So last weekend, Team WAW+P plus Solipsistic Pop travelled up to the north to sell our comicky wares at the annual Leeds Thought Bubble Festival of Sequential Art.
It was a fantastic time – Tom and I arrived really late on the Friday, but managed to find a little hole-in-the-wall indie club filled with the drunkest and happiest indie kids I’ve ever seen, after much confused wandering around Leeds town centre at 1 in the morning. It called out to us like a homing beacon. We even danced a little. Sober!
The convention itself was long and exhausting, but went really well for us – lots of interest in both Paper Science and Sol Pop, lots of interesting conversations with punters. I had a little wander around, unfortunately I was a bit short on money this year so I couldn’t pick up too much stuff…but I did pick up the highly-anticipated issue two of Marc Ellerby’s Chloe Noonan (which is great fun and I highly recommend it!), the B.A.S.T.A.R.D.S anthology by the London Small Press All-stars, a print by John Allison, and a My Cardboard Life mini, Super Colin, by Philippa Rice. I was also super happy to come across Andi Watson, who very kindly signed my copy of Little Stars and even did a little sketch. Hooray! I then made a fool out of myself by giving him a copy of Paper Science with the eloquent words: “I-have-a-stall-over-there-and-we-made-this-and-I’d-like-to-give-you-one-thanks-for-the-sketch-I-really-like-your-work-ok-good-bye-now!!!” Then I ran away.
…
I’ll get the hang of this stuff some time.
The best part was, of course, the Phonogram after party. Matt, Anne, Tom and I had a really nice dinner and then rushed up to set up for DJing – Tom and I did the first 3o minutes, unfortunately we weren’t allowed to turn it up too much to begin with but it went down rather well (shout out to Oliver Lamden, Jake Harold, and Sean Azzopardi, the first heroes on the dancefloor!). Actually, I’m just going to link you to Kieron’s write-up about it, he puts the awesomeness of the night in much better words.
Here’s a little doodle of us dancing:
Might post little Thought Bubble inspired doodles over the next few days. I’d like to draw a little portrait of everyone who DJed that night!
We had a lovely time, and I think every single one of us came back full of enthusiasm and new ideas for the future, which was sorely needed, I think. We’ve been drifting around on a little cloud of comic-love ever since. Which is what these things should be there for, so success all round!
Jx
Leeds Convention Report – I owe you guys one. It’ll be a goon ‘un. But for now, I have a cold and am still shattered from the weekend’s many excesses. The comics crowd knows how to party.
SNIFFLE SNIFFLE COUGH SNEEZE
Things! Thingsthingsthings.
Comiket on Sunday was amaaazing. Sold well, met lots of awesome people, had many interesting conversations, Solipsistic Pop sold well (if you weren’t there, you can purchase it here!), and the launch party afterwards was fun, fun, fun. Matt posted a nice write-up of it, and so did Mark.
So! Below is a new comicky thing I drew yesterday, but in this post, I’m just gonna go ahead and link you to some things.
Firstly, the Guardian. There’s an article about Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasking Corruption here, and an article about Comiket here. The only deplorable thing is the headline on that Ctrl.Alt.Shift article – “Pow! Comic-strip heroes fight against corruption”. Siiigh. And of course, the first line – “it is a comic book collection without a cape, dodgy mask or death ray in sight. There are, though, plenty of baddies”. Double-siiigh. Is there really still a need to mention “pow” and capes in every single article about comics that have nothing to do with superheroes?
Moving swiftly on.
Things from my tumblr, which I am getting quite addicted to and am trying to keep interesting (though the Share on Tumblr button in my browser lately has been an excuse to just lob anything up there which amuses me for more than two seconds).
Maya Deren! I re-discovered my undying love for her. She was an American avant-garde filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, poet, writer, and photographer. She has made one of my favourite short films of all times – Meshes Of The Afternoon – which can currently be seen at the Tate Modern. She hung out with people like Duchamp, Breton, and John Cage, and adopted Voodoo as a religion after travelling to Haiti to film and partake in Voodoo rituals.
She distributed her films herself, and blamed Hollywood for the stagnation of film as a creative fine-art form (you see how, as a small-presser, this would appeal to me. Yes?).
Her films are things of beauty, in choreography and sheer playfulness with the medium. I can’t quite describe how elated I feel after watching them, without letting on just how much of a film geek I secretly am. My film work towards the last half of my second year and the entirety of my third year was strongly influenced by her (but you don’t get to see it, because it’s not very good).
“I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick.”
This is Ritual In Transfigured Time, from 1946. It’s 14 minutes long, but stick with it. Anaïs Nin makes an appearance.
Talking about Anaïs Nin, the comic earlier was kind of inspired by her:
I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
That and this, from Marguerite Duras’ The Lover, one of my favourite books ever:
When it’s in a book I don’t think it’ll hurt any more… exist any more.
One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.
That last one is a sort of mantra for me, really, with all my comicking.
Whilst we’re on the subject of writing, Katie West’s tumblr is full of great, touching writing, and beautiful photography, and if you don’t already know who she is you should definitely go check it out. Frankly, I love her especially for the “come for the breasts, stay for the heart” tagline.
And getting back to Comiket, in a loop, I discovered and had a chat with some of Nobrow there, who produce beautiful, beautiful small press publications and are definitely worth checking out. They’ve got a launch party on Thursday which I’d love to go to, but turns out my friend has tickets to a Robert Crumb exhibition and I made other plans for afterwards, as well. Sigh. Hopefully they’ll be around small press fairs a lot more, though.
Sleep now. I did some more drawing which I’ll post up soon.
Jx
(click to enlarge)
Hello hello hello,
I got commissioned to do an illustration for Electric Sheep magazine, on an article about the film Day Night Day Night. Here’s a short quote about the film from the IMBD website:
A 19-year-old girl prepares to become a suicide bomber in Times Square. She speaks with a nondescript American accent, and it’s impossible to pinpoint her ethnicity. We never learn why she made her decision — she has made it already. We don’t know whom she represents, what she believes in – we only know she believes it absolutely.
And here’s my illustration:
In my last post, I talked about the Lazarides Gallery exhibition for the Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasking Corruption comic book. Turns out Thursday is just the private view, but it will be open to the public and run for a month from Friday, the 6th of November. Check it out!
And I know I already talked about Comica Comiket and the Solipsistic Pop launch party a LOT, but have some pretty flyers to remind you nonetheless:
(Flyer by the ever-talented Mr. Tom Humberstone.)
Woo, very exciting. Hopefully my talented photographer friend Derek Bremner will be around to take photos of the event, as well.
Aaaand, that’s all. For now.
Jx
Phew. That was a long weekend.
I had a table at MCM Expo this weekend, MCM being probably the largest and most mainstream convention I’ve ever attended. It was an interesting time, and it was lovely to see the usual faces again, as well as meeting lots of new ones. Unfortunately, my wares weren’t really geared towards the manga/anime audience, but I made my table money back and can’t really ask for more. It was worth it just for the experience. Thanks so much to Anna and Emma for organising it, both of you are (super)heroes. Heroines.
I’ve got photos on my phone, but annoyingly, I can’t get them off of it. However my booth babe for the weekend, Del, has taken loads and because he is an incredibly talented photographer I will link you to them as soon as he lobs them up on his blog.
Meanwhile, here’s a photo of Del and I taken by Carly Roberts, who has also taken lots of awesome pictures at Expo:
I’m holding up Sarah Gordon’s amazing little Beard Zine, of course.
Anyhow! More news! I got shortlisted to be one of the final five (hur BSG reference) contestants for the Ctrl.Alt.Shift comic competition. They’re putting together a book called “Unmasking Corruption” and the competition part was to illustrate a script by Dev Hynes, otherwise known as Lightspeed Champion. Here’s a first-page preview of my entry:
Unfortunately I didn’t win (the winner is Luke Pearson who I recently found over the internets, and who deserved it without question because he is insanely talented), so my comic won’t make it into the book – however, there is going to be an exhibition on Thursday the 5th of November, where my entry will be on the wall and available for sale. For anyone who wants to come along, here’s the details for the event:
Thursday November 5th, 2009
Lazarides Gallery
8 Greek Street,
Soho,
London W1D 4DG
Exhibition from 7pm – 9pm
Hope to see you there!
Next up, of course, is Comiket at Comica on the 8th of November, where We Are Words + Pictures will have a table. In even more exciting news, it will also be the day of the Solipsistic Pop anthology launch, and there will be a launch party downstairs in the bar after the fair during the day. Here’s some info from the Comica site:
Solipsistic Pop, the new biannual anthology spotlighting the best in alternative comic art from the UK, is officially launching at the Comica ‘09 Small Press and Self-Publishers Fair, Comica Comiket, at the ICA on 8 November. The Solipsistic Pop stall will have copies of the book for sale and a selection of work by the contributors. Most of the contributors will be there on the day to sign books. Comica Comiket will be open between 1pm and 6pm. A post-launch party will take place in the ICA bar from 7.30pm until closing and there will be live drawing and DJ sets from contributors during the night.
Hooray!
November is a busy month, because on the 20th and the 21st we will be at Thought Bubble in Leeds – words + pictures are sharing a table with Tom Humberstone, and we’ll be selling Solipsistic Pop there as well. There might be some DJing going on at the after-party, as well. If you’re near there or can make your way up, I highly recommend it: Leeds was our first convention last year and it was an absolutely lovely experience. It’s well organised, has a long list of high-profile guests, talks, and events, and is in general a whole bag of fun.
…I think that’s all I’ve got for now. With all this mad organising, there seems to be no time for drawing! I will update on other projects soon, though, have lots planned. I will attempt to be the busiest bee in comics for the rest of the year…
Jx
It’s been almost a month since I’ve last updated, which mystifies me on so many levels – where the hell has September gone, exactly?
I’ve got very little artwork to show you at the moment, because when I’ve been drawing it’s mostly been to work on Tom Humberstone’s Solipsistic Pop anthology, which is shaping up to be very exciting. There’s a whole lot of preview work up on the website right now, including a little something by Matthew Sheret and yours truly:
Speaking of Sheret, he has masterminded and pulled together the new We Are Words + Pictures market stall which happened this last Sunday at the Brick Lane Tea Rooms market. It was beautifully presented, like so:
And also quite successful. Watch the WAW+P website for more news about where and when it’s going to happen in the future.
Otherwise, I’ve been ambling about with too much free time and little structure or routine. I watched all of Twin Peaks, finally, and got pretty obsessed for a little while.
My flatmate and friend Sarah Gordon has been seriously getting into her animating, which is something I have the utmost respect for. I tried getting into animation while I was doing my film degree, and I just don’t have even a fraction of the patience needed.
I do wish I did have the patience, because I love stuff like this…
…but the only time I did not want to pull my hair out in big chunks while animating was when I did stop-motion. A new stop-motion favourite is this one by Jan Svankmajer which Sarah pointed me towards:
What else? I’ve been reading this really interesting article on the history of RAW, thus further intensifying my admiration for Francoise Mouly. Here she is, with her “multilith” press:
There’s also an interesting interview with Annie Parkhouse and Ellie De Ville here, the only two women who have worked for 2000 AD in a creative capacity – as letterers.
What else is interesting? Let’s see…
Thomas Truax’s new album. Truax is an amazing man. He makes his own instruments, which have names such as the Hornicator or the String-A-Ling. Apart from being a genius songwriter and performer in his own right, he as recently recorded an album of covers of music from David Lynch films, which makes so much sense it feels like it’s been preordained by the fates or something. This is him:
…meow.
Tom’s friend Kayla Hillier came to visit London from Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and we made friends pretty much immediately. She is, like me, also an ex-comic-book-shop chick (feels like there should be a support group for that) and a volunteer at the Toronto Comics and Arts Festival (which I’ve applied to this year, fingers crossed!). She’s made out of pure lovely and so is her blog, which is here.
Matt has pointed me in the direction of Newspaper Club, which is brilliant. They’ve got a blog here in which they chronicle all the things that can go right or wrong when you’re trying to help people produce their own newspapers. Everytime I read their posts I come away feeling like I want to make things.
Also! Zinepal! It’s really, really cool. You can use it to convert your blog into .pdf formats to email, print, or send to people’s phones. Not sure what I could use it for, yet, but it’s really good knowing it’s there.
…and that’s all for now. Will upload work in progress soon.
Jx
Hello people,
am working on several big projects at the moment but there ain’t nothing ready to show you yet. But there are some doodles and the usual general randomness. You know, just trying to keep my drawing hand limber whilst I spend too much time on the sofa, watching crap like Teachers or Desperate Romantics.
Jx
Finally I can post about this!
The website for Solipsistic Pop, an upcoming anthology spotlighting the best of alternative comic art from the UK, is finally live.
I am extremely excited and flattered to be part of this project, and recommend keeping a close watch on it, people.
Each book of Solipsistic Pop will be a boutique, tactile product. An interactive, unique artefact designed to suit the content of each edition with an extremely limited printrun.
…squee!
Have a look over at the WAW+P blog. We are transforming from a small press comics collective to something substantially bigger:
“At the end of September we will be hosting a market stall, exhibiting artwork, ‘zines and comics by a host of familiar and unfamiliar names, hoping to reach out to the record-buying, curry-eating, vintage-shopping public. Our emphasis will be on works that make the most of their printed, physical form, publications that simply wouldn’t be the same if they were hosted online. If it’s successful then it will be the first in a long line of such stalls popping-up outside of small-press fairs, presenting brand new work to a brand new audience at established markets, music festivals, village fairs and schools. We’re looking for new work and ‘zines to sell and exhibit, so please check out the Submissions section for details.“
I am super-excited and looking forward to people’s submissions. So, if you’re interested, get in contact!
Jx
