. The fleece was spotted with unexplained bloodstains which Blodgett made no attempt to remove. He could have used a patent bloodstain eradication spray goo as manufactured by Don Federico’s Royal And Ancient Portugese Spray And Paste Company, but he chose not to. Boffins in a lab were recently given the opportunity to scrape minuscule quantities of the blood off the binding. When they subjected it to tests, they were able positively to identify it as the blood of a fruitbat. Curious indeed, but no more curious than much else about Blodgett’s later years.

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This episode was recorded on the 12th Feb 2009. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the three publications Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

Panel Borders: The art of Rutu Modan part one

Panel Borders: The art of Rutu Modan part one

Extract from Your number one fan by Rutu Modan, featured in Jamilti and other stories

Extract from Your number one fan by Rutu Modan, featured in Jamilti and other stories

Continuing cross cultural comics month on the show: In an interview conducted live at the Jewish Community Centre in North London, Roehampton University Illustration lecturer Ariel Kahn interviews award-winning graphic novelist Rutu Modan about her work from the acclaimed Exit Wounds to her new collection Jamilti and Other Stories. Rutu and Ariel talk about her influences, the difficulties in depicting a city as rich and diverse as Tel Aviv in print and adjusting to life in England.
(part one of two)

Listen to part two of this interview

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
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Reality Check: Phoenix Gamers

Reality Check: Phoenix Gamers

Descent board game laid out for a session at The Phoenix Games Club

Descent board game laid out for a session at The Phoenix Games Club

Alex Fitch talks to Hugh and Matt, members of The Phoenix Games Club, a group who meet at least once every week at the Black Lion pub in Plaistow to play board games, strategy games and RPGs together. The Phoenix Club is one of many up and down the country who also play games together at regional meets and national ones, so Alex asks the guys about the type of games they play, the demographic of their membership and the social and intellectual aspects of gaming.

For more info, please visit the home of this podcast at Sci-Fi London
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Panel Borders: The art of Shaun Tan

Panel Borders: The art of Shaun Tan

Illustration from Tales of Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Illustration from Tales of Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Continuing cross cultural comics month on the show: Alex Fitch talks to Australian artist Shaun Tan about his work, including his award winning graphic novel The Arrival which tells tales of immigrants arriving in fantastical worlds and was loosely based on his Malaysian family’s history and his new book Tales from Outer Suburbia, which superbly mixes a whole variety of story telling techniques from comic strips, to poetry and collage. Alex and Shaun talk about breaking into the illustration business, the art of designing books and the influence of Raymond Briggs on Shaun’s work.

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
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Outsider In – Life in R.V. Parks

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This man is not on holiday. He is a war hero who has had his young daughter taken away from him and put into care. He had been serving in Gulf War I and II and decorated with a silver star and 5 purple hearts. He cut his thumb off with a chainsaw just before I met up with him in a campsite in Vermont. We hear of his war adventures and meet up with his blind Vietnam Vet buddy. Scott lives in a trailer worth $1000 with his wife – he has no job now – there are many like him.

We also hear an exerpt of an inpromptu gathering of 60 bluegrass musicians who meet up in Nothern Idaho each year to play together.

Finally, James wins $1:60 in a first nation run Casino on the Canadian border.

Outsider In broadcast on Saturday 13th June 2009 half an hour early so you can hear all of it now in case you missed it.

Foot & Mouth – Episode 5

Episode 5/6.

In this weeks penultimate episode Nick Hamilton takes to the streets of Hackney again to ask the natives What and Where is Hackney? We go in search of the Spirit of Broadway Market with Xavier Zapata, and we hear Kray Twin associate Tony Lambrianou’s recollections of a murder. In addition to all of this we hear Iain Sinclair discussing the Hackney Mole Man with his ex-lodger, the artist Mark Pawson.

Originally broadcast during the week beginning 29th March 2009.

Nick Hamilton’s psychogeophonic investigation into Hackney with contributions from Iain Sinclair, Stewart Home, John Barker, We Are Bad/Savage Messiah, Charles Adegoke, Olga Panades, Xavier Zapata, Alan Hayday, Jonny Mugwump & Sally Mumby-Croft.

All sounds and conversations recorded on location in Hackney.

Panel Borders: Manhwa Galleries, Mixed media Graduates and Manga Girls

Panel Borders: Manhwa Galleries, Mixed media Graduates and Manga Girls

Broadcast 04/06/09 in an edited version as an episode of Strip! on Resonance 104.4 FM

Extract from Prick by Melody Lee

Extract from Prick by Melody Lee

Starting cross cultural comics month on the show: Dickon Harris introduces the 100 years of Manhwa exhibition at the London Korean Cultural Centre and talks to Alex Wilmore and Lauren Ann Sharp, a couple of recent illustration graduates.
Alex Fitch interviews a couple of female indie manga creators – Sally Jane Thompson and Kate Holden – at the Docklands Manga Expo and discusses the brutality of nature with Melody Lee, whose comics depict woodland animals in the style of Beatrix Potter but who also shoot, shag and swear like troopers!

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
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Outsider In – Butte

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You find a gaggle of hung over residents of Butte wishing they had not drunk so much after a week of festivities of Evel Kneivel week in a bar in Butte Montana – the best way to deal with this is to drink quantities of Capt. Morgan or Marys. James lapses into a gastly transatlantic drawl as he coaxes real-life stories from his fellow drinkers. This photo was taken at the time of the recording. The other photo is of someone making a BBC documentary just before Mr. Kneivel passed on.