Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Here's the trailer for Bryan Talbot's upcoiming Grandville Mon Amour.

Following on from last years steampunk anthropomorphics (think Rupert the Bear with ultraviolence) this looks to be another excellent read - and more of Bryan's excellent BD-style art.



Enjoy!

Congratulations to Bryan Talbot on being awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Sunderland.

From his fan site:

Bryan is being awarded an honorary doctorate for his “outstanding contribution to the Arts as writer and graphic artist” by Sunderland University. He says: "I've been saying that working on Alice in Sunderland was being like doing a Phd – not something I said lightly as my wife is a Phd and I saw first hand the sheer amount of work involved – it turns out now I was virtually doing one! The graphic novel did take a lot of time and one hell of a lot of research. I'm sure that the doctorate is mainly for producing this book, though they are going to cite the whole canon at the ceremony."

According to comic historian Paul Gravett, this is the first time that a doctorate has been given for work in the comic medium in the UK. Is this another sign of the increasing acceptance of comics as a legitimate art form, an art form that Bryan has relentlessly pioneered for over thirty years? The ceremony is on 17th July at the annual Sunderland University award ceremony at The Stadium of Light, Sunderland.

Having been one of the photographic sources for Alice in Sunderland (Bryan: "Can you guys just nip down to Guildford and photograph Lewis Carroll's grave..."), does this make us honorary research assistants?

Not so much an obscure Open All Hours reference as more a dose of steampunk Rupert the Bear detective fiction starring a badger, Bryan Talbot's next book Grandville is due in October.

In advance, here's an animated trailer put together by Bryan's friend Jordan (who did the cover for Alice in Sunderland).



"Badgers? We don't need no steenkin' badgers!"

Following up from yesterday's post about Bryan Talbot's Grandville, I had a brief email chat with Bryan about that page, and he gave me permission to quote from his emails...

You'll see (eventually) that when the detective (the owner of the last speech balloon there) is leaving the village a few pages later, not only does he pass Rupert's dad trimming a hedge but the sign at the railway station reads "Nutwood".

You can actually see Rupert's dad mowing the lawn on that page - the house opposite and in front of the church is Rupert's.

Steampunk Rupert Bear? I am so there!

I was looking at the sample pages for Bryan Talbot's upcoming Grandville, his upcoming steam-punk anthropomorphic graphic novel, and enjoying the illustration of a pistol-toting badger detective, when I saw something rather familiar...


click to open the page on Bryan's site

Isn't that a classic Alfred Bestall Nutwood, straight from the endpapers of a Rupert Bear annual?

I'm looking forward to seeing more of Grandville...

Here's a link to a scan of Bryan Talbot's short history of the British comic, originally published in the Guardian's Guide supplement.

Of course, if you want a longer history of the form (with a lot more thrown in besides), you couldn't do much worse than read Bryan's Alice In Sunderland...

Last night we went to the London launch of Bryan Talbot's wonderful Alice in Sunderland. We've been watching Bryan work with the book from the early scripts, and it's wonderful to see it finally in the flesh. The publishers have done an excellent job, and it really is a fine example of book as artefact, as well as book as story.

And story is what it is, Bryan walking us through the history of a place and the history of a story, at the same time telling us the story of story, of the comic, of the cartoon. Switching from style to style, from long form to short form, this truly is one of the best graphic novels I've read (if "novel" is the right word for this melange of truth and fiction).

Buy it, read it, immerse yourself in it...

I'll admit to a slight bias - Bryan is an old friend, and marypcb and I are credited in Alice for our work as part of Bryan's team of volunteer reference photographers, who, at the drop of a mad hatter's hat, spent hours in graveyards and on the decks of sailing ships.

I'm also pleased to be finally allowed to show the world page 306 of Alice, where Bryan has used one of my photographs of the Angel of the North as the backdrop to a rather beautifully composed page.


Image copyright Bryan Talbot, 2007

It was a pretty good party too - we got to see many folk we haven't seen for ages, including rozk and Neil Gaiman, and enjoyed pizza with an interesting and eclectic crowd of people. As marypcb said, "That's a normal evening with Bryan..."

Bryan was on Radio 4's Today this morning, at 8:49 or so, talking about Alice in Sunderland. You can hear the interview on the BBC Player for the rest of the week, skipping through to 2:48 or so...

It's short, but sweet.