Comic Creators Metaphrog win Scottish Culture Award

By John Freeman on July 8, 2016

Janice Forsyth, radio presenter, Metaphrog’s John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs, and Janice Kirkpatrick, judge and Creative Director of Graven design studio at the Scottish Culture Awards. Photo courtesy Sunday Herald (with thanks to Metaphrog)

Congratulations this morning to Metaphrog – the Franco-Scottish duo of John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs – who tell us they are “Completely stunned” after winning The Sunday Herald Scottish Culture Awards 2016 for Best Visual Artist.

Metaphrog – who had their adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes And Other Tales released by US publisher Papercutz last year as a full colour hardback (read our review) – are busy right now on their next book, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, due for release in spring 2017 (more on that here).

Metaphrog’s Scottish Culture Award for Best Visual Artist

The Scottish Culture Awards acknowledge that Scotland is at the cutting edge of cultural talent, having enjoyed decades of success in art, music, drama and dance – and bursting with cultural events all year round, with a host of successful artists receiving recognition nationally and internationally.

The Sunday Herald decided to highlight the talent of these artists and the quality of cultural events in Scotland and this new award recognises the very best of Scottish culture, as well as the up and coming artists and groups who catch our judging panel’s eyes and ears.

Authors such as Janice Galloway and Liz Lochead were nominated as Author of the Year, while the acting categories saw nominations for the likes of James McAvoy, Kate Dickie and Alan Cumming.

“It was a fantastic evening, and great to meet some of the amazing finalist,” say the pair. “Congratulations to all the winners! A huge thank you to The Sunday Herald, to all the judges and to Janice Forsyth and Fiona Hyslop MSP.

“It was such a huge honour to be in such stellar company.”

Here at downthetubes we’re obviously delighted by this news – it’s a thoroughly deserved win for the talented pair. Our congratulations to them both.

• (Updated): There’s more about the awards, and the full list of nominees here on the Sunday Herald web site the full story on the event is here

There are more details of Metaphrog’s work on their website
There are more details of The Red Shoes And Other Tales on the Papercutz website
Metaphrog have been interviewed on downthetubes here and here and the downthetubes review of The Red Shoes And Other Tales is here
You can buy The Red Shoes and Other Tales from amazon.co.uk here

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.