Brighton - The Graphic Novel

Various

Description

With nearly 300 years of history, twenty eight writers and artists, and fourteen fantastical tales featuring unheralded characters and true events from the city's fascinating history, Brighton:The Graphic Novel is a unique collaborative collection. Featuring pioneering drag queens, doomed pleasure gardens, smugglers, arsonists, obsessed inventors, aspiring actors, corrupt policemen, cantankerous barbers, sea swimmers, hands of death and mysterious sea forces, the stories - complete with historical footnotes - will ensure that you never look at Brighton in the same way again... As Bryan Talbot, 2013 Costa Biography Award winner, says: "This is an original anthology of entertaining and intriguing tales, at times funny, chilling and poignant - a mixture of fact and fantasy, told in a wide and refreshing gamut of illustrative styles, but all firmly rooted in the history and culture of Brighton."

Informations

• Publié par: Queen Spark Books
• Date de parution: 10 janvier 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 6
• EAN13: 9780904733563
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 27 Mo

Extrait

BRIGHTON THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
ABOUT THIS E-BOOK
This e-edition of Brighton: The Graphic Novel was created in August 2015.
The original print edition includes annotations giving the historical background and context of the illustrated stories and, in some cases, of individual panels. In this e-book, we have been able to reverse link this information to the illustrations themselves. If you follow the link from an 'image' (double tap/click), it will take you to relevant annotations; you can then follow the link from the 'image thumbnail' back to the full size 'image' to continue reading the story.
E-book designed by Stella Cardus, Desktop Display © QueenSpark Books , 2015
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE
SEAWATER
JONAS TINDALE: NIGHTMAN
THE ANTHAEUM: EDEN BY THE SEA
OFF THE RAILS
SOJOURN BY THE SEA
BUT FOR THE GRACE OF...
SOMETHING IN THE WATER
ONE STEP INTO THE FUTURE, ONE STEP INTO THE PAST
A HELPING HAND
BESIDE THE SEASIDE
SHORT BACK AND SIDES
BRIGHTON'S ANGELS
THE ARSONIST
THE SEA SWIMMER
ANNOTATIONS
BIOGRAPHIES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
This is an exciting time for British comics. Since its conception in the 1970s, the graphic novel - that is to say, comics for adults in book format - has grown and blossomed into maturity. As a medium for storytelling, communication and education, it's at last becoming widely accepted as a legitimate art form capable of dealing with any subject and any genre.
Comics have been known as "The Ninth Art" in France since the1960s, but in the British Isles, acceptance has been extremely slow in coming. Finally, it seems, things are changing. There is now a canon of quality graphic novels of sufficient range and quantity to not only sustain but expand the interest that's been steadily growing in the general book-reading public. We've reached a stage where graphic novels are reviewed in national broadsheet newspapers, comic writers and artists are receiving literary awards - their works the subject of serious academic study - and every major literary festival boasts a graphic novel component.
When Alice in Sunderland was published in 2007, I was astounded at the amount of mainstream attention and media coverage it received. After thirty years of writing and drawing books that were generally ignored outside the comics industry and its fan base, I was suddenly being read in the wider world, often by former non-comic readers. The book did well, inspiring literacy projects, school history projects, university theses and, indeed, other graphic novels, such as The Bristol Story by Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr and, I'm proud to add, the book you now hold in your hands.
However, Brighton The Graphic Novel , is no carbon copy of Alice in Sunderland , but completely its own beast - an original anthology of entertaining and intriguing tales, at times funny, chilling and poignant - a mixture of fact and fantasy, told in a refreshing gamut of illustrative styles, but all firmly rooted in the history and culture of Brighton.
To any native of the UK, Brighton is part of all of us, part of our collective cultural consciousness - whether it's part of our inner Victorian landscape, our memories of the IRA bombing of the Conservative Party conference in 1984, the mods and rockers rumbles twenty years earlier, or its reputation as the gay capital of Britain. Whether we've encountered its psycho-geography through Graham Greene's Brighton Rock , Quadrophenia , the books of Robert Rankin or Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War , it's a fundamental part of our perception of our country. Even a born and bred Northerner like myself felt a crushing sense of loss as I watched the West Pier burning down on the TV news in 2003. Rightly does the place deserve its own graphic novel.
And this is the golden age of graphic novels. With more quality titles being produced than in any other time in the form's history, it's the fastest-growing area in book publishing today. The time is right for Brighton The Graphic Novel .
Comics can be serious. Comics can be moving. Comics can be fun.
Enjoy.

Bryan Talbot Stirling, July 2013
INTRODUCTION
Comics, historically, have always been a collaborative medium. In the earliest days there would be teams of writers and artists working together in order to meet weekly deadlines. Most British titles were inevitably anthologies, as each artist could only manage drawing a maximum of around six pages per week. In America, the teams are even bigger. In order to get a twenty two page comic out, each and every month, you need a writer, a penciller, an inker, a colourist (or is that colorist?) and a letterer. That's five people. And that's not even allowing for the editorial and production staff behind the scenes!
In recent years there's been a move towards graphic novels that have been crafted by one set of hands. The graphic auteur has come into their own of late, producing impressive, thoughtful works. But these come at a price - patience. Unfortunately, it can take one creator several years to produce a book, leading to frustration for everyone, from the creator, to the publisher, down to the reader. There's another problem with these types of graphic novel. If you don't like the artwork or the creator's writing style, then you are unlikely to pick it up. However, with an anthology, if the third story doesn't appeal, not to worry, there's another along in a couple of pages - it's rare to find an anthology where you don't like every single tale.
And it soon became apparent that Brighton has so many tales to tell us. Tales of smugglers and fishermen, of drag queens and corrupt coppers, teen gangs and pensioner barbers. All utterly unique, and all utterly Brighton. In fact, so many tales and voices, that we knew it would be impossible for one or two creators to capture it all.
We knew that Brighton The Graphic Novel would have to be an anthology. But not just any anthology. Having seen the excellent graphic novel, Nelson (in which fifty four creators tell the eponymous character's life in 1-5 pages each) we were keen for all of our stories to have some sort of interconnectivity. So, when you are reading Brighton The Graphic Novel , look out for those hidden “Easter Eggs.” Some are obvious, like the reoccurring Hand of Glory in Something in the Water and A Helping Hand, but others are much more subtle. If you spot them, it'll add a whole new dimension to the reading experience.
But collaboration isn't always easy. Invariably there can be personality clashes, miscommunication, disagreements on how to tell the story, and endless other minor grievances that can threaten to capsize a project. So it was with much trepidation that we paired up the writers with the artists we felt were best suited to their stories. Fearful of clashing egos, temper tantrums and toys being thrown out of prams, this - incredibly - never happened. There were no shouting matches, no stony, glowering silences, not even the odd curt email. Whenever there was a change required we all sat down, discussed it and worked out the best way of resolving the story problem. I can't recall working on a book that has been so mellifluous and where the teams have been so professional.
This book has been a collaborative joy, with new ideas and concepts cropping up all the time. It just needs one final collaborator to take part, you. Read and immerse yourself in the unusual history of Brighton. Thank you for taking part.
Best,

Tim Pilcher Editor
PREFACE
For forty years QueenSpark has been enabling the people of Brighton & Hove to tell their stories; variously this has meant publishing autobiographies, biographies, 'community histories' – such as recent migrant experiences, work with homeless and ex-homeless people, or latterly with Trans* people – or books around particular interests, such as cinema- or theatre-going.
All of our books are published as a result of collaboration, and most typically involve volunteers working on different aspects of the project. Thus, people new to publishing are able to learn new skills, and gain insight and experience under the guidance of professionals; QueenSpark is able to continue to produce books with a large team of people working on them; and the people of the city and beyond are able to discover more about their shared history and culture.
Around three years ago our Management Committee was discussing 'what next?', and a few of us mentioned that we had read Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland – which weaved apocryphal tales, known facts and author's flights of fancy into a wonderful fictionalised 'history' of that city. So, could we 'QueenSpark' Alice in Sunderland ? Was there a process by which we could use elements of Brighton's history in order to inspire writers and artists to create something new (and it would have to be 'new' – that is, no similar process having been attempted before – for us to receive the necessary Arts Council England funding support)? Indeed, was there the creative talent out there in the city to produce something that would do the graphic novel form justice? Generously, Bryan Talbot endorsed our application to the Arts Council, and we were soon in the process of recruiting a Lead Writer / Editor, somebody with extensive experience in the field, who could mentor people who might not have written anything for graphic novels or comics before. Tim Pilcher was signed up.
After a press campaign calling for writers, and pointing everybody who wanted to have a go towards historical research resources, we were soon inundated with submissions. Our first viewing told us that creative talent was not a problem. Instead of recruiting eight writers as initially planned, thirteen were signed up.
Subsequently, artist and creator of Robot City and The Murder Mile , Paul Collicutt, came on board to mentor the artists, and the indefatigable Dr. Geoffrey Mead was also persuaded to advise on period detail and his