Had a great time at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival launching our new graphic novel The Red Shoes and Other Tales. In fact we were so busy we completely forgot to take pictures! Jeremy Briggs was kind enough to send us photos he took throughout the weekend.
‘Shiny New Red Shoes’ launch talk chaired by Melanie Gibson
One of our three Family Zone events at the Westmorland Shopping Centre
Thanks to Melanie Gibson for being such a fantastic chairperson, to Page 45 for their support in launching the book and to the incredible festival team for making the weekend such a success and looking after everyone so well.
In other news, we are afraid that the winners of the festival’s “Draw a Ballerina” competition have been cursed: brother and sister Alec and Nicky Anderson won a copy of The Red Shoes and Other Tales graphic novel and a pair of red ballet shoes.
The prize for the ‘Draw a Ballerina’ competition
However, their mum Sofi Croft, author of YA books, sent us these pictures. It seems the shoes have come to life and her daughter can’t stop dancing.
So excited! Next week is the official launch of our new graphic novel THE RED SHOES AND OTHER TALES at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival co-launching with Page 45!
Our main talk SHINY NEW RED SHOES is on Saturday 17th at The Clock Tower and is chaired by Melanie Gibson – we’ll be signing copies afterwards. Published by Papercutz the book is a beautiful quarter-bound volume.
We are also doing 3 children’s events at the Westmorland Shopping Centre on Saturday and Sunday.
We won’t have our own table during the festival as we have so many events on, and the book will be available all weekend at the PAGE 45 table in The Clock Tower’s Georgian Room.
We’ve been looking forward to the festival for ages! There’re lots of other great talks and events, so if you’re in the area, do attend. It’s family friendly, with lots of workshops, talks and exhibition, as well as publishers and artists with tables selling their books, and if you want to see 3 talks, you get an extra ticket for free! Children’s events are free too.
Had a great time at the Islay Book Festival last weekend, where we did two events for children and families. It was enjoyable to spend time with all the other authors and see some of their talks: Vivian French (pictured here far left, with ourselves, and Violet and Jean, two of the organisers) Simon Puttock, Caroline Clough, Christopher Brookmyre, RJ Mitchell, Shirley MacKay and Andrew Crummy. We also managed to find time to explore some of the island.
Islay Book Festival was celebrating its 10th anniversary – it’s a great festival with a relaxed atmosphere, and the organisers look after the authors really well. It almost felt like a holiday!
We had a great time at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015.
Our new graphic novel, The Red Shoes and Other Tales, premiered with gold stamped exclusive advance edition copies. The book isn’t officially out until October 13th in the US and November 1st in the UK.
Gala Day, the final day of the festival is open to schools only and saw us deliver a talk to over 80 children.
The festival may be finished now but for us as Writers in Residence at the festival, it’s all just beginning: for the next few months, we’ll be working with hip-hop artist Dave Hook at a Glasgow school to help pupils create fairy tale comics.
Yesterday we gave a talk to book festival directors from around the world, about our work and also about graphic novels (including the Scottish scene).
It was part of Momentum, the Edinburgh Festivals International Delegate Programme delivered through a partnership between British Council Scotland, Festivals Edinburgh and Creative Scotland.
Also speaking were Adele Patrick and Sue John of Glasgow Women’s Library (were the event took place), Jean Cameron of Glasgow Life, Bob McDevitt, programmer of Aye Write! Glasgow’s Book Festival, and Glasgow Poet Laureate Jim Carruth, and it was great to hear about their work.
It was also fantastic to meet such an interesting group of people. Huge thanks to Emma Turnbull at Creative Scotland who invited us to speak.
All pictures courtesy of Glasgow Women’s Library Facebook page.
This year, as Patrons of Reading at Northfield Academy, we had the pleasure of working on an exciting project, organised by librarian extraordinaire Mandy Wilson.
The project involved art and science teachers, and S1 pupils were set the task of creating comics about Great Scottish Scientists. Scotland has a rich history of invention and, for a small country, a surprisingly large number of famous discoveries to its name.
Allan Burnett (author of “Invented in Scotland”) delivered a talk to inspire the pupils, who then each gathered information on a scientist, engineer or mathematician of their choice.
We then delivered sessions with groups of pupils to help them get started on researching and developing their own comic, which they later finished working with the art department.
The pupils were encouraged to use photographs as reference or even for use as part of a collage, mixed in with their own drawings.
Mandy has created this excellent film about the project.
We then selected three of the best comics which where photographed to create the three short videos below. The soundtracks were produced by S1 pupils.
The whole project was made possible thanks to the Scottish Book Trust Live Literature Fund.
We are honoured and delighted to be writers in residence for the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015. As part of the Baillie Gifford Schools Programme, we will be working in collaboration with hip-hop artist Dave Hook doing a series of workshops in Shawlands Academy in Glasgow, exploring stories, translations and fairy tales from different languages and traditions. This is an exciting celebration of storytelling in its many different forms, and we are very much looking forward to being involved. The workshops will take place after the book festival and will culminate with a celebration on Burns Night 2016.
We are also looking forward to our schools event on Sept 1st on Charlotte Square, Graphic Novel Fairy Tales with Metaphrog, for ages 9-10, which will premiere our new graphic novel The Red Shoes and Other Tales. More information can be found in our previous post: http://metaphrog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/edinburgh-international-book-festival.html
We’re thrilled to be part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival again this year and honoured to be doing an event as part of the Baillie Gifford Schools Programme. The other exciting news is that we will be premiere launching The Red Shoes and Other Tales at the festival. Limited numbers of a Special Festival Edition of the graphic novel will be available in advance of the official release date.
Graphic Novel Fairy Tales with Metaphrog is on Tuesday September 1st, 1.30-2.30pm. The event is open to children age 9-10 and the venue will hold up to 100 pupils.
The programme is packed with exciting events and fantastic authors and illustrators, including: Debbie Gliori, the festival’s Illustrator in Residence; Cathy McPhail; Nicola Morgan; Lari Don; Keith Gray; Alex T Smith; Sarah McIntyre and Philip Reeve; Barry Hutchison; Alison Murray; Vivian French and many more. Check out the full programme here: https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/learning/schools/baillie-gifford-schools-programme
Book now to be the first to hear all about The Red Shoes and Other Tales and get a Special Festival Edition of the book! There’s also a 25% discount on books ordered in advance of the festival for schools, and a £3 book voucher for all pupils attending events.
The official release date of our graphic novel The Red Shoes and Other Tales is October 13th 2015.
This month we had the pleasure of running the Comics Lab, which Scottish Book Trust and Literary Dundee were hosting. The first part was a pretty intense weekend with wall to wall talks and workshops.
From left to right: Michel Faber, ourselves, Bryan Talbot, Mary Talbot, Kate Charlesworth and John McSane
On the first day, David Bishop gave a talk on comics and how to write for them, Jonathan Cape editor Alex Bowler’s talk was on the publishing side of graphic novels, and we delivered a talk about our own work and creative approach. Later we also held a workshop looking at the nuts and bolts of the medium. On day two, we hosted a second workshop on the medium looking at how to get the best out of a page. Guests William Goldsmith and Isabel Greenberg talked about their books, Vignettes of Ystov and The Encyclopedia of Early Earth respectively, and Bryan and Mary Talbot with Kate Charlesworth talked about their collaborative work on Sally Heathcote Suffragette. Finally John McShane talked about his take on the industry and opportunities for employment possibilities. It was a privilege to have such great guest speakers. That weekend the lab ran at the same time as the annual Dundee Comics Day, in the room next door in fact, and we’d have loved to attend it but had our hands full!
Day three, a couple of weeks later, was a follow-up and feedback day, where we evaluated the participants work along with Chris Murray and Phillip Vaughan, who also gave talks about their courses at Dundee University, the Comic Studies MLitt and the Comic Art and Graphic Novels Expansive Module.
Same as above but with Caitrin Armstrong this time instead of Sandra.
Huge thanks to the Scottish Book Trust team and to Literary Dundee for organising it all and for inviting us to run the lab. Special thanks to Claire, Caitrin, Sasha, Fran, and Peggy Hughes for their kind support and to Will Mackie for help with the initial groundwork. And of course a big thank you to the participants who devoted a chunk of their time and all their attention to the lab. The work they produced for the feedback day was fantastic and we really got a discussion going on how to best improve one’s work. It was fantastic to have the chance to talk about the medium of comics all weekend with like-minded people. As a bonus to the whole event, Michel Faber, who was doing a reading from his new book, The Book of Strange New Things, at Literary Dundee, attended a couple of the talks when he learned that the lab was running.
Collection of graphic novels that was in the Comics Lab room which were donated to the university by Grant Morrison.
The Comics Lab ran in the Cam Kennedy studio at Dundee University.
We’re gearing up for a really busy autumn, now that we’ve finished our new book. September already saw us do some events at the excellent Tidelines Book Festival, and we’ll continue giving talks and delivering workshops in schools and libraries around Britain over the coming months.
We’ll also be doing several public events at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival including a talk on how we self-published over the years, two drop-in workshops for 7-10 (free), and a signing at Waterstones in Kendal. We’re very excited about “The Magic of Metaphrog”, a free exhibition which runs from October 1st until October 31st, featuring some Louis pages and also a preview of pages from our forthcoming book with Papercutz..
We’ve also been invited to speak at Helsinki’s International school and are really looking forward to spending a few days there, doing several workshops and assembly talks to the whole school.
Plus, Book Week Scotland will see us travelling around the country including a visit to Aberdeen and Northfield Academy where we are Patrons of Reading.
That should see us pretty exhausted by the time we reach the end of the year…
