[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-laydeez-do-comics-evening":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"Last night I went along to Brick Lane for the monthly meeting of \u003Ca href=\"http://www.laydeezdocomics.com/\">Laydeez Do Comics\u003C/a>. I went partly to hear the talks, but partly to see my friend \u003Ca href=\"http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com\">Darryl Cunningham\u003C/a>, who lives way up in Keighley in Yorkshire, so any visit to London is a big deal. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/psychiatrictales1-57fba462d5.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nBloomsbury in the USA had just sent him some author copies of the American version of his book \u003Ci>\u003Ca href=\"http://www.bloomsburyusa.com/books/catalog/psychiatric_tales_hc_786\">Psychiatric Tales\u003C/a>\u003C/i>, which comes out next month (but is already unofficially hitting the shelves), and he gave me a copy! And then I was super chuffed to find my name in it! Yay! Thanks, Darryl!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/psychiatrictales2-444618abbd.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>New introduction to the American edition of Psychiatric Tales\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nI did a few rough doodles in my notebook during the talks:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/laydeez24jan11-95063b49b1.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThe presentations covered a lot of ground in comics and social history, but I'll post a few links the speakers mentioned. \u003Cb>Corinne Pearlman\u003C/b> flagged \u003Cb>Myriad Editions'\u003C/b> \u003Ca href=\"http://www.myriadeditions.com/First%20Graphic%20Novel%20Competition\">First Graphic Novel Competition\u003C/a>, a chance to publish a book with them, with a £10 entry fee and final date of 1 Oct 2011.\\r\n\u003Cb>Ed Hillyer (aka Ilya)\u003C/b> talked about being sent to Indonesia by the British Council to meet with other comic artists and come up with a app-friendly comic based on a deteriorating painted mural at the Jakarta History Museum. (You can see some \u003Ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/british_council_indonesia/page61/\">British Council Flickr photos here\u003C/a>.) \\r\nDr Julia Round promoted the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=168/\">\u003Ci>Studies in Comics Journal\u003C/i>\u003C/a> and encouraged people to submit comics and academic paper to its future publications. \\r\nAnd my favourite bit was when the lights went on, the Powerpoint went off, and \u003Cb>Erica Smith\u003C/b>, creator and editor of \u003Ca href=\"http://www.ampnet.co.uk/girlfrenzy.html\">\u003Ci>Girl Frenzy\u003C/i>\u003C/a> got out her collection of old comics and zines:\\r\n\\r\n\u003C!--more Read more under the cut-->\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/ericasmith-02c208e710.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Erica Smith\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nErica linked a lot of things to punk feminist movement \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Grrrl\">Riot Grrrl\u003C/a>, which I feel I ought to know way more about, since it was based in my part of the world, but I was very young then and Riot Grrrl wasn't exactly a household name among the suburban, makeup-wearing, Republican-voting mothers of the kids in my school. We had a good discussion about the place and significance of self-published zines, and if blogs have taken over from them. I loved seeing the period typefaces and old-tech printing techniques. People in the audience suggested that most zines ten years ago were about music and bands, and MySpace had been doing the job that zines had done previously. But with current obsession with all things retro, and lower printing costs, zines have made a big comeback, with events such as the \u003Ca href=\"http://comicsandzines.wordpress.com/\">Alternative Press Fair\u003C/a> (where I \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/168502.html\">ran my first-ever comics stall\u003C/a>; more \u003Ca href=\"http://tozocomic.livejournal.com/55159.html\">photos and write-up from David O'Connell\u003C/a>) and \u003Ca href=\"http://www.londonzinesymposium.org.uk/\">London Zine Symposium\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\nThe other great thing about Laydeez Do Comics is getting to see all the people I vaguely know from the Internet as being potentially lovely people, but are much more comfortable chatting with when I've met them in real life. I've run into quite a few Camberwell students who took the the same course as me (MA Illustration) in the year after I'd graduated (including \u003Ca href=\"http://www.janeheinrichs.com/home.html\">Jane Heinrichs\u003C/a>). Here's Katrin L Salyers, who drew the funny picture of Hayley Campbell and me as kids (\u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/366554.html\">I blogged about it earlier here\u003C/a> and Hayley gives it a mention in \u003Ca href=\"http://hayleycampbell.com/2011/01/14/glug-glug-glug/\">her blog post about the Brisbane floods\u003C/a>).\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/katrinlsayers-ea137435ca.jpg\">\\r\n\u003Ci>Katrin L Salyers and her scanned drawing of Hayley and me\u003C/i>\\r\n\\r\nThanks again to \u003Ca href=\"http://www.sarahlightman.com/\">Sarah Lightman\u003C/a> and \u003Ca href=\"http://www.streetenillustration.com\">Nicola Streeten\u003C/a> for organising the evening! Read a \u003Ca href=\"http://thecomicsbureau.co.uk/?p=1660\">Comics Bureau interview with Nicola about Laydeez Do Comics and her work here\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Ci>Edit\u003C/i>: You can read the official event \u003Ca href=\"http://laydeezdocomics.blogspot.com/2011/01/24th-january-2011.html\">write-up by Thomas Ferrier over on the Laydeez Do Comics blog here\u003C/a>.","2011-01-25T08:02:00.000Z","laydeez-do-comics-evening",[],"laydeez do comics evening",1776628719599]