laydeez do comics

Hello! I just got home from tonight’s Laydeez Do Comics event, where I drew a little comic on my lap in the dark, a summary of the first half of the meeting. I scanned it on my home scanner so it’s a bit rough:

Here’s the brilliant Simone Lia, whose comics you might recognise from the former DFC magazine and the current Phoenix comic. She has a brave and excellent new book out called Please God, Find Me a Husband!, in which she explores God, faith and getting a boyfriend. She’s signing a book here for Jessica Cave:

Ha ha, I hear rumours that there was a queue of guys at this past weekend’s Comiket who were eager to help God answer her request, but no one reported her taking him up on it. You can read the first chapter over here on The Guardian website. Here’s an interview by Mike Medaglia of Gosh! London:

This was the first time I met Tom Gauld, although I’ve admired his work in the Saturday Guardian for years. He only gets 24 hours to come up with his weekly comic, and he’s done over 300 of them. His new book, Goliath, tells the Biblical story of David and Goliath, but from Goliath’s perspective. It’s beautiful, a very poignant look at a rather confused tall man who doesn’t even want to fight. You can see some excerpts over on the Boing Boing blog.

And here’s one of the speakers from the second part of the evening, Ian, also known as Thom Ferrier, with his new comic Disrepute. (I haven’t read it yet, but Ian gave a great talk about comics and medicine.) That’s Tom, over his shoulder. Rachael Ball also gave a good talk, touching on earlier work she created for Deadline magazine and later material.

Besides Tom, another person I got to meet for the first time was Brighton-based Hannah Berry, creator of Britten & Brülightly, here with her soon-to-be-published graphic novel Adamtine and Times reviewer Neel Mukherjee.

I was sitting right in the back with ILYA and Philippa Perry and as the evening wore on, despite the fascinate talks, my attention span wobbled slightly. So I kept drawing, to focus. (Click here to see a clearer image.)

Here’s cake baker extraordinaire, Sara Lightman, on the left, who organises the talks along with Nicola Streeten. (The other two are Philippa, Ian/Thom and Kripa Joshi smiling away in the back!) Thanks for all your work, Sara, Nicola, bookseller and speakers! Mark your diary for the next meeting: Monday, 21 May.

Don’t forget, Darryl Cunningham is launching is Science Tales tonight (Tuesday) at Gosh! London from 6:30pm! And to wrap up, here’s some graffiti I saw along the way to the meeting, just off Brick Lane. Cute little birdie.