This week on(line): Barbara Nessim / Birdemic + Vera Miao podcast
Alex Fitch
Panel Borders: Barbara Nessim - a (comics) artful life
In a pair of Q and As recorded at the London Science-Fiction and Fantastic Film Festival (SCI-FI-LONDON), Alex Fitch talks to the creators of two new low budget portrayals of the apocalypse on screen. Stars Alan Bagh and Thomas Favaloro, writer / director James Nguyen and producer Jeff Gross discuss the B movie spoof Birdemic II: The Resurrection and co-writer / star Vera Miao talks about her excellent mid-apocalyptic road movie Best Friends Forever. (Originally broadcast 3rd May 2013 on Resonance 104.4 FM)
https://panelborders.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/reality-check-apocalypse-miao
Starting a month of shows looking at the connections between ‘fine art’ and comic books, Panel Borders is proud to broadcast a pair of presentations by Richard Reynolds FRSA and graphic designer Rian Hughes given at 2013 Spring Comiket, Central Saint Martins School of Art. Reynolds looks at the influences that various works of fine art have had on comic books over the last hundred years while Hughes explores the many comic book panels that Roy Lichtenstein used in creating his works of art, currently on show at Tate Modern. (Originally broadcast 06/05/13 on Resonance 104.4 FM)
https://panelborders.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/panel-borders-fine-art-comics/
From the search for El Dorado in Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God, to a cut-throat Mexico in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Thomas Arslan's Canadian-set Gold, we explore the failed adventures of some of cinema's cursed protagonists in our latest theme.
Out in cinemas this month, there is some dazzling horror on offer in Neil Jordan's Byzantium and Ryuhei Kitamura's No One Lives. In Pedro Almodóvar's latest comedy, I'm So Excited, a plane is doomed to fly in circles above Spain, while a Danish cargo ship is overrun by pirates in Tobias Lindholm's tense thriller A Hijacking. We follow Matthew McConaughey running from the past in Jeff Nichols's Mud, and we also have a review of classic 1970s drama The King of Marvin Gardens.
Out on DVD/Blu-ray, dreams are dashed in Billy Liar, while Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos offers a haunting reflection on memory, loss and history. We trace the sinister characters in Mario Bava's Baron Blood and Black Sabbath, and take a look back at the Polish cinema classic Illumination and Henri-George Clouzot's The Murderer Lives at 21.
In features, we have a special interview with John Hawkes. In Reel Sounds, Robert Barry explores the music-less soundtrack of Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan, while in our Comic Strip Review we revisit the wildly weird Marebito. We report from Sci-Fi-London and the Istanbul Film Festival, and in Alter Ego author Kate Worsley's filmic alter ego is Commander Ericson in The Cruel SeaOn Friday the 10th of May Gpsh! Comics are launching this book into space, or onto your bookshelves, or wherever the gigantic thing wants to go. We’ll be here with booze and pens and Stephen Collins from 7pm until 9pm when we’ll turf you out and, if past launch parties are anything to go by, you end up in the pub well past your bedtime clutching a signed book.
When is a graphic novel not a comic? When it's a...
A panel debate at the Brighton Festival exploring the dimensions of narrative art, in association with Myriad Editions, and featuring Myriad authors Woodrow Phoenix and Nye Wright, with Hannah Berry and Tim Pilcher.
‘The graphic novel as a literary form is really coming into its own at the moment, and we're very lucky that we have one of the best graphic novel publishers here in Brighton – Myriad – so we're putting on an event with them that I'm very excited about’ – Mathew Clayton, Literary Programmer, Brighton Festival
Woodrow Phoenix produced a giant comic for his MA at Brighton University, exploring – literally – the dimensions of what a comic is. Co-winner of Best Book in the British Comics Awards, he and fellow graphic novelists Nye Wright and Hannah Berry debate the different ways of creating narratives: whether pen and paper, ceramics, embroidery or sculpture. Art schools are now hot-beds of new cartoonists, and the traditional US comic is giving way to a more modern, domestic graphic memoir. How did this sea-change come about? What makes a comic, when does it become a graphic novel, is it all just marketing? A panel debate at the Brighton Festival, chaired by comics guru Tim Pilcher and in association with Myriad Editions.
Location: Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome, New Road, Brighton - Click for map8 - 9pm, Wednesday 15th May, 2013
More info / tickets: http://brightonfestival.org/event/464/when_does_a_comic_become_a_graphic_novel
Laydeez Do Comics at Brighton Festival
A free event in the Studio Bar, in association with Myriad Editions, and featuring the artists, authors and organisers of Laydeez Do Comics, Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman, with guests: illustrator and manga artist Chie Kutsuwada and artist curator Kim Pace
After the panel event in the Studio Theatre, the audience is invited to join the legendary Laydeez Do Comics in the Studio Bar. The UK’s first women led graphic novel forum will be presenting a series of invited speakers from 9-10.30pm. This is a non-ticketed event and is open to all members of the public, so please come along and have your eyes opened to some of the amazing work going on in the comics world.
Laydeez Do Comics regularly attracts more than 100 guests at its monthly meetings in London, and groups have now set up in Chicago, San Francisco, Bristol and Leeds with pop-ups in New York - and now, for the very first time, Brighton!
Nicola Streeten's first graphic book, Billy, Me & You, was published by Myriad in October 2011. It first appeared in serialised form in Liquorice Magazine.
Location: Studio Theatre Bar, Brighton Dome, New Road, Brighton - Click for map
9 - 10.30pm, Wednesday 15th May, 2013
More info / tickets: http://brightonfestival.org/event/464/when_does_a_comic_become_a_graphic_novel
Tripwire Launch with Michael Moorcock, Peter Milligan, Mike Carey, Roger Langridge & Christopher Fowler
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Since its launch back in 1992, TRIPWIRE has been the UK's leading features-driven comics and genre publication. Its emphasis on British comics and creators and left of centre mainstream has garnered it fans around the world. In 2013, to commemorate its 21st birthday, TRIPWIRE will be publishing TRIPWIRE 21, a must-own celebration of 21 years of the magazine. To mark this, Foyles and TRIPWIRE present a panel that includes Michael Moorcock (Mother London), Peter Milligan (Hellblazer), Mike Carey (The Unwritten, X-Men), Roger Langridge (The Muppets, Fred The Clown) and Christopher Fowler, creator of the popular Bryant & May book series in discussion with TRIPWIRE editor-in-chief Joel Meadows.
Venue: the Gallery at Foyles Thursday 16th May 2013 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Charing Cross Road
Literary Event, Chargeable Event More info / tickets: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Tripwire |
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein currently has a show on at the Tate Modern. While the public is intimately familiar with his work, what they may be unaware of is that many of his images were directly “appropriated” from comic artists like Irv Novick, Russ Heath, Jack Kirby, John Romita and Joe Kubert, who received no fee or credit.
Is this an act of brilliant recontexturalisation? The elevation of commercial “low” art to “high” art? Art world snobbery? Artistic licence? Gallery shortsightedness? Cultural annexation? Or something else entirely? This show brings together real comic-book artists and other “commercial artists” – illustrators, designers, cartoonists – to ask these kinds of questions and share their views, via their work.
Each artist was asked to “re-reappropriate” one of the comic images Lichtenstein used: to go back to the source material and twist it into something interesting and original, and in the process to comment on the act of appropriation.
Money raised from selling prints and originals will be donated to the Hero Initiative, which helps down-on-their-luck comic book veterans.
Take Back the Art!
16th May - 31st May 2013, Orbital Comics, 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JA
More info: http://www.orbitalcomics.com/image-duplicator16052013-to-31052013
Thanks for listening,
Alex
Programme maker, Resonance 104.4 FM (Arts Council) - www.resonancefm.com
Assistant editor, Electric Sheep Magazine - www.electricsheepmagazine.com