It’s been a while since our last post, but we’re very pleased to share with you the news that To End All Wars been nominated for two Eisner Awards – best anthology and best reality based comic. Often referred to as the comic book industry’s Oscars, the Eisner Awards are named in honour of the pioneering writer and artist Will Eisner, so to be included in these nominations is quite special.

You can find a list of the nominations and a place to put your vote at the links below.

http://www.comic-con.org/awards/2015-eisner-award-nominations

http://www.eisnervote.com/?A5W_Sess_ID=8fd9fd5fb3ac4fa991cb70e0b546009e

To End All Wars will be getting a softcover reprint later this summer, and it’s also part of publisher Soaring Penguin’s Kickstarter campaign for 2015.

Our collective hat is tipped to all of the creators who came together to make this book, and to the fine folks out there who added it to their bookshelves.

We salute you!

 

Last weekend saw the second annual Lakes International Comic Art Festival take place in Kendal. From Friday to Sunday this beautiful little part of the Lake District is laid siege by comic artists and writers from around the world, giving talks and putting on workshops across the town. Unlike your typical comic convention, The Lakes has more in common with a European comic festival and feels all the more wonderful for it.

Kendal Town Hall, with added Bat signal on its spire just for the festival.

Hosted by Soaring Penguin’s John  Anderson, To End All Wars editors Jonathan Clode and John Stuart Clark presented a talk on the editing process they went through during the development and completion of the book. Il Gatto’s Stuart Richards and Selina Lock, writer of Go Home and Sit Still also took part, discussing their experiences being part of the book. It was a fantastic day that saw TEAW contributors come together for a group signing, many of whom received great compliments from such comic book luminaries as Dave Gibbons, Bryan Talbot and Eddie Campbell. Word on the street was that TEAW was the best selling hardback at the festival, testament to the fine work put in by it’s contributors.

Clockwise from left – Kate Charlesworth, Dan Hill, Selina Lock, Brick, Stuart Richards, Robert Brown, Jenny-Linn Cole, Jessica Martin and Jonathan Clode

Thanks to Alex Fitch who recorded us for broadcast on Resonance FM and it can be streamed over the coming days from the link below.

http://resonancefm.com/archives/21139

The opening night of the festival saw the unveiling of the new comic book charity CLAW (Comics Literacy Awareness) and the unveiling of Dave Gibbons as Britain’s first comics laureate. This is a great move for British comics and is something TEAW will be actively looking to get involved with. Co-editor Jonathan Clode noted his high point of the festival was a young boy who bought a copy of To End All Wars, eagerly getting it signed by everyone and walking off beaming. Just the kind of response books like these need to hopefully inspire future generations of comic creators.

http://www.claw.org.uk/

We’ll be taking part in further talks in recent weeks, and in November the exhibition that was running in Machynlleth will be moving up to the Barbican in London. We’ll keep you posted!

Last night saw the official launch of To End All Wars, graciously hosted by Gosh! Comics in London’s Soho district. After eighteen months of pretty much exclusively  electronic communication, it was a joy for the editors, writers, artists and publishers to all meet up. Beers were shared, books were signed and we were lucky enough to have a representative from Médecins Sans Frontières in attendance who shared some of his experiences. It was a sobering reminder that, while things are vastly different  to the world that saw war inflicted upon it 100 years ago, there are no shortage of humanitarian disasters and crimes against it’s people.

Brick signing the book and hiding biscuits from the Pleece Brothers.

Huge thanks to everyone who made it out to celebrate with us, to all the staff at Gosh and the good folk of Soaring Penguin Press for bringing our book to life.

Neil McClements, Jonathan Clode, Bern Campbell and publisher John Anderson.

Next month sees the U.S. release of TEAW, and with that in mind there’s a feature and interview with editors  JC & JSC over on the War on the Rocks website.

A New History of The Great War: WWI Gets a “Graphic” Treatment

We’ll have more info as we ready ourselves for the Lakes Festival in October so watch this space!

 

Yesterday saw the opening of the To End All Wars exhibition at the Pen’rallt gallery bookshop in Machynlleth.

Featuring pages from the book, as well as the original cover drawing and examples of the process the artists and writers went through in crafting their stories, the opening was attended by TEAW co-editor Jonathan Clode and cover artist Liz Waterhouse. Given that the exhibition is in Mid-Wales, there is a great deal of interest in the story of poet Hedd Wyn, told by JC in The Black Chair. As well as featuring the whole story, the exhibit also includes notes from JC and artist Catherine Pape. JC introduced the book and the story of Hedd Wyn to the guests, who were then treated to a dramatised reading of The Black Chair script by local actors, followed by a roll call of the local soldiers who never returned from the front.

JC discussing the book with the guests.

Initially unsure of how a comic script might translate to a live reading, JC was thrilled to hear it brought to life, reporting that the bookshop sold out of their copies of TEAW shortly thereafter. He also informed us that it was encouraging to see just how many people were fascinated by the process of how the book was made and how exactly one brings a comic book to life. As well as putting on a fine display, the good folks at the Pen’rallt bookshop were also able to challenge people’s perceptions of what a comic book can be and open up the medium to them in a way they’d perhaps not previously experienced.

Massive thanks to Diane and Geoff for bringing the exhibition to life, and to the actors, Steve, Charmian, Nic and Zoe for creating a good few teary eyes with their reading.

The exhibition runs until early October, and the town itself is well worth a visit.

The first local launch of TEAW stuffed 72 men, women and children into the basement of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio to listen to Pippa Hennessy, Selina Lock and Ian Douglas talk about the source material and writing approach of their contributions. Generously sponsored by the city’s only independent bookshop and introduced by Five Leaves Bookshop owner, Ross Bradshaw, the event was MCed by Brick, who gave a six minute masterful summary of 16 months hard graft and, after the writers, talked people through the illustration contributions of Kate Houghton and Jenny Linn-Cole, both present in the audience. Wrapping up with a run through the delight of working with Sarah Jones on his Die and Become story, our co-editor managed to weave in the astonishing story of his relationship, through his father, to Field Marshal Sir Douglas ‘Butcher’ Haig. Heavily illustrated with slides from the book, the audience was animated into buying all but three of the 40 copies made available by Soaring Penguin Press, and the order of the final flurry was a mass signing by all six contributors. Our thanks go to all who worked so hard behind the scenes to make the event such an unprecedented success for a local launch, and to those who found the time and energy to start Tweeting about the event before we even got home.

Selina Lock, Jenny Linn-Cole, Pippa Hennessey, Kate Houghton, Ian Douglas and Brick.
© John Birdsall Photography

Brick discussing the book with a packed audience © John Birdsall Photography

As we write this To End All Wars is making it’s way from the printers in Latvia, soon to end up in the laps of the good folks who’ve pre-ordered it. We’re thrilled to have  raised £2000 for Medecins Sans Frontieres already and hope that this will increase as the book gets out into the public. The editors got their hands on an advance copy the other day and don’t mind telling you that it looks amazing.

Sixteen months of hard work by the contributors and the graft of Soaring Penguin have paid off in the form of a book we are all very proud of. In the event you can’t wait to get your mits on it, we’ve put together a ‘flick through.’

 

We are also pleased to announce that our own Sarah Jones, artist of Die and Become, will be representing TEAW in a talk on WWI comics at the British Library on Aug 17th.

http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event164701.html

Thanks to the BBC Scotland article, TEAW contributors Joe Gordon and Kate Charlesworth were sent a message by a lady known simply as Sheila. Having read about their story, Memorial to the Mothers, she sent along a poem  by the seemingly forgotten Scottish poet, Joseph Lee.

The Bullet

Every bullet has its billet
Many bullets more than one;
God! Perhaps I killed a mother
When I killed a mother’s son.

This poem is indicative of the many aspects of WWI that are conveniently ‘forgotten’ because they fail to chime with the preferred recollections of the conflict. As we ready ourselves for publication, it is a timely reminder of the responsibility and opportunity we writers and artists have to make sure this centenary is not glossed over by the agenda of our present government and self interested institutions.

 

There’s only a week to go until To End All Wars arrives on the shelves. After over eighteen months of pretty much eating, sleeping and breathing this book it’s slightly strange to now let it out into the laps of the public. Everyone involved from the creators to the good folk at Soaring Penguin are very excited about finally being able to share it, and in celebration of everyone’s efforts we’ve organised a few launch events that will be taking place around the country.

As we mentioned before, on the 30th of July there will be a launch at the Five Leaves bookshop in Nottingham, and will feature presentations by contributors Brick, Pippa Hennessey, Selina Lock and Ian Douglas.

On August the 2nd we’ll be opening an exhibition of art from the book at the Pen’rallt Bookshop & Gallery in Machynlleth in mid-Wales. As well as featuring art from the book and the original painting of the cover, there’ll be a focus on Jonathan Clode’s story The Black Chair, which he’ll be introducing along with a reading of the script from local actors.

The official launch party will then be held at Gosh! comics in Soho, London on the 20th of August. The launch will be attended by the editors and as many of the writers, artists and letterers as can get there, so please come along!

Today also saw a fantastic article published by BBC Scotland that focuses on the Scottish creators and some of the stories that focus on the Scots.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27887688

More news on the events we’ll be partaking in as we get it!

There’s just over a month to go until TO END ALL WARS hits your bookshops and letter boxes. After eighteen months of fairly non-stop work we now turn our attention to the promotion of the book. Our most recent feature appears in Nottingham based magazine Left Lion – a free online and print publication focusing on the Nottingham arts and culture scene.

Our thanks to Robin Lewis for putting the piece together, which you can read at the link below. 

http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/leftlion-magazine–59/id/6715

Over the coming weeks and months we’ll be taking part in various launches, talks and exhibitions, the first of which takes place on the 30th of July at the Five Leaves bookshop in Nottingham. TEAW contributors Brick, Pippa Hennessey, Ian Douglas and Kate Houghton are all local to the city, so contact the shop for more information as it’s sure to be an interesting evening.

We’ll update the site with more info on the exhibitions and official launch as we get it, but in the meantime you can buy tickets for our talk at this years Lakes International Comic Arts Festival from the nice folks at the Kendal Brewery Arts Centre, or by hitting the link below.

http://www.breweryarts.co.uk/events-and-festivals/listing/TO-END-ALL-WARS-THE-ART-OF-EDITING

 

One of the exciting things about working on TEAW has been the interest it’s received from the wider European comic community. We mentioned a while back that we had contributed an interview for the  Association des Critiques et des journalistes de Bande Dessiné, and this week we got the chance to speak to German magazine Kritische Ausgabe.

http://www.brickbats.co.uk/index.php/books/to-end-all-wars/interview-with-german-cultural-magazine-kritische-ausgabe/

As we discuss in the feature, one of the objectives in TEAW was to depict aspects of the war that people were unfamiliar with. This is certainly true of our latest preview which deals with the impact the First World War had on the colonies in East Africa.

No More Than Cattle
Story by Colm Regan. Art and letters by Mike Lito