-
women in comics at Thought Bubble
At Thought Bubble in Leeds last weekend there was a Women in Comics panel, which has been a regular feature of the event since the festival started five years ago. It was one of the panels I was very much looking forward to seeing, and guessing it would be a popular event I decided to get on line early. By the time the doors opened there was a huge queue making its way back almost to the door of the hall itself. While I didn’t attend every panel at Thought Bubble it was the longest line for a panel I saw that weekend. The line-up, from left to right is,…
-
Nelson reflects the scene
Last weekend I was in Leeds for the Thought Bubble Sequential Art Festival, a mecca for comic book artists and writers in the UK and Ireland – with a number of well-known Americans attending as well. The event was extremely well-run with a friendly atmosphere. The range of talent on display was quite staggering, and after a while a certain level of guilt kicked in because it was impossible to support everyone. I did my best to visit as many stands as possible, spread around my cash and buy work that really caught my attention. I was lucky to know a few people at the event, and I quickly met…
-
women in comics in UK/Ireland – overview
There are occasions when perhaps it’s best not to promise a blog post on a subject. Regular readers might remember that in January I commented upon the utter lack of women comic book guests at the forthcoming Kapow! comic book convention in London. This was followed by an entry in which I posted a number of women artists/writers working in the field in the UK (and Ireland), with a promise to put together a much more detailed listing of women working in the field. The follow-up post has been a long time coming because: There are loads of women working in comics in the UK and Ireland People might remember…
-
women in comics in UK/Ireland – redux
The promised follow-up to the British women in comics blog post in January. I’ve written an overview of this entry also. A list of female writers and artists (colourists, inkers, pencilers, etc.) who work in sequential storytelling in the UK and Ireland. I’ve created a permanent page for this list on my web site – it’s linked on the sidebar. This post will no longer be updated. All further updates will be on the page. Update: for a comprehensive overview of the history of women who have worked in the comic book industry in the UK read The Inking Woman, edited by Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate, published by Myriad.…
-
An old ploy from a new trick
Last week a new film development process called Amazon Studios was announced, which Amazon is touting as the cool, modern way to make movies: Movies have been developed pretty much the same way since talkies were considered cutting-edge. But here at Amazon Studios, we believe 21st-century technology creates opportunities to make and share movies and scripts more easily than ever. We invite you to: Win money. Amazon Studios will award a combined $2.7 million in our first year’s worth of monthly and annual contests for the best scripts and movies. There is no charge to participate. Learn more. Get noticed. Your work will be shared with a global community of…
-
contribution by women in recent horror anthologies
On the Black Static web site today regular columnist Peter Tennant has analysed the contribution by women to horror anthologies over the past year. I thought it might be instructive to look at how women writers are represented in the current crop of anthologies, using the thirteen anthologies I reviewed in #19, Lovecraft Unbound from #18, and three others that are waiting in the TBR pile (Haunted Legends edited by Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas, End of the Line edited by Jonathan Oliver and More Stories from The Twilight Zone edited by Carol Serling). Of course, this is too sparse a sampling to draw any hard and fast conclusions, and…
-
MasterMonica
As much as the craze for reality TV shows sometimes annoys me there are a few I enjoy. Generally, they are ones where contestants have to prove their skills under pressure and exercise some level of creativity. I am a sucker for the MasterChef series, started by the BBC, and now much-franchised. Currently the BBC is running MasterChef: The Professionals, in which Professional Chefs have to impress Michel Roux Jr., a respected Michelin-star chef, and Gregg Wallace, a food expert – especially of puddings. In the early rounds of the show the chefs are given a basic skill test watched over by Gregg and Monica Galetti, Roux’s sous chef at…
-
women in horror: a summary of recent posts
It’s time for a summary of the reaction across the Internet to my recent posts about the lack of representation of women in the SFX horror edition. As I mentioned last week David Barnett at the The Guardian blog brought up the issue immediately, and by the end of the week UK Feminist web site The F Word was running with the story. Once I posted editor Ian Berriman’s reply to my query, the response in the comments, on Internet articles and to me personally has been anger and frustration at the lack of knowledge displayed about women’s participation in the horror industry. As Cheryl Morgan put it, it was…
-
SFX responds: a long post
After a prompt from a friend I wrote to SFX on Sunday regarding my concerns about its Horror edition. Here is my email: To whom it may concern, I purchased the horror edition of SFX magazine at the weekend since I’m a fan of horror literature and media, and also write in the genre. I was surprised at the lack of representation of women in the articles in the magazine. In particular I was stunned by the “Horror’s Hidden Treasures” piece. You found the time to query 34 men for their opinions, but neglected to ask even one woman to recommend an under-rated gem in the horror field. Can you…
-
Horror wants women to scream, but not talk
This weekend the British Fantasy Society (BFS) is hosting its annual convention, Fantasy Con. Last night while on Facebook I noticed a news item, which constitutes an electronic “flyer”, about the convention. I immediately noticed the cover of a new book the BFS is launching at the convention: a collection of interviews with writers (the first in a trilogy) in which they discuss their genre. It’s called In Conversation: A Writer’s Perspective. Volume One: Horror. It’s edited by James Cooper, and is composed of 16 interviews with horror authors Ramsey Campbell, Tom Piccirilli, Greg F. Gifune, Conrad Williams, Joe R. Lansdale, Gary McMahon, Brian Keene, Stephen Gallagher, Jeffrey Thomas, Peter…
