Lives In Pictures - Getting Graphic With Novels, Ipswich Town Hall Galleries, part of the 2008 IP-Art Festival

Graphic novels occupy an unusual position in the arts – not really accepted as a novel, too big (and grand) to be a comic, sharing more with film than with literature, rooted in 60’s subculture and science fiction.
The Organisers of the IP-Art Festival brought three graphic novelists to the Town Hall Galleries for a conversation with Paul Gravett , author of the new Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics.

One big name and two rising stars were on the panel: –
Bryan Talbot, author of The Luther Arkwight steam punk novels and the critically acclaimed Alice in Sunderland.
Hannah Berry’s recent debut Britten & Brülightly is a story of blackmail revenge and murder set in an atmospheric film noir landscape.
Mio Matsumoto is the author of the painfully autobiographical My Diary.

Bryan Talbot has a long career in comics and illustration dating back to the 1960s. As well as Luther Arkwight he has also produced One Bad Rat – a graphic novel that weaves child sexual abuse in modern England with the history of Beatrix Potter. Bryan spent some time talking about his approach, inspiration and methods of working. He revealed that the planning phase of Alice in Sunderland took about 6 weeks while he plotted all the events in the story chronologically. The scope is typically expansive – Bryan took the history of Sunderland as a metaphor for British history, as well as mixing in autobiography and myth – mention of the Lambton Worm took me back to my childhood (my dad used to sing the song to me).
Listening to Bryan it’s easy to come to the conclusion that he is a novelist who uses pictures – his development of ideas and plot are novelistic. But he also uses photography and a wide range of graphic styles to create appropriate atmosphere. He has more in common with Michael Moorcock than with Robert Crumb .

Hannah Berry’s debut  Britten & Brülightly (Jonathan Cape) is more in the tradition of european book comics as opposed to Bryan’s ‘American’ style – she gives the nod to Herge’s Tin Tin in format and style, although her material is far darker than the adventures of the Belgian boy detective.
While Hannah discussed her work and methods with Paul Gravett the audience were played a film showing Britten & Brülightly being drawn – She had scanned each stage of her drawings and these had been edited together – the result was like watching the drawings taking place in front of you. For older readers think Vision On with Tony Hart.

Mio Matsumoto’s autobiographical My Diary has recently been published by Jonathan Cape. As the title suggests this is an illustrated diary rather than a conventional graphic novel. Mio illustrates what happens to her as she lives through five months of cancer treatment. Her style is probably more fine art than graphic. Mio studied at the Royal College of Art and works as an illustrator in Kobe.

The Town Hall Galleries is a good venue for conversational pieces, but sadly the amplification could have been better. I struggled to hear Mio Matsumoto’s replies to some of Paul’s questions. It was a full house - about 40 people - and an interesting group ranging from the experienced comic reader to the merely curious.
My friend Eric suggested afterwards that using a ‘horsehoe’ layout for the chairs might have made the discussion more inclusive and open.

As the panel answered questions from the audience at the end, the question of whether the graphic novel (and comics in general) are ‘the ninth art’ or a merely a cultural artefact remained hanging.

The organisers of the IP Art festival are to be congratulated for bringing such a diverse and internationally renowned group of artists to the Cornhill.

Adrian Lynch
July 4th 2008

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