Virginia Woolf’s Orlando adapted by Jules Scheele The world seems gripped by a struggle: the forces of conservatism versus the forces of progress. Anti-movement versus movement. Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that movement never stops, no matter whether we wish it to or not. Not the movement of mountains and tectonic plates, and certainly not the movement of human societies. Change, existence, … Continue reading Against Stillness
Suzanne – The Jazz Age Goddess of Tennis by Tom Humberstone 1914 and Europe was beginning its descent into the abattoir of war. Young men turned away from their jobs and homes and went to the battlefield. Thousands of women were needed to work in arms production and they filled the factories. For many it was a taste of independence that they liked. A revolution … Continue reading This Sporting Life
Sleeping While Standing by Taki Soma Published by Avery Hill In his introduction to this book, Brian Michael Bendis compares the stories of Taki Soma to his favourite short, loud, angry hardcore punk songs “you know those songs that are only, like, a minute ten. A short burst of rrrrrrage energy aaaaaand done.”. Well I can tell you that reading Sleeping While Standing took me … Continue reading Sharp Fragments
Lights, Planets, People! Molly Naylor and Lizzy Stewart Public speaking – it divides us. Some weirdos (I must include myself in this group) have no issue with it. They will happily ad-lib a few remarks or drone through a powerpoint for an hour. But for many others the thought of standing up in front of more than two people elicits dread. Lights, Planets, People! Tells … Continue reading Another Girl, Another Planet
Alone in Space – A Collection by Tillie Walden Alone in Space collects several of Tillie Walden’s stories together in one volume. The End of Summer, I Love This Part and A City Inside along with some rare early work. Tillie Walden restores to comics some elements that have got a little lost. The surreal, the innocence of youth. The moments after you awake from … Continue reading In the Land of Wonderful Dreams
Breakwater by Katriona Chapman The British seaside town, a cinema whose glory days are in the past, a woman whose life seems to have been put on hold, a young man escaping from something. This is the familiar setting in which we find ourselves in Katriona Chapman’s Breakwater. I say familiar because it is a scenario that many of us will have encountered before. Generations … Continue reading At the Edge of the Sea
The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood There are a lot of comics out there, but not always the variety you might expect. I don’t blame creators for picking out the genres that they enjoy or indeed what they know is more likely to sell – autobiography, superheroes, horror. Many of these are great comics, occasionally fantastic comics, but it can make it … Continue reading Look and Learn
Victory Point by Owen D. Pomery Victory Point is the kind of place that people dream of living in. Designed to be the perfect meeting of form and function, with cool, sleek modernist buildings. The needs of the population both materially and culturally are taken into account. The perfect dwelling place and a dream place to grow up. But life isn’t a dream, no matter … Continue reading Architecture and Morality
The Flood That Did Come By Patrick Wray. Published by Avery Hill We live in a golden age of technology. Smart phones, smart houses. Automated systems that can order us a cab or warn us of a meteor strike. We also live in an age of disasters. Disastrous climate change which sets entire continents on fire and sets the Arctic Circle soaring into record temperatures. … Continue reading Waiting for the Floods
Barking by Lucy Sullivan Everyone forgets, once you’re dead…you’re an innocent, no matter how crap a human you might have been. Lucy Sullivan’s graphic novel Barking had a fittingly difficult birth. Originally published through the Unbound crowd-funding website it faced problems when the initial print run was not up to scratch. Lucy did the difficult but right thing, she had the book reprinted so that … Continue reading Days of the Black Dog
The Writings and Ramblings of Ben Herman
This is a blog dedicated to what I have been lucky enough to find out about comics. I might add in some other geeky goodness, but it's mainly about the comics.
Comics with a British focus
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Comic Writer
Feeding the habit one issue at a time
Comics with a British focus
Daredevils and Warriors 