More Local Heroes Events In Edinburgh

By John Freeman on April 10, 2008

The National Library of Scotland have released details of more free events to tie-in with their Local Heroes exhibition on the art of graphic novels. In addition to the events already mentioned here on downthetubes, two more talks plus two workshops have been added.

On Saturday 17 May at 10am there will be a family workshop entitled Let’s do Kamishibai! This is suitable for children of 7 and over who can make manga-style picture cards with artist Julianna Capes based on traditional Japanese stories told by Mio Shapley and Fergus McNicol, while on Friday 23 May at 2.30pm, the Metaphrog team will be running a workshop to introduce children of 8-12 years to basic design and illustration techniques.

Meanwhile, for older readers, current Dan Dare artist Gary Erskine will give an illustrated talk on his career on Tuesday 6 May at 7pm, and the season of events will conclude on Wednesday 28 May at 7pm with an illustrated talk from D C Thomson’s Managing Editor David Donaldson who has been scriptwriter for The Broons and Oor Wullie since 1962.

As ever more details of the events and the exhibition itself are available from the NLS 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.