London's Century Club Hosts Comica With Paul Gravett Again For 2024

Article Summary

• Comica 2024 returns to London's Century Club, featuring graphic novel luminaries.
• Engaging panels discuss adapting comics to screen with creators like Luke Pearson.
• "Tomorrow’s Voices Today" focuses on diversity and representation in UK comics.
• Insights into debuting a graphic novel, with tips from industry trailblazers.

• Luke Pearson's first Hilda graphic novel, Hildafolk, was released in 2010 and reissued in 2013 as Hilda and the Troll. The award-winning series now comprises six books which have found a place in the hearts of readers all around the world. Between 2018 and 2023 the books were adapted into a BAFTA and Emmy award-winning Netflix series directed by Andy Coyle, with Hilda voiced by Bella Ramsey. This November Hilda will return in the first of a brand-new comic series for younger readers, Hilda and Twig: Hide from the Rain.
• Since 2012 writer Peter Hogan and illustrator Steve Parkhouse have been collaborating on their down-to-earth science-fiction comic book Resident Alien (2012-) for Dark Horse USA. In 2021, the Syfy channel premiered a live-action television version, whose third season concludes this April.
• Posy Simmonds is a press cartoonist, long associated with The Guardian, a children's book author and graphic novelist. Her first book for kids, Fred, was animated as Famous Fred and nominated for an Oscar. Her graphic novels Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe were adapted into movies, both starring Gemma Arterton, directed by Anne Fontaine and Stephen Frears. All participants will be signing their books after the discussion.

• Bobby Joseph, writer, publisher and the first UK Comics Laureate of colour, invites four up-and-coming creators from the Black and Asian community to discuss their work and the challenges that people of diversity face in the industry.
• Colleen Douglas is a comics writer and/or editor for Ahoy, Amigo, Caliber, Rosarium, Second Sight and others. She is Collection Editor on the history-making SHOOK! Vol. 2, a horror anthology by Black Women, and writer of the graphic novel Silk Cotton.
• Shangomola Edunjobi won the Embassy of Japan, London's Manga Jiman Competition in 2017 and the Silver Award in Japan's International Manga Awards in 2018. He was Curator of Tone for The British Museum's 'Manga' exhibition in 2019 and head illustrator for the Science Museum's Technicians Gallery in 2023.
• Shazleen Khan has been self-publishing comics since 2011, including their award-winning webcomic Buuza!!. Khan has also illustrated the graphic novel Saving Sunshine written by Saadia Faruqi (2023, First Second) and the forthcoming My First Monster written by Cecil Castellucci.
• Shanti Rai's debut graphic novel was the acclaimed Sennen from Avery Hill Publishing. She is a Bengali/British illustrator and graphic novelist from London, creating comics and fantasy worlds since 1994. All participants will be signing their books after the discussion.

It seems lots of people in the UK have a graphic novel in them. As proof, no less than 185 people entered this year's First Graphic Novel Award. So why are comics their medium of choice? How do you decide what subjects you share and what approach you take? And how do you grapple with realising your first book-length comic from idea to publication? Woodrow Phoenix, graphic novelist of Rumble Strip, She Lives, Donny Digits and others and also a tutor in comics, talks with three cartoonists about their experiences of creating their brilliant solo debuts.

• Carol Adlam is a World Illustration Award winner with a PhD in Russian. The Russian Detective (Jonathan Cape) is her stunning reimagining of a nineteenth-century crime thriller from the world of Dostoevsky. Meet Charlie Fox, stunt journalist, magician, liar and thief, who returns to her hometown of Nowheregrad to investigate the murder of Elena Ruslanova, daughter of a fabulously wealthy glass manufacturer.
• Denise Dorrance is an American-born illustrator based in London, whose satirical 'It's All About Mimi' cartoons ran in The Mail on Sunday's You magazine. In Polar Vortex (New River), she tells her poignant, stirring graphic memoir—both heartbreaking and darkly funny—about traveling home to care for her ageing mother who is suffering from dementia.
• Leo Fox is an artist and cartoonist from London, where he is studying at The Slade School of Fine Art and makes work about transness and magic. His graphic novels include My Body Unspooling (Silver Sprocket), in which Lucille and his body are constantly at odds and it's time to ask God for a divorce, and the tale of Lucille, who realises it's time to leave behind both home and mother on Girl Island and begin the journey to Boy Island (Silver Sprocket, August 2024). All participants will be signing their books after the discussion.