I was too busy scrambling to finish my interactive installation of Montague Terrace for the Digital Media Arts 2010 final year degree show to post up any advance publicity and now the show, course and work is all over, but it was a great 2 year experience and a great show from all involved. Anyone who missed out though, can still see my contribution when it travels up to the Pump House gallery in Battersea Park, London, from August 11 to September 26 as part of the Hyper Comics exhibition curated by Paul Gravett.
comics
Paul Gregory, Saturday Night
Another sneak peek at my final interactive animation project featuring the notorious P.I.G. (Paul Ian Gregory) himself, aprés take away, sans culotte, JD neat, Scott on the decks and Vincent Price on the tely.
Just in case you didn’t know, Pauly often tweets off the bog to the uncaring stratosphere. You can be his friend/mocking observer or voyeuristic surveillance agent at twitter.com/gregorypig, or just catch up with the epic that is his life in the Montague Twits column to your right.
Montague Terrace, the Movie
Not having posted anything for a while, I thought I should pull my finger out to reveal to the world, er, the dozen or so people who come across this site by complete accident, what I’ve been hard at work on in recent months. Not only have I been toiling on a graphic novel version of Montague Terrace, co-scripted with brother Gary (more on this soon), but I’ve been creating the interactive animations for my MA degree show highlighting the hidden lives of four selected characters from that very same series.
Despite a few thousand technical issues and an extremely steep learning curve using Flash properly for the first time, things are going well.
The plan involves an interactive, wired-up multiple entry system that triggers off a related animation, telling one of 4 stories. Films featured will be of the ex-60s pop grump, Paul Gregory, the not so sweet and innocent former SOE agent Babushka, the magical, mystical double act, Marty and Marvo the Magic Bunny, as well as everyone’s favourite Eastern European megalomaniac, The Puppeteer.
Meanwhile, I’ve also been writing my dissertation discussing the effects of digital and online technologies on the visual language of comics and graphic fiction and the potential repercussions for the medium’s future.
As well as all that, I’m restructuring my website at last and working on design ideas for the degree show. So, just in case anyone was wondering why there hasn’t been a post up for yonks, there you go.
The Act-i-vate Experience
Here’s a link to the new documentary The Act-i-vate Experience via the Newsarama site, featuring many of the key peeps involved in Act-i-vate’s crucial web comix community. Not me this time, unfortunately (hair appointment clash with filming), but don’t let that stop you checking out the words of wisdom and insight as to what makes these talented artists and writers “click”.
Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption
Here’s a plug for the new comics anthology collaboration between the ICA’s Comica festival and the youth initiative organisation, Ctrl. Alt. Shift. As you can see from the press release below, some great names in the field and beyond were involved, focusing on political issues of corruption around the world.
I worked on a story called “Not One Minute” with writer and artist Ben Dickson, a story detailing governmental corruption against students in Colombian universities. Check it out!
Experimental youth initiative Ctrl.Alt.Shift presents Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption, a new comic book anthology featuring well respected international comic artists and writers who have specially created stories to the theme of corruption. Contributors include names such as Dave McKean, Pat Mills, Aleksandar Zograf, Dan Goldman, Fredrik Stromberg, Janek Koza, Lee O’Connor and Paul O’Connell, as well as contemporary music names such as V V Brown and Lightspeed Champion both of whom are big comics fans and make comics themselves. This eclectic mix of politicized comic book and graphic novel work has been created in a bid to politicise a new generation of activists through the medium of popular comic culture.
For further information regarding the book please visit: www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/unmaskscorruption.
The Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption anthology is available to buy for £4.99 at www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/unmaskscorruption and all good comic retailers from November. Profits from the 5,000 copies of the comic book will go to Ctrl.Alt.Shift.
Get it whilst stocks last and support this important cause!
The Act-i-vate Primer
From Web to print, the new Act-i-vate Primer from the ultimate comix collective is out now via IDW, full of wondrous works (even though I’m not in this one!). There’s been a bus load of great reviews recently, but for all the latest, check out the Act-i-vate site.
If you happen to be in Brooklyn NY this Thursday, make your way to this event, hosted by Dean Haspiel and fellow Act-i-vators for an evening of readings and signings from the new book.
Also, news coming soon about a certain Montague Terrace.
Watch this space…
Season 1 finale
Montague Terrace reaches its season 1 finale @ Act-i-vate with the return of the Puppeteer. Check it out here http://activatecomix.com/73-1-43.comic or right here
All your favourite hypochondriacs, loners and magic bunnies will return in October for more fun, fear and fondue.
gregorypig is using twitter
The Notorious P.I.G., Paul Ian Gregory has escaped the agoraphobic confines of Montague Terrace in a desperate bid to join the hordes of twitting tweeters talking turkey. It’s virtually virtual!
You can catch up with the latest dubious words of wisdom and politically suspect grouching at http://twitter.com/gregorypig
Incognegro
As from today in the US, Incognegro is now available in paperback at all good bookshops, comic stores and online at Amazon and on sale in the UK from the 26th of June at Amazon UK. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, here’s a snippet of what the press has had to say so far
“Smart and fast-paced.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Well worth the price of admission.”
—CRIMESPREE MAGAZINE
“Don’t miss it!”
—Cornell West“A flawlessly paced, rich, dense thriller…a chilling social document and a layered, effortlessly entertaining mediation on identity and self-fashioning.”
-THE TIMES
“Engrossing… Proudly exemplifies the graphic novel.”
-NEW YORK TIMES
“Fuses bluesy, gutbucket noir with postmodern notions about the pliability of personal identity.”
-TIME OUT NEW YORK
and a link to the DC Vertigo page.