An extract from The Archivist by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey
Ian Cooke, Head of Contemporary British Publications at the British Library, has outlined a little more about the “Digital Conversations” event downthetubes has partnered with at the Library on Wednesday 18th April 2018.
A panel on archiving digital comics will be chaired by myself, John Freeman, with comic creators Kate Ashwin, Yomi Ayeni, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Bryan Talbot on hand to talk about the challenges both creating and preserving digital strips, and what all this may mean for creators in terms of their rights as originators.
Ian is keen for creators to come along to venture off the printed page, into multimedia and new narrative forms.
Ian Cooke, Head of the British Library’s Contemporary British Publications
“Over the past year, our Contemporary British Collections team have been busy exploring how comics are created and distributed in the 21st century,” he notes in a guest post for the British Library’s Digital Scholarship blog.
“Continuing this work, we have been collaborating with John Freeman and Graham Baines of British Comics website downthetubes.net to bring together an exciting panel of comics creators for our next Digital Conversation… We’ll be exploring the fortunes of comics in the online world, and looking ahead at what’s next for digital comics.
“Comics have always provided an immediate and emotionally-engaging way of telling imaginative stories. British comics creators have been at the vanguard of innovation, and this has been true also of digital comics,” Ian feels.
“Join our Digital Conversation to find out how new technologies are leading to new forms of story-telling, plus what the challenges and opportunities are for building web comics collections.”
• The Digital Comics Conversation event takes place at 6.30 – 8.30pm on Wednesday 18th April 2018 in The Terrace Restaurant at the British Library | Booking details here on the British Library web site
• Ian Cooke, Head of Contemporary British Publications, is on Twitter as @IanCooke13
Widdershins by Kate Ashwin
The Panelists
Kate Ashwin has been creating internet comics since 2002 and is the creator of Widdershins, a series mixing magic, comedy and adventure, set in a fictional West Yorkshire town.
Yomi Ayeni
Yomi Ayeni creates work across different media, including film and digital projects as well as comics. His Clockwork Watch series was voted best Graphic Novel in 2015 by readers of Steampunk Chronicle.
Daniel Merlin Goodbrey is a pioneer of digital comics, experimenting with the hypercomic form and “infinite canvass” comics. Daniel’s comics, and writing about comics, can be found on e-merl.com
Bryan Talbot. Photo: Dan Phillips
Bryan Talbot is one of Britain’s best known comic artists and credited as one of the creators of the graphic novel form. His work includes The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, Alice in Sunderland and the Grandville series of steampunk detective thrillers
Web Links
You can read these blog posts about projects done by the British Libray’s PhD placement researchers
• The Proper Serious Work of Preserving Digital Comics by Jen Aggleton, a PhD candidate in Education at the University of Cambridge
• Collecting Webcomics in the UK Web Archive by Jen Aggleton
• Jen Aggleton also created a UK Web Archive collection of web comics
• 21st Century British Comics by Olivia Hicks
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.
Categories: Digital Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Events, Site Announcements
downthetubes partners with British Library for “Digital Conversation” event in April