Comic creators Eric Shanower and Mike Carey Talk Greek at Nottingham University

Promotional art for Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze

Promotional art for Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze

We’ve just got word that comic creators Eric Shanower and Mike Carey will be contributing to Nottingham University’s conference, Sacrificing Iphigenia through the Ages, next Friday-Saturday (29th-30th January).

The interdisciplinary conference is on representations of the myth of Iphigenia in a variety of media through the ages. There will also be a paper on comics representations of the sacrifice by George Kovacs of Trent University, Canada. After the conference, on Sunday 31st January (1.30-3.30p.m.), Eric Shanower, creator of the Age of Bronze series, will be giving a workshop on creating comics based on Greek mythology at Nottingham Lakeside Arts.

The story of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, as told by the ancient tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides, has been repeatedly retold over the centuries. This international, interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars and practitioners to explore some of these retellings in a range of media: theatre, opera, cinema, television, radio, poetry, fiction, comics.

Mike Carey is a British writer whose work spans comics, novels, film scripts, and TV shows. After writing shorts for British sci-fi comic 2000AD and a few one-shots for Caliber Comics during the 1990s, he was offered DC/Vertigo’s Lucifer — henceforth the longest running and most successful Sandman-related spinoff to date. While continuing to work with DC on Vertigo series like Crossing Midnight and graphic novels like God Save The Queen, he took over as lead writer for Marvel’s X-Men (now X-Men: Legacy) in 2006. His work includes DC/Vertigo’s Hellblazer, Marvel’s Ultimate Fantastic Four, the Felix Castor novels, The Steel Seraglio (with Linda and Louise Carey), and DC/Vertigo’s The Unwritten (with Peter Gross).

Eric Shanower is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling cartoonist, author, and illustrator. His work has been widely published – from Marvel Comics to Random House, from Nickelodeon Magazine to BBC television. His current comics project, Age of Bronze, tells the complete story of the Trojan War in all its dramatic detail and has been published by Image Comics since 1998, garnering two Eisner Awards, a Gran Guinigi, and a slew of nominations.  In addition to English, it has been published in Spanish, French, Polish, Italian, Croatian, and Indonesian.

Every version from Homer’s Iliad on down will be newly integrated in comics form when it’s finished. The project is also set in the correct period – the 13th century BCE.

For an additional fee (£5 or £3 concessions per person) delegates can attend a rare screening of the 1990 BBC production of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis.

Both the conference and screening are held under the auspices of the Centre for Ancient Drama and its Reception (CADRE). The conference will take place on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday; there is the option to attend both days or one only. Concessionary rates apply for students, the unwaged and pensioners (please be prepared to provide evidence of your status on arrival).

Conference programme

Friday 29th January

13.00-15.00 Contemporary theatre productions/adaptations
· Mary-Kay Gamel (UCSC): A US West Coast Iphigenia
· Magdalena Zira (Fantastico Theatro): Coming of age at Aulis: the young women in Euripides’ IA
· Robert Icke (Almeida Theatre): Oresteia 2015 (video-interview exclusive to conference)

15.00-15.30 Coffee

15.30-18.00 Poetry & Keynote
· Lynn Kozak & Miranda Hickman (McGill): Graven Images, Wounds of Knowledge: H.D.’s Translation of the Iphigenia in Aulis in the context of the First World War
· Edith Hall (KCL): ‘Iphigenia and atheistic thought from Lucretius to the 21st century

18.00-19.00 Dinner in Pavilion Café (own expense)

19.00-22.30 Screening (open to members of the public)
· Iphigenia at Aulis (dir. Don Taylor), BBC2 1990
· post-screening discussion/pop-up exhibition of theatre & television memorabilia

Saturday 30th January

9.30-11.00 Fantasy
· Amanda Potter (OU) & Tania Evans (NUA): Return to Troy: David Benioff brings Iphigenia to Westeros
· Mike Carey (novelist): Short-story reading: ‘Iphigenia in Aulis’ + Q&A

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-13.00 Visual Culture
· Lindsey Annable (Nottingham): Representations of the sacrifice of Iphigenia in the visual culture of the ancient world
· George Kovacs (Trent): Graphic sacrifice: Iphigenia in comics

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.00 Eric Shanower (graphic novelist): Age of Bronze

15.00-15.30 Film
· Anastasia Bakogianni (ICS): Dying for Hellas: Michael Cacoyannis’ Iphigenia (1977)

15.30-16.30 Coffee

16.00-18.30 Early modern theatre and opera
· Alison Findlay (Lancaster) and Emma Rucastle (The Rose Company): Re-producing Lady Jane Lumley’s The Tragedie of Euripides called Iphigeneia (ca.1555)
· Susanna Phillippo (Newcastle): Iphigenia reconciled? Aulis recalled by Agamemnon’s children in early modern adaptations of Iphigenia in Tauris
· Sarah Hibberd (Nottingham): Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide at the Paris Opéra (1774)

• Full information on the conference here. The rate for Friday afternoon (Full £15/Concession £10) includes refreshments. The rate for Saturday (Full £25/Concession £20) includes lunch and refreshments. The Concessionary Rate is available to students, the unwaged and pensioners (please be prepared to show evidence of your status on arrival).

To register for the conference, click here  or e-mail cadre@nottingham.ac.uk for further information. To register for the workshop click here. The workshop is free



Categories: Comics Education News, Comics Studies, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, US Comics

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Discover more from downthetubes.net

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading