Who's Who in the CBU 2008

Name: Regie Rigby

Regie is a strange, almost ethereal creature. Who can plumb the hidden mysteries of his dark and murky past - a past which contains a terrible secret. A secret that taught him that with great power comes great responsibility, that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and just who exactly knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

By day, he assumes the appearance of a mild mannered teacher, bringing the joy of literature and the English Language to classes of enthralled and enthusiastic students. But by night?

By night he goes home and writes lesson plans. Sorry. That's as interesting as he gets. Really.

The rumours about rooftop struggles with underworld uberfiends, the gossip about the hidden cave filled with hi-tec equipment and the suggestion that his car might be fitted with turbo lasers are all nonsense.

When he's not teaching he reads comics. Sometimes he combines the two activities. When he's not doing that he's either playing computer games or asleep.

Sunderland Awaits!

By Regie Rigby

Sometimes it is important to remind ourselves that Comics are not an industry, but a medium. They are a medium that supports an industry, but that’s not the same thing. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this medium of ours is capable of doing far more than just tell action-packed stories about people in over tight clothes hitting each other. (Although these days I’m prepared to concede that they do that very well...)

Like most mediums, Comics has a few people working within it who can handle both the blockbuster, muscle rippling, bodice ripping facets but can equally turn their hands to the cerebral and obscure. In film, Stephen Spielberg can make both Indiana Jones and Schindler’s List. (Although I confess a pang of regret for Thomas Keneally’s original title - Schindler’s Ark has more of a ring to it for me…) Iain Banks, and his alter ego Iain M Banks write very different styles of novel. In comics we have the likes of Bryan Talbot.

Talbot is a genius. It’s an over-used term I know, but he really is. In his time he’s written and illustrated Batman, he wielded the pencil for the best Nemesis the Warlock ever seen in 2000AD (the superb Gothic Empire) and created that colossus of the UK indie scene The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. He can do the mainstream style stuff, and he can do it very well.

But Talbot is also responsible for the thoughtful and shocking Tale of One Bad Rat - a comic I’ve long held should be in every single school library in the country, and he designs his work meticulously with a huge knowledge of art theory, and fine art history evident on each and every page. There’s probably a Phd to be had just for exploring the rich tapestry of intertextuality and subtle reference in his work! Talbot has always used comics in unexpected ways – even when dealing with mainstream subjects – and his newest publication, which will be the first for some considerable time, is a good example of this.

Alice in Sunderland is a long graphic novel – well in excess of 300 pages – which takes on themes of storytelling, history and myth in a form that Talbot describes as a "dream documentary". Readers are presented with not one narrative here, but dozens, all linked through the history of Sunderland and the story of Lewis Carroll (he of Alice in Wonderland fame) and Alice Liddell (the “real” Alice), both of whom had connections with the city and the surrounding area. Jabberwocky for example, the most famous nonsense poem in the English language, and perhaps the one piece of Carroll’s work that most people can quote at least a bit of, was written in the Sunderland. (And, since you ask, sounds exceptionally good when read in a Sunderland accent.)

Sunderland is an interesting place in its own right of course, regardless of any connections to Victorian fantasy writers. Once it was the beating cultural heart of Christendom, a centre of learning and theology which surpassed the heights of anywhere else in the Western World. Of course, that was thirteen hundred years ago, but by Carroll’s time the city was a mighty industrial centre famed for its Shipbuilding. This is a place that gave the world the electric light bulb, the stars and stripes, the millennium, the Liberty Ships and the greatest British dragon legend. There are stories here indeed, and a place in which to tell them.

Talbot presents us with an imaginary performance from the stage of the Sunderland Empire Theatre. The Empire is a music hall which saw its greatest days in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, so it is an entirely fitting venue for this multi storied “variety” performance.

And such variety! Different styles of art are used for each story, according to the needs of the narrative. The art is a blend of black and white, line, monochrome and colour, line work, watercolour painting, collage and digitised graphics. You have your nine panel grids, full page illustrations, multiple image pages, and metapanels with original art collaged in with old prints, maps and other images. A veritable cornucopia of technique, each one carefully selected to compliment the style of story being told. This is something that comics can do very easily, and actually do far less than they should.

So, step in to this Edwardian palace of varieties for an unmissable experience, let the man who may be the last giant of comics guide you on an epic meditation of myth, history and storytelling and decide for yourself—does Sunderland really exist? I mean, it does, obviously, I’ve been there. But simply being there doesn’t actually make you real, does it? Like Carroll’s Wonderland, Sunderland can serve as a backdrop for all sorts of interesting philosophical explorations and considerations and Bryan Talbot is a past master at presenting reality in ways you might never have expected.

Alice in Sunderland, is billed as a “graphic novel unlike any other”, which again is an overused phrase, but one which Talbot is more than capable of justifying. A “heady cocktail of fact and fiction”, this book (a real door stop by comics standards – graphic novels seldom exceed 100 pages, and this is three times that don’t forget) promises to be funny, thought provoking, and poignient. A multi-layered journey that could set you off on a whole new network of trains of thought (a bit of a tortured metaphor there, but you get the idea) and leave you wondering what magic might be waiting to be revealed in the place where you live. After all, if Sunderland isn’t entirely real, why should anywhere else be?
Don’t just take my word for it either.

Leo Baxendale, creator of the Bask Street Kids and Minnie the Minx, master of marmalising and “The Father of British Comics” declared that "The narrative and artwork are magic and the structure is magisterial", which from a creator of his stature is praise indeed.

The project has excited interest in academic circles too. Doctor John Tufail, a world expert on the works of Lewis Carroll comments "Alice in Sunderland is parochial in its focus - but not in content. I believe anyone interested in the way history is formed and, in itself, forms culture, character, and a sense of place will be entranced by it."

I like that. I like that a lot.

It is always a good thing when somebody does something in comics that serious academics can take seriously. Alice in Sunderland is the sort of book that we need many more of. It should be hitting the shelves in April from Dark Horse (in America) and Jonathan Cape (in the UK). Not sure about publishers elsewhere, but it’ll probably be available from Dark Horse through your comics shop wherever you are.

If you know Talbot’s work, then you already know you want this. If you’re a newcomer to his work then where the hell have you been?! Three hundred plus pages of comic might seem like a bit of a daunting jumping on point, but I reckon it’ll be worth it. And if you do think it might be a bit much, well, you have got until April to catch up. Start with Luther Arkwright and work up.

I almost envy you.

See you here again in seven with, amongst other things, news of that exciting 2000AD competition I’ve been promising you.