Creatrix evening

It's been a while but I'm back. Walking again, drawing again. Friday night I met Sally Anne at the House of Illustration in Kings Cross where the fabulous Aline Kominsky was being interviewed by Sarah Lightman - a most inspiring and enjoyable event, well worth the trek. I also took in the Comix Creatrix exhibition featuring work by 100 women artists – too many to list here but it includes Claire Bretecher, Tove Jansson, Posy Simmonds, Julie Doucet, Kate Beaton, Donya Todd and Isabel Greenberg... What a delight to see a page from the amazing Lynda Barry's 1980's Girls and Boys, examine Aline K's tiny artwork, discover Brigid Deacon's Burns-eque Coma Deep and find a fetish comic from the 1950s that looks so ahead of its time... Surprisingly few familiar faces and a fair amount of guys at the talk but Corinne Pearlman, Lee Kennedy and Wallis Eates helped make it more of a Ladeez night.

And again

I have just sent ANOTHER comic off to the printers. I am on FIRE! Part three of Panic Attacks, 36 pages of comicky awesomeness, will be ready in time for Angouleme. Well done me.

Processing

A couple of sketchbook pages. This is how some stuff seeps out of my mind...

For more about Friday's happenings check out Andy Oliver's Broken Frontier report. Recently I have been doing shifts at the brilliant Lexi Cinema. Bijou, independent and local (to me), all its profits go to charity and they show my kind of movies in a chilled setting – although the Postman Pat crowd yesterday afternoon drew a pretty hardcore audience.

Autopraise

Midget vs midget

Sketching it as it comes out

Pics from Angouleme

Having recovered from my aprés con lurgy, here are the few non blurry photos worth posting.

Dutch posters were too covered in glue to steal

Sally Anne engages with the customers

Old friends

A big plate of vegetables at Le Terminus

Hugo holds forth

It's over for another year

Sean's got it all on camera

Loitering with intent

Just in case it wasn't clear enough

Sketches from the frontline

I made it home with my sketchbook this time. Unfortunately I managed to leave my copy of Jennifer Hayden's excellent Underwire on the train. You win some, you lose some...

Angouleme was a treat comme d'habitude. Great exhibitions, such as Dreams in Comics, which features plenty of Windsor McKay of course, but 70 other artists are on show. Quite a few strips involve sexual fantasies and neuroses of all sorts (Guido Crepax anyone?) with the odd one covered to shield it from the innocents' gaze. It is always a joy to peruse gorgeous artwork from Hugo Pratt, Fred, Moebius, etc etc – the list is endless. I particularly enjoyed the anxiety dream from JC Menu where president Mitterand comes to visit and he can't find anything to show him. He ends up having to give the first lady one of his rare vintage American comics.

The Willem exhibit was particularly fascinating, I emerged after an hour and a half having only read and examined half of it.

The Dutch contingent who designed and screenprinted posters over the four days were a brilliant idea led by Joost Swarte. I did not regret getting up extra early to catch his joint talk with Willem.

While I was in revelling in the Willemness of it all, Sally Anne was having a Dash Shaw fest with a talk, book signing, and generally spotting him around the place. The social aspect is also important, as we met old friends and acquaintances and made new ones. My fellow Dessinators Sean, Sally Anne and Oliver were once again perfect travelling companions, and my brother Hugo joined our gang for a while.

And to compensate for last year's sad loss, I managed to capture Willem afresh while he drew me an fabulous personalised dedicace.

Bubbling away

Next weekend I shall be at Thought Bubble in Leeds, hopefully crashing at the boy's pad. I will have a couple of new things on the table – about bloody time, you might say. I will be sharing space again with my lovely fellow Dessinator Sally Anne Hickman and according to the plan we will be canal side in the new Allied London Hall. The event seems to have grown exponentially so we won't even be in the same building as another Dessinator, Sean Azzopardi... See you there!

New arrivals

Look what arrived today! I may not have any new goodies ready yet, but having sold out of this old perennial I've decided to reprint a second edition – complete with barcode – so I can reach a wider audience. And the table plan for Comiket has finally been posted. I will be seated with Sean and Sally Anne, with all their exciting new wares, on table 5 tomorrow in the Studio Theatre at Central St Martins. Come and say hi!

Springing back into action

OK. I'm back. First more Angouleme report: before it all evaporates, I will mention some more highlights. Comes, master of black and white compositions and tales of witchcraft in rural Ardennes, was celebrated with an exhibition and saluted with a standing ovation at the closing ceremony. But as I check the Angouleme website for a link to his artwork, I find that we have just lost another great. There was a fascinating lecture from Jean Pierre Dionnet about mysterious italian fumetto artist Devi, a chance to catch Vuillemin in the flesh being quizzed about press cartooning , lovely nibbles and drinks at the opening of Brecht Evens'La Boite a Gand exhibition, and much hilarity at the polling booth when exercising our right to vote. Disappointments included the Spirou documentary and the Uderzo exhibition ( not enough original artwork among the blow-ups of pages and giant fibreglass models). And I never found my sketchbook. However I will move on. And draw more sketches. Like this. I will be appearing at Comiket next month, and have applied for table space at MCM London, along with my good friends The Dessinators.

176 and all that

Oh look London Underground Comics are announcing their next event on the 27th of June 2009 at the fantastic 176 art gallery in Chalk Farm. Yippee!
More details HERE.
Oh and I forgot to mention that I appear in the last ever issue of Comic Foundry magazine, page 11 if you're interested. So now some people in AMERICA know my name... well one or two anyway.

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This is my blog. I will post toons and pics and occasional news or whatever