A Jonathan Cape Graphic Novel Evening

Our third annual event celebrating the art of the graphic story from Jonathan Cape brings together debut novelists and world-acclaimed writers and artists.

18:00-18:30 Mary and Bryan Talbot

Sally Heathcote: Suffragette is a gripping inside story of the campaign for votes for women and the latest collaboration from Costa Award winners, Mary and Bryan Talbot. They discuss the role of the graphic novel in educating and bringing history to life.

19:10-19:40 Graphic Novel Debuts

Isabel Greenberg and Fumio Obata talk about and show pages from their debut graphic novels. Greenberg's first full length book The Encyclopaedia of Early Earth is a story of storytellers and true love. Obata's Just So Happens is a powerful but delicate exploration of outsiders and the meaning of 'home'.

19:40-20:10 Nick Hayes' Woody Guthrie

Nick Hayes created a stunning visual language for the critically acclaimed The Rime of the Modern Mariner, an updating of Coleridge's famous poem. Hayes now introduces his visual biography of the singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie and talks about bringing a legend to life on the page.

20:30-21:00 Steve Bell

Steve Bell is the award winning political cartoonist known for his left-wing views and excellent, grotesque and sometimes controversial caricatures. He talks about his work and the art of parody, pastiche and satire.

Speaker biographies:

Bryan Talbot was born in 1952. He has worked on underground comics, science fiction and superhero stories such as Judge Dredd and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. His books include Alice in Sunderland, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes (with Mary Talbot), the first graphic novel to win the Costa biography award, and Grandville, Grandville Mon Amour and Grandville Bête Noire.

Mary Talbot is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. Her recent books include Language and Gender (2nd edition) and Media Discourse: Representation and Interaction, though she continues to be best known for her critical investigation of the 'synthetic sisterhood' offered by teen magazines. Dr Talbot has worked in higher education for over twenty-five years and Dotter of her Father's Eyes was the first work she undertook in the graphic novel format.

Isabel Greenberg is a London-based illustrator and writer. She studied illustration at the University of Brighton. She won the Cape/Comica/Observer Graphic Short Story Prize in 2011 with 'Love in a Very Cold Climate', which forms the prologue to The Enyclopedia of Early Earth.

Born in Tokyo, Fumio Obata moved to Britain in 1991. He studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art and obtained a masters from the Royal College of Art. In 2008 he was an artist in residence at Angoulême.

Steve Bell was born in 1951 in Walthamstow in East London. His original strip cartoon, Maggie's Farm, appeared in Time Out and City Limits magazines from 1979 until 1987 and, since 1981 he has written and drawn the daily If... strip in the Guardian. In addition, since 1990 he has produced four large free-standing cartoons a week on the leader pages. He has won numerous awards, including the Political Cartoon Society Cartoon of the Year Award in 2001 and 2008, Cartoonist of the Year in 2005 and 2007, the British Press Awards Cartoonist of the Year in 2002, and the Cartoon Arts Trust Award eight times. His work has been published and exhibited all over the world, and he has had several retrospective exhibitions of his artwork across the UK. He is a trustee of the Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury, which opened to the public in February 2006.

Ticket prices: £10.00 full / £9.00 concessions. This event is followed by a book signing.

Image credit: Isabel Greenberg

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