Festival Time In Edinburgh

By John Freeman on August 13, 2008

As the Edinburgh Festivals kick into full swing for August 2008, there are several UK comics related items worth mentioning.

After gingerly dipping their toes into the flood of graphic novels last year, the Edinburgh International Book Festival have made graphic novels a much larger part of their programming for this year. On Thursday 14 August comics historian Paul Gravett, artist Robert Deas and publisher Emma Hayley will be discussing Manga Shakespeare, while the next day the newest Dan Dare artist, Gary Erskine, will be discussing his work in Want To Draw Comics? On Tuesday 19th artist and designer Dave McKean will be talking about his work while on Friday 22nd writer and artist Bryan Talbot will be giving a Masterclass on creating graphic novels beginning at 11am. Later the same day Bryan will discussing graphic novels with writer Alan Grant and writer/artist Hannah Berry. Posy Simmonds will be talking about her work on Sunday 24th while artist Barrie Appleby will be talking on Monday 25th about his work on The Beano.

Bryan Talbot’s Masterclass and the Dave McKean, Gary Erskine and Barrie Appleby talks are already sold out which should bode well for similar comics and graphic novels programming being included in next year’s Festival. Details of the events can be found on the BookFest website.

Meanwhile at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival another Beano artist, Kev F Sutherland, will be giving two helping hands to the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre. They will be at the Gilded Balloon until 24th August and details can be found at the Gilded Balloon website.

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.