Belfast Comics Fayre this Sunday

"The “family fun day” event is run by Avalon Arts, a collective organising workshops, alternative and craft fairs and music performances. The site is a good one: Haymarket Arcade is located at the bottom of the central Royal Avenue, about five minutes walk from City Hall. The recently converted arcade has some resonance for comics readers. It was once the route taken through to the original site of The Talisman 

(now FPI Belfast), one of Northern Ireland’s first comics shops, as well as Impulse Comics in the late nineties." - from Downthetubes.net

The Belfast Comics & Collectors Fayre is this Sunday December 9th in the Haymarket Arcade, Royal Avenue from 12-6pm.

Billed as a fun, free, family day with exhibitions of comics art, workshops, panels, talks, face painting, fancy dress and a bar. Confirmed guests at this time include:

Patrick Brown (The Cattle Raid of Cooley)

Andy Luke (Gran, Absence)

and from the South of Ireland,

Darrin O'Toole (Writer, Tales from the Void)

Eoin McAuley (Editor, Lightning Strike)

Ciaran Marcantonio (Writer, 'A Clockwork Universe' for Lightning Strike)

Daryl Cox (Artist, 'Monkey of Oz' for Lightning Strike)

And Surprise Guests!

The Stack and The (relaunched) Black Panel will both be selling, delivering British, Irish and American comics and probably more than that.

The Magnificent One Day Comic Book Factory is happening, and there will be new comics premièring in the form of Paddy Brown's Cattle Raid of Cooley #7, and Andy Luke's Kick!

The Facebook event page is here.

Very detailed coverage of the event is available on this text document.

Panto Opens, and River of Spuds

 A new comic debuting at the Arts and Disability Forum, opposite Central Library, Royal Avenue, Belfast. The work also doubles as a christmas card, and is one of a batch going on sale from today, 17th November (Launch at 2pm), to December 20th. You can also get a copy at the shop on my website shortly.

From the production company for Ulster indy film sensation Potato Vampires comes  NCMVC; a new webcomic drawn by artist-in-residence Ann Harrison. Harrison aka Dragon has of course been active in the comics and animation scene for many a year. The webcomic is updated Sundays and Wednesdays. There may also be plans to collect them, judging by the rather superb cover on http://www.ncmvc.co.uk/

Draw Comics For Fee

andy-luke.com is now online where I talk about my new business site awriterwhodraws.com and expansion plans. In short, I'm hiring. Essentially it's alcho's beer money (not much), but I'm very interested in finding co-mix partners who draw. Comics artists who were probably going to do it anyway. Get on over there or get in touch.

Pub Meet

Has it been a month already?

It's the first Thursday of April, so local  writers and artists will be meeting up in the Cloth Ear, Belfast as usual for drinks and chat. Anyone with an interest in  making comics should come along from 9pm.

Twice weekly Belfast Print Comic Continues

Andy Luke's NewsZoom is closing in on the home straight with just four editions left to go.



The comics art residency runs to March 15th at the Arts & Disability Forum, Ground Floor, 109-113 Royal Avenue (opposite the Belfast Coffee Company, next door to the Mace)

The ADF is open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11-3pm, and occasionally at other times. Previous editions of NewsZoom are available on the web at http://NewsZoom.org or http://adf.ie - Andy's 24hr comics (also exhibited) are on sale at Head, in the Victoria Centre, or you can ask at Forbidden Planet for them to be ordered in.


As part of the residency, Andy teamed with Stephen Downey and a bunch of artists to produce "Beneath The Tide", which can be downloaded for free from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5470073/BENEATH%20THE%20TIDE.pdf

Pub meet, and Sketchjam

This Thursday is the first of March, and that means it's pub meet time. So if you make comics, or you're interested in making comics, join us at the Cloth Ear on Waring Street from about 9pm.

(There'll be no Facebook invites this time, because Facebook have "upgraded" the Belfast Comics Creators group to the new format, thrown out all the members except me and Stephen Downey, and won't let me create an event for any day but today. So sod Facebook, I'll just do it by blog and email.)

On a similar note, there's a new event on Sunday 4 March: Sketchjam! A freeform drink-and-draw in the back bar of the Garrick on Chichester Street. Starts at 6pm, goes on til 9, and it's not just for comics people - whatever you like to draw, in whatever style, at whatever level of skill. 18 and over, as it's in a bar, obviously, but no other restrictions. This one does have a Facebook event page, so if you wanna sign up there, go right ahead.

Thursday Comics Belfast

You may be heading into FPI to pick up your latest batch of new releases on the day. Or some back issues, at Atomic Collectables. There's a bunch of other comics themed stuff on in the city this week too.

Late Night Art is celebrated in Belfast and Dublin the first thursday of every month with many of the galleries open. This week, Belfast is running two comics themed events.
The Arts and Disability Forum from 5-7pm launches Andy Luke's In Time six week event – a retrospective of three acclaimed comics, and the first installment of his groundbreaking Newszoom supplement. The first edition has a piece on animal rights and frothing desktop activists, but most everything else is improvised. There'll be free booze and you can ask me all sorts of questions such as, "Why don't those small pressers want to make comics like Stan Lee makes his?",and "Can I have your chocolate?" Here's a link to a rather good write-up about the show.

Then from 6-9pm PS2 (aka Paragon Studios), runs an exhibition based on images of Wonder Woman. Based in Donegall Street (around from The Cloth Ear), PS2 is a clear shop-front gallery and the exhibition features the mighty amazon fat and thin, made from sculpture, clay and card, and other materials. "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman" examines origins and physical transformation consists of sculpture

From the gallery website,

"“Get us out from under, Wonder Woman!”
Opening with explosive bursts of fire and the howl of a siren, Dara Birnbaum’s ‘Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman’ (1978-79) is supercharged, action-packed and visually riveting, and has lost none of its visceral impact despite its thirty years of age. Appropriating imagery from the 1970s television series, ‘Wonder Woman’, Birnbaum isolates and repeats Diana Prince’s magical transformation into the iconic  superhero.  Through stuttering edits, Wonder Woman spins dizzily like a music-box doll with her arms outstretched, pursues her foes, and deflects bullets with her metal bracelets. "

More details at http://www.pssquared.org/BenCrothers.php

PS2 is consistently one of the better galleries in the city.

This comes a few months after after an East Belfast artist, Deirdre Robb, took part in the Billboards exhibition, through the Creative Exchange ensemble (Often seen at the Black Market) Images of a 1950s Wonder Woman appeared some 10ft tall in several locations to bring people's attention to the arts. ICN talked to Dierdre Robb about an interview but she couldn't respond. It was about the same time fine art pilferage and re-appropriation was a hot point in the comics community. Then again, that probably had nothing to do with it.

Also on the late night art trail is Catalyst, who last year organised a comics themed exhibition. This month, PRESS START, features a fetish for the retro; video games such as Pong and Doom are re-programmed with a Multi User Dimension. The end result is kind of cool. They've also got the WABfm radio dome – an open internet DJ-ing platform were anyone can sign up as I've just done for following Thursday.

To round the Thursday off, the Belfast comics pub meet starts at the Cloth Ear, just around from PS2, on Waring Street at 9pm. There you can expect to hear talk about at least three upcoming anthology titles due in the next month. The group is fairly open, not at al in-bred egoistic sycophantic opinions or cliquish. We couldn't be bothered with solo keyboard mud-sling. In any case, you're welcome.

In Time: Andy Luke exhibition at Arts & Disability Forum

Launching next Thursday, 2 February, at 5pm the Arts and Disability Forum in the Cathedral Quarter Workspaces, 109-133 Royal Avenue (map), is Andy Luke's exhibition of his comics work, In Time. It runs til  Thursday 15 March and includes a talk by Andy at 1pm on Thursday 16 February, a workshop at 11am on Friday 24 February, and Newszoom, a twice-weekly news comic that Andy will be producing in real time. Here's an interview he's done about it on Irish Comic News.

The Invisble Artist - documentary on Belfast comics

Last year Andy Luke made a documentary film about comics in Belfast for NVTV, featuring Andy, me, Davy Francis, PJ Holden, Stephen Downey, John Farrelly and others. It's now online, so watch it!


The Invisible Artist from Northern Visions/NvTv on Vimeo.