The Sunday Spotlight – The ‘It’s The End Of The Line’ Edition
by Richard Bruton
Ah, Sunday, a day to relax, a day to put the worries of the world to one side. But for us, it’s a day to catch you up with the bits of news you may have missed. It’s the Sunday Spotlight…
MOLLIE RAY UNVEILED AS UK’S FIRST EVER YOUNG COMICS LAUREATE AT LAKES INTERNATIONAL COMIC ART FESTIVAL…
Announced this weekend at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, comics artist Mollie Ray becomes the very first Young Comics Laureate – a new role designed to champion comics for young people in the UK. Ray was picked following a youth-led process co-designed with the Comics Youth Development Board and a national public vote that drew over 600 participants, meaning that young folkd got to have their say in the first Young Comics Laureate role.
It’s a role that complements the existing Comics Laureate, launched by LICAF in 2015 and currently held by Bobby Joseph. The Young Comic Laureate role is designed to extend that laureate role by giving younger readers a platform in the development of the medium. As with quite a few things coming out of LICAF recently, it’s made possible due to the support of the Charlie Adlard Foundation, making this role a paid 12-month thing with true national reach to get to young readers. The goals for the Young Comics Laureate are …
‘To champion comics as tools for creativity and resilience — showing how they help young people process experiences and imagine new futures.’
‘Bring comics into classrooms and communities — ensuring access regardless of background or circumstance.’
‘Celebrate youth voices — spotlighting the role of young people as storytellers, truth-tellers, and cultural changemakers.’
Mollie Ray’s debut graphic novel Giant, an emotive, wordless tale of a teenager’s cancer diagnosis inspired by her younger brother’s illness, was published by Faber & Faber in 2024. In addition, she’s very active in enabling young people through comics, whether that’s her workshops in schools, SEN settings, care systems, and refugee communities. She’s also collaborated internationally, including in Palestine, to help young people tell their stories through comics.
‘Creating Giant was incredibly healing for me. Through this role, I want to share that power — showing how making comics can help young people process their own experiences, spark creativity, and connect with others.’ – Mollie Ray
BALLOON TALES – LETTERING ROUNDTABLE: THINKING ABOUT THOUGHT BALLOONS, AND OTHER ABANDONED STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES…
Richard Starkings, one of the finest comic book letterers shares his thoughts, and those of Tony Isabella, Lee Nordling, Kurt Busiek, Mark Verheiden, Lovern Kindzierski, Richard Starkings, John Ostrander, Steve Leialoha, Todd Klein, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Steven Grant, Trina Robbins, Marv Wolfman, Tim Eldred, Howard Cruse, Jackie Estrada, Bob Ingersoll and Steve Lieber.
They’re all taking part in a lettering roundtable entitled ‘Thinking About Thought Balloons, and Other Abandoned Storytelling Techniques’. Rather fascinating stuff as you’d expect.
THE COMICS JOURNAL HAS AN EXIT INTERVIEW WITH BUD PLANT…
Over at The Comics Journal, Zach Rabiroff has a fascinating interview with Bud Plant, a true pioneer in comics, one of the first to open shops in the USA, beginning in 1968 with San Jose’s Seven Sons Comic Shop. He’d then move into mail order with Bud Plant, Inc, along with more retail stores, including the iconic Comics and Comix.
He moved into distribution at the tail end of the ’60s and into the’ 70s, getting the flourishing underground comix scene a means to expand through the USA. Indeed, after many years in the biz, when Plant’s distribution empire, as it had become, fell on hard times in the late ’80s, he sold to Steve Geppi and Diamond Distributors who, until recently at least, became the driving force in comics distribution. After that, Plant returned to where he’d begun, with a mail order catalogue that announced in June that Plant, now 73, was retiring in 2026.
It’s a wide-ranging beast of an interview, well worth reading for all of us with an interest in comics history and comics retail history.
TRIPWIRE ASKS – WHAT MAKES A REALLY GOOD COMICS COVER…
Over at Tripwire Magazine‘s online site, Paul H Neal asks various comic folks, including Glenn Fabry, Ty Templeton, John Charles, Brian Bolland, Gregory Wright, Andrew J Lewis, Chris Weston, John McCrea, and Mike Carlin what makes a truly great cover. Well worth a look.
Carlin, in particular, gives great copy, ending by flipping the question and talking about one particularly bad cover to Daredevil #29 (1967), by Gene Colan – ‘Here is a cover I wasn’t involved in, but it is noteworthy for being STUPID— Daredevil #29. Daredevil is being unmasked by thugs— AND HE’S WEARING HIS BLIND GUY GLASSES UNDER HIS MASK!’ Yep, bad, bad idea for a cover – but of course, Colan still made it a great cover image…
COME SEE JOE SACCO ON A UK TOUR THROUGH NOVEMBER…
To coincide with the UK publication by Jonathan Cape of Joe Sacco‘s latest, bound to be rather brilliant, new book, The Once and Future Riot, the author and cartoonist, and probably the finest comic journalist in America will be out and about in the UK through November.
16 Nov – Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival Harrogate: The Revolution will be Sequentialised (1.30-2.30pm) & Spotlight on Joe Sacco (2.45-3.45 pm)
17 Nov – The Frontline Club London
18 Nov – Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath
19 Nov – Gosh London – signing followed by London Review of Books event
Info on the book here. It’s described by the publisher as ‘a revelatory investigation of the deadly sectarian riots in 2013 Uttar Pradesh, India, and their urgent global significance today,’ it sees Sacco investigate the riots, talking to those involved, including the victims, and those in power, to creat something that, no doubt, will be both critically acclaimed and pretty darned successful.
