Bryan Talbot Exhibition & Talk...

Bryan’s Talk on producing Graphic Novels…

Hi Guys,

Well last evening I dashed over from the studio to meet Bryan, his lovely wife Mary, Stephen Gallagher and his wife and their friends, Chris and his wife for a meal at the Continental pub/restaurant in Preston situated near to the River Ribble.

I was barely on time, as I had gone to refuel the car and had left it until the last minute working on some of the latest “Worlds End “ promotional stuff. Things are still very manic here and it was hard fitting in going along to the meal, although I had not thought twice about going along to join Bryan et al.

They very kindly waited until I arrived before ordering the meal, which was really nice of them.

The Continental is quite unassuming as you see the front of it, that is, until you turn the corner and see the actual size of the pub/restaurant. A very spacious affair with lots of separate areas, including Beer garden area and children’s play area outside it was an ideal choice to hold the talk. As well as hosting Bryan’s talk it also contains an exhibition of his comic artwork.

Following the meal we went into a conference/party/reception area to listen to Bryan’s latest talk on his production methods when working on graphic novels.

Stephen gave a great introduction to Bryan before Bryan began his talk, starting as he does with Chester P. Hackenbuch, Frank Fazackerly, and then Luther Arkwright, before progressing through his DC/Vertigo work for such like as Batman and Sandman through to his work on The Tale of One Bad Rat, which takes up a good portion of the talk.

We were also shown a terrific early stage production of a promo video of his latest work Grandville, after which Bryan opened the floor to a questions and answers session. This was followed by Bryan signing books and posters and then saw us all retiring back into the main areas near to the bar for a chat…which as always (and bringing back memories of when Bryan and Mary lived in Preston) lasted until the early hours.

Just before we finished the meal we were joined by Keith Marsland, a stalwart of the Preston SF Club, with whom I had quite a lengthy talk, both before and after the talk. It has been a while now since I last spoke with Keith, having first met him in the early nineties when attending my first SF club meeting organised by Bryan and the gang.

I also took time, whilst Bryan was signing, to look at the exhibition of his artwork in the “Snug” part of the pub, which had on display amongst others, examples from One Bad Rat, Nemesis the Warlock, Batman and Luther Arkwright. When Bryan had finished signing for everyone I asked him to sign me a new hard copy version of One Bad Rat, my own paperback version, being lent out some time ago and not being returned.

I also met some other friends of Bryan and Mary and spent a good potion of the later evening speaking to James Brunton, the creator of the Luther Arkwright Role Playing Board game and owner of 23rd Parallel, which proved to be very enjoyable also.

Knowing Bryan had asked several times about how the “Worlds End” graphic novel was progressing, I decided to take it along to show him and see what he thought. I was very pleased to hear his views on the pencils and also the thoughts of the others who took the time out to check out the pages and some of the colour work too.

It was a very enjoyable evening and to my surprise upon retuning to the car saw it was iced up under a starlit sky. Luckily I had some remnants of de-icer in the car and was able to clear the car pretty quickly, before heading off home, where I returned to the drawing board for a short while before retiring to bed…something I have almost forgotten how to do…

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
March 29th 2009