Paul Gravett amongst others, will join the Cornerhouse Cinema's panel discussion on adapting comic books to film on Saturday January 10th, 2004, 2pm - 3.30pm. The season at the art house cinema includes screenings of with the long awaited Harvey Pekar flick American Splendour at the forefront, as well as other seminal films such as Crumb and Ghostworld.

More...

Optimum Releasing in association with Down The Tubes.net and the UK Comic Festival are hosting an American Splendor Comics Competetion:

In the immortal words of Harvey Pekar: "Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff."

"The subject and star of the forthcoming movie American Splendor, Harvey is well known to comic fans the world
over for his unflinching ability to tell life how he sees it -- the Everyman's Superman, biting and snapping his way
through the daily grind, and laying it down for an audience
in thrall to his honesty."

To celebrate the UK theatrical release of the movie on January 2nd 2004, Optimum Releasing have teamed up with
online comic writers resource Down The Tubes.net and the UK Comic Festival to initiate a Comic Contest.

"The aim is simple -- Choose from the five story categories and conceive and illustrate a
six panel comic strip that lets the judges feel the pain, beauty, sadness and joy of your everyday life.
What we're looking for is the essence of UK Splendor!"

The best entry in each category will feature in a special gallery section on the American Splendor DVD release
next year from Optimum Releasing.

Want to know more?

Joey Manley, head honcho at Modern Tales, has posted the pricing plans for his next venture, Webcomics Nation, a hosting service specifically aimed at cartoonists who want to publish online. As well as the usual content management systems there's also Paypal/Bitpass revenue collection built in plus other stuff. You want something like Kochalka's American Elf? This could be for you. Discussion here.

My take on this is it looks pretty much like a comics version of the Typepad hosted blogging service which has been a big success this year, giving bloggers the power of Movable Type (the software used for this blog) without all the tedious admin of that software. Joey is offering people the power of Modern Tales for themselves, for a reasonable hosting fee. Nice touch that bandwidth is unlimited, just in case you make it big.

And yes, I was thinking of launching something similar a year or so back, but no, I'm not bitter. Honest. No, really.

It's always nice when you open a newspaper magazine supplement and see people you know in there, and it's nicer still when it's the We Love Each Other feature.

Photo follows (if anyone can actually scan it please do so!)

BugPowder has always had a soft spot for the Balkan comics scene and I see no reason to stop. TCJ Dirk points to -+-=+, a collective of 'authorial comics' out of Serbia. Very nice indeed.

The Cave of Comic Queens

Saturday 6 December 2003

Shakespeare Youth Club, 95 Shakespeare Street (off Maryhill Road) Glasgow
G20 8LE

Free entry - see below for opening hours

Ladyfest Manchester and Ladyfest Bristol joined forces to curate a women's
comic art exhibit which is now heading north to Frock On's festive event,
for one day only. There's never been an exhibition of this kind in this
country before.

Confirmed artists include:
Andrice Arp - Alison Bechdel - Carrie McNiche - Charise Mericle - Dame
Darcy - Debbie Drechsler - Debra Boyask - Ellen Exacto - Ellen Linder -
Gabrielle Bell - Janelle - Kate Charlesworth - Kelley Seda - Kelli Nelson
- Laura Weinstein - Lee Gough - Mari Schaal - Megan Kelso - Robyn Chapman
- Min Ahn - Sandra Lundy - Christine Norrie - Farida Laan - Dorothy
Gambrell - Carol Swain - Barbara Stok - Donna Barr - Sandra de Haan -
Ariel Schrag - Maaike Hartjes - Jennifer Camper - Anna Rubins - Karen
Rubins - Jeremy Dennis - Rachael House - Tanya Meditzky - Laura Watton

As Frock On is running lady-only workshops during the day, the exhibition
is only open from 10:30-6pm to women, but all genders are welcome from
6-7pm, and for the evening event which kicks off at 8pm. The party goes on
into the night with bands, mistletoe and a snow queen competition where
everybody wins. Get details of everything going on at frockon.org

Just came across this whilst surfing, it runs until the 24th of December.

Smiffy, Fatty, Spotty, Wilfrid, Plug and the rest of the gang (Who can name the missing four?)* will be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their creation by Leo Baxendale at an exhibition at The Cartoon Art Trust Museum. Joining them will be Minnie the Minx - “a girl of boundless ambition’ – as Baxendale describes her - and Little Plum.

The Cartoon Art Trust
7 The Brunswick Centre
Bernard Street
London WC1N 1AF
Please phone 020 7278 7172 for details.

Click here for website.

Further research led me to Baxendale's site and the following additional dates that the exhibition is moving onto:

Gateshead Library Gallery - 9th. Jan to 21st. Feb 04.

Kettering Alfred East Gallery - 28th. Feb to 27th. March 04.

Ballymena, Northern Ireland - 20th. April to 26th. June 04.

Hartlepool - July & August 04.

Stroud - September 04.

All the drawings in the exhibition are by Leo Baxendale - with one exception. Minnie the Minx decided to right a wrong in history by awarding a posthumous Nobel Prize to Rosalind Franklin. Jacky Fleming has made a drawing to record this historic occasion.

Apologies if it's old news, I did run a search on the blog.