The godfather of the British alternative comic boom - Bryan Talbot

The success of the series saw Talbot working in the more traditional superhero area of comics – drawing for Batman, British writer Neil Gaiman’s classic Sandman series and 2000 AD’s legendary Judge Dredd.

His 1994 story of the after effects of child sex abuse, The Tale Of One Bad Rat, which featured an eye-catching Beatrix Potter-inspired cover, earned Talbot a slew of awards from the comics industry, including the much-coveted Eisner Award.

But it was his imaginative 2007 psychogeographic tale of his hometown Alice In Sunderland which really took the comic industry by storm – combining the history of Sunderland with the city’s connections to Charles Dodgson, better known as Alice In Wonderland creator Lewis Carroll.

The book went on to inspire similar books in Bristol and Brighton – with Talbot providing the foreword to 2013’s collection of local history and folklore Brighton: The Graphic Novel published by Queenspark Books.

The 328-page Alice In Sunderland was a real labour of love for Talbot.

“It was a very hard sell,” he says. “I couldn’t really point to anything else and say ‘It’s like this’. I had to do it all and find a publisher when they could actually see it.”

The publication has led to the phenomenon of Alice tourism in Sunderland with people coming to the city to find out more about the stories the book covers - encompassing everything from the Lambton Worm to the final minutes of Sid James’s life on stage at the Sunderland Empire.

Talbot is making his own permanent mark on the city’s new £11.8 million public square, which is currently under construction. The Keel Line is a graphic version of Sunderland’s history in a 260m-long comic strip sandblasted into the granite of the square.

Following Alice In Sunderland Talbot’s focus has been on his new graphic detective story Grandville. He has just finished the fourth volume, which is due for release in November.

“I was looking at a book by Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard Grandville, a big influence on John Tenniel who illustrated the Alice books,” says Talbot.

“He used to sign himself as JJ Grandville and used to draw these anthropomorphic pictures. “I thought Grandville could be the nickname for the biggest city in the world – I didn’t have a story in mind, but I fancied writing a detective story.

“It was one of those rare occasions where everything came together very quickly. I sat down and did the script in six days – it was like taking dictation. Usually I spend a lot of time doing thumbnails and rough sketches, but with Grandville I could see the big story and got it all out.

“With Alice taking more than five years I wanted to do something very quickly.”

Following Alice he also embarked on two six-week projects, The Naked Artist, based on recollections of comic creators behaving badly, and an abstract experimental 64-page book called Metronome released under the pseudonym Veronique Tanaka - named one of the ten best graphic novels of 2008 by New York Magazine.

“Metronome was a completely different style, it didn’t look anything like my work,” says Talbot. “It’s like existential manga. I had it in mind for 15 or 16 years. It’s in 4/4 time – all the panels are in sequence from one to four.”

Although his work is now being animated, and digital technology is gaining ground in the comic world, he still has a love for the book form.

“I must admit comics look good on a computer screen or laptop, but I like bright, strong colours,” he says. “I take time to make the Grandville books nice artefacts.”

And the UK is finally catching up to their appeal – with the British Library hosting Comics Unmasked, a retrospective British comics exhibition, this summer.

“Over the last 30 years the number of graphic novels has been gradually increasing,” says Talbot. “There’s now such a range being published you can’t read them all. It’s the fastest growing area of book publishing for the last six years.

“There is such a range of graphic novels around from abstract to photo-realistic – with enough material to sustain a boom.”

Suffragette: Bryan and Mary Talbot
Charleston, Firle, near Lewes, Sunday, September 28

About 12 or 15 years ago it was rare to see graphic novels sections in libraries and book shops. Now each major literary festival has a graphic novel section – we get invited more to literary festivals than comic conventions now.”

So says Bryan Talbot, arguably the godfather of the British alternative comic boom. Alongside wife Mary, he was the first UK graphic novelist to win a major literary award, in 2012 – the same breakthrough achieved in the US way back in 1992 when Art Spiegelman’s stunning Holocaust comic Maus scooped the Pulitzer Prize.

Dotter Of Her Father’s Eyes is a combination of Mary’s own experiences with her James Joyce-obsessed scholar father, and the tragedy of Joyce’s own daughter Lucia, whose dreams of being a dancer in 1920s Paris ran contrary to her own supposedly liberal parents’ views.

Mary began writing the script after taking early retirement as a lecturer in language and gender.

“I realised I was freed up to explore those interests more broadly,” she says.

It was Bryan who encouraged her to use the graphic novel form as a structure for her explorations.

“She applied the academic skills she had as a lecturer to the subject matter,” says Bryan.

“It started as a piece about her relationship with her father – she later brought Joyce into it.”

Bryan provided suggestions for the script, and designed and drew the book.

“It was a part of everyday life,” he says. “We weren’t precious about the stuff we were doing.”

Mary began work on what would become Sally Heathcote: Suffragette soon after.

“She had nearly finished scripting Sally before we heard about the Costa award,” says Bryan. Dotter Of Her Father’s Eyes was one of two shortlisted graphic novels in the 2012 awards, with Days Of Bagnold Summer, by Joff Winterhart, going up against Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies in the Novel section.

“Mary started writing Sally before Dotter was published – we had no idea what effect it might have – Dotter could have just vanished without a trace.”

Having explored her own childhood, in sometimes excruciating detail, Mary was happy to put some distance between herself and her subject matter with Sally Heathcote: Suffragette, which was published in May.

“It was a lot less personal, so in that sense it was easier to write,” she says, having Suffragette: Bryan and Mary Talbot Charleston, Firle, near Lewes, Sunday, September 28 been inspired after deciding to learn more about the Women’s Movement in the Edwardian period.

At the centre of the story is Emmeline Pankhurst’s former maid Sally, a fictional working class member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), who gradually becomes radicalised within the movement, participating in terrorist acts and experiencing brutal force-feeding in prison.

“I was keen to put working class people centrestage,” says Mary. “Usually when you hear about the Suffragettes you hear about middle and upper class key figures – when the rank and file were working women. When the WSPU came into being in Manchester in 1903 most of the members were mill girls, women working in the cotton industry. They bankrolled a lot of the movement and the early Labour Party. Having Sally as a working class girl freed me up to cover more of the movement.”

The story still features some of the better-known figures demanding women’s suffrage, including the Pankhursts and Emily Davison who was killed by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby.

But it gives the full picture of the times, including the cases of Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Laurence, cruelly thrown out of the party they had helped establish, a warts-and-all account of Emmeline Pankhurst herself, and a clear picture of what life was like for the disenfranchised campaigners, belittled wherever they turned.

With Bryan focusing on other projects his main contribution to Sally Heathcote was to design layouts and draw rough versions of the pages, with illustrator Kate Charlesworth joining the team to complete the work. She helped contribute to the distinctive colour scheme of the book.

“At first both Mary and I said the only colours in the book should be the WSPU colours – purple, green and white,” says Bryan.

“When it came to it we realised there was a massive cast of women all with very similar hairdos and Edwardian clothes. It occurred to me to give Sally red hair so she would stand out – and it worked really well.

“Kate started colouring in other artwork – giving Mrs Pankhurst a purple dress, and Emmeline Pethick-Laurence brown hair so she was more recognisable. The blood and recruiting posters really stand out.”

The book uses real WSPU posters and adverts to break up the story, with Kate using the original designs.

“The Suffragists were using modern media,” says Mary. “They were very up-to-date with advertising tecniques. When Emily Davison died she had placed herself in front of the Pathe cameras.”

The pair have visited other literary festivals as well as Charleston –although whether they will create the same rumpus as they did at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August is anyone’s guess.

“As it began we had a plant in the audience shouting out ‘Votes For Women’,” laughs Bryan. “Kate is in the Loud And Proud Gay Choir, and she led them in wearing WSPU colours singing March For Women. It was a nice surprise for the audience!”

Shoreham Wordfest Graphic Novel Weekend and Mini Comic Convention Houseboat Fische, Shoreham, Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5

SOME of Brighton and Hove’s finest graphic novel writers and illustrators are descending on Shoreham next weekend to share the secrets of their craft.

Jimmy Pearson, author of Cogs And Claws and The Art Of War will be hosting the first of two weekend workshops on Saturday, October 4, with Nye Wright, writer of the biographical comic Things To Do In A Retirement Home Trailer Park..., and Naming Monsters creator Hannah Eaton returning on Sunday, October 5. Both workshops start at noon.

Tim Pilcher, editor of Brighton The Graphic Novel, will be leading two further talks, introducing his own tale of the 1980s British Invasion Comic Book Babylon on Saturday, October 4, from 6pm, and hosting a panel discussing Brighton The Graphic Novel with some of its contributors on Sunday, October 5, from 5pm, followed by a visit from author Robert Rankin at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £10/8.