Review by JY Saville, occasional writer of graphic novels, http://thousandmonkeys.wordpress.com/
Bryan Talbot’s first words to the audience were a correction to a subtle but important misnomer in the introduction: graphic novels aren’t a genre, they’re a medium.
He was very polite about it and it barely held up proceedings, but the misunderstanding of what graphic novels are, and are capable of, was a recurring theme of the subsequent discussion.
Bryan Talbot is one of Britain’s best-known graphic novelists and has been on the scene since the 1970s, starting with underground comics alongside – as he told us today – illustration work for British Aerospace and Lancashire County Council to bring in some money.
His wife Mary is a retired academic who began collaborating on graphic novels with him a few years ago. Their relaxed discussion ranged over the role of graphic novels in promoting literacy, the nuts and bolts of collaborative work, Bryan’s early career, and of course their latest joint work Sally Heathcote: Suffragette.
Having the pages of Sally Heathcote: Suffragette playing as a slideshow backdrop was a nice touch. As well as allowing the audience to get a feel for the style and content, it also meant that Bryan and Mary could point out various features of the book as they appeared, such as the deliberate use of limited colour in what was originally intended as a monochrome work.
The colouring and detailed artwork was actually done by Kate Charlesworth, who wasn’t available for today’s event, but the script was written by Mary Talbot, with Bryan providing the initial pencilling and layout.
It was fascinating to hear how Mary had approached writing the script in a similar way to her previous (academic) writing, with meticulous research which both Bryan and Kate continued to ensure their depiction of accurate visuals, from architecture and dress to railway posters and newspapers.
The book in fact has a section of endnotes as though it was a history textbook, though it’s actually an account of the women’s suffrage movement told through the interactions of fictional character Sally Heathcote with real historical figures such as the Pankhursts.
For most of the hour the Talbots were on stage the floor was open to questions, and though a show of hands early on suggested between a third and half of the audience were already readers of graphic novels, it was clear that some still thought it was all about comics for kids (or nerdy young men).
Perhaps it’s the term ‘graphic novel’, which apart from anything else suggests fiction, but it must be frustrating for winners of the Costa Biography Award (in 2012, for their previous graphic novel collaboration Dotter of her Father’s Eyes) to still be fielding questions which make it seem like presenting a historical novel for adults in this heavily-illustrated manner is a quaint adventure.
Interestingly, Bryan told us that despite having almost identical populations (around 64 million), only 2 or 3 million graphic novels are sold in the UK in a year whereas for France you can add about 40 million to that figure.
I would have added one or two to the UK sales figure today but (and it may be that I was just being unobservant), I couldn’t spot any of Bryan Talbot’s books on sale at the book table in the Playhouse.
Today’s event should have illustrated sufficiently that graphic novels aren’t the niche ‘genre’ that many people still think of them as, and hopefully some of the newcomers in the audience had their horizons broadened. I think maybe we need a new term for the medium, however, before Bryan and Mary Talbot can be sure of attending an event like this without their work being seen as a curiosity.
Please Spread The Pickled Eggs!