[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-sketches-from-last-nights-talk":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/nana_li-32fed948ff.gif\">\\r\nLast night I went to hear a talk, 'How to Make Comics' at the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.londonprintstudio.org.uk\">London Print Studio\u003C/a>, organised by Jane Goodsir and John Phillips, and moderated by \u003Ca href=\"http://www.paulgravett.com\">Paul Gravett\u003C/a> as part of the ongoing \u003Ca href=\"http://www.comicafestival.com/index.php/events/detail/comixmas1/\">Comica\u003C/a> events. \\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/pat_mills-d508a98547.gif\"> \u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/danusia_schejbal-5003d196e3.gif\">\\r\n\\r\nA full crowd showed up to listen to 'the godfather of British comics' \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Mills\">Pat Mills\u003C/a>, manga artist \u003Ca href=\"http://nanarealm.com/\">Nana Li\u003C/a>, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.myriadeditions.com/Rumble%20Strip\">\u003Ci>Rumble Strip\u003C/i>\u003C/a> and the DFC's \u003Ci>Donny Digits\u003C/i> creator \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Phoenix\">Woodrow Phoenix\u003C/a>, and the husband-wife team of painter \u003Ca href=\"http://www.danusiaschejbal.com\">Danusia Schejbal\u003C/a> and Royal College of Art professor \u003Ca href=\"http://www.rca.ac.uk/Default.aspx?ContentID=503208\">Andrzej Klimowski\u003C/a>.\\r\n\u003C!--more More under the cut-->\\r\nI was excited to see Nana because I keep running into her at comic conventions while she's hanging out with the Sweatdrop Studio people, and I never get to have a proper chat with her; so we did some catching up before the event started. Here's a photo of Nana with Swedish manga artist \u003Ca href=\"http://www.asaekstrom.com/Webbplats_3/Asa_Ekstrom.html\">Asa Ekström\u003C/a>. Nana grew up in Sweden and speaks Swedish, even though she was born in China. We compared notes on some of our favourite children's books, including the Moomins, Pippi Longstockings and the \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pettson_and_Findus\">Pettson and Findus\u003Ca> books by \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Nordqvist\">Sven Nordqvist\u003C/a>. Nana's currently working on the graphic novel \u003Ci>Second Sky\u003C/i> with writer \u003Ca href=\"http://tellnolies.com/\">Fehed Said\u003C/a>.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/asa_nana-812114124b.jpg\"> \u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/andrej_danusia-6b61aa8a54.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nThe second photo shows Andrzej and Danusia. I'm really looking forward to their upcoming book together, an autobiographical account of how they met while studying graphic design in Poland between 1974-81, featuring city landscapes that have changed so utterly since the fall of communism. Their last book together was a brave attempt at tackling one of the most popular novels in Russia, \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita\">\u003Ci>The Master and Margarita\u003C/i>\u003C/a>. \u003Cb>I would love to see loads of different comics artist try their hand at each interpreting a chapter of this book.\u003C/b> I'd be fascinated to see people giving full attention to single chapter stories in it, and I think the whole book is almost too mammoth a task for anyone. Going to the talk last night made me dig up my copy and start rereading it:\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/masmargarita-96a9611156.jpg\" width=\"100\"> \\r\nI absolutely loved this book, and Mags, my flatmate in Moscow loved it almost to the point of obsession. (When Mags likes something, she \u003Ci>really\u003C/i> likes it. She saw the opera \u003Ci>Evgeny Onegin\u003C/i> eleven times while we were there.) When Stuart and I went to stay with her last Christmas, we watched episodes from the 8.5-hour \u003Ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403783/\">film version\u003C/a> from 2005, directed by \u003Cb>Vladimir Bortko\u003C/b>, and it was brilliant. I can't get the scenes out of my head of Margarita in her torturous outfit at Satan's Ball, the vampire in the toilet, and Margarita and her maid flying on her broom and a pig over Moscow. Lots of directors tried to take on this entire book and failed for various reasons, and the story grew legendary in its reputation for being impossible to film. So when Bortko finished his film, and did it magnificently, Russians were absolutely thrilled. I don't know why we can't buy the DVD in Britain, but it's possible to get it from some \u003Ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-DVD-ENGLISH-SUBTITLES/dp/B000EANSXM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1264167199&sr=8-1\">sellers\u003C/a> on Amazon.com. \\r\n\\r\nHere are a few photos from Moscow in 1998, when my friend Laura and I went inside the stairwell at the apartment of the author, Mikhail Bulgakov, and drew the book's cat on the wall. (In oil pastels!)\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/bulgakovflat-bac94394da.jpg\">\\r\n That stairwell has a great history of graffiti, and I just found a fascinating \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgakov_museum_in_Moscow\">article about it on Wikipedia\u003C/a>.","2010-01-22T14:58:00.000Z","sketches-from-last-nights-talk",[],"sketches from last night's talk",1776628733911]