© 2012 londonprintstudio comics collectiveNo. of Pages: 64 full colour

ISBN No.: 978-0-9569159-1-7

Over a hundred years after the birth of comics, it is wonderful to see a new golden age blossom as we hurtle into a new century. A generation of creators without preconceptions of how comics should look, or what they should be about, are coming to the medium with fresh eyes and urgent, personal stories to tell. And what a powerful medium it is - harnessing the direct music-like impact of image with all the narrative and poetic possibilities of text. And what a democratic medium it is - you don’t need a budget, or an endless development process, just grab some paper and a pen, or go online, and create. This anthology adds more voices to this new community of comics creators. With a traditional publishing world in flux and panic, and an art world far too reticent and self absorbed to talk directly and clearly to its audience, it’s inspiring to see comics rise to the challenge of engaging with the real 21st century world.

- Dave McKean, 2012

Foreword

03Shamisa Debroey

Casual Conversations

17Stefan Alexander

The Lifeguard

18Amanda Elanor

TribbleAccident

26Evelyn Hewett

Julie

34Yasser Boukaddour

Exhibit 0Unleashed

35Susan Yan Mach Hungry Ghost

Festival

41Taymah Anderson

Foreword

Introduction

CONTENTS 02Karrie FransmanThe House that

Groaned

09Olivia RoseIn my Eyes

10Merlin Evans

‘To Josephine’,1796

20Lily-Rose

BeardshawHam Sandwiches

28Jade SarsonSiddown!

45Abraham ChristieSeven Forty-Five

Character pageTriptych

The Fisherman’s Wife

Biographies

Welcome to londonprintstudio Comic Collective’s second anthology: Parallel Lives. The stories explore the parallel lives of time travelling commuters, Napoleonic lovers and hungry, Chinese ghosts! The comic stories collected here bring together some of our best young comic talent - all of whom took part in a six months internship at londonprintstudio – Merlin Evans, Lily-Rose Beardshaw, Susan Yan Mach, Abraham Christie, Jade Sarson and Shamisa Debroey. The interns ran workshops and their stories appear alongside the work of the 16 -20 years olds involved in the project. The project is part of londonprintstudio ‘s Bring into Being internship programme, which aims to develop the skills of young professional artists and other graduates wanting to make viable careers in the visual arts. This Comics programme involved professional training; mentoring and support from londonprintstudio staff and many leading artists and publishers producing comics and graphic novels. It also provided visits to festivals, museums and galleries, including a short trip to Belgium learning about the country’s love and respect for the comic medium. This is the second of two Comics internship programmes generously supported by John Lyon’s Charity. In addition, one intern was supported with a Leonardo Scholarship. The 6 featured artists follow in the footsteps of five previous comics interns who have gone on to achieve significant success since leaving in 2011 -Isabel Greenberg won the 2011Observer/ Jonathan Cape graphic short story prize with the graphic novel she worked on during her internship and Love in a Very Cold Climate will be published by Jonathan Cape shortly. Rachel Emily Taylor is on an MA programme at the Royal College of Art and participated in Strip Turnhout, an experimental comic exhibition in Belgium. Freya Harrison has illustrated for Camden Crawl and Dublin Crawl, and published two activity books with Smiths. Joe Kelly works on youth arts for the House of Illustration and also as a visiting artist in a young offenders programme; he is also working on his graphic novel Gen Dit. William Goldsmith’s critically acclaimed graphic novel Vignettes of Ystov (Jonathan Cape) was the only graphic novel to be nominated for the Newton First Book Award at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival. So keep your eyes on this years group- we expect exciting things from them!

Introduction

This folding three-panel collaborative comic was inspired by C14th - C15th medieval triptychs and medieval illuminated letters and was made during the workshop ‘Illuminated Comics’ at londonprintstudio. Triptych’s from the medieval period were often divided into three sections, or three carved panels which were hinged together and could be folded shut or displayed open.

They served as some of the first comics of their time, with their narrative sequential illustrations telling tales from the bible and morally significant historical events. Our modern comic triptych reads from left to right and narrates the parallel lives of figures from the past (left panel) through to the future (right panel).

BiographiesAbraham Christieis a comics creator who’s practice explores daily life and inner turmoil; often in the guise of superheroes. Abraham emerged from Central Saint Martins School of Art in 2010 with a degree in Fine Art. Since then he has concentrated on writing/drawing comics, primarily his daily strip Doodle Daydream and his zine Nervous in a Cape, which was included in the reading room of Tate Britain’s Rude Britannia exhibition.

http://nervousinacape.blogspot.com/

Susan Yan Machbelieves that comics can communicate universally, across cultures. Being Chinese and British, her comics explore mythology and folklore.Having studied Illustration at London College of Communication, she uses her graphic style to retell surreal old wives tales. A finalist for the TaiwanInternational Student Design Awards, she also has exhibited her work in Marine Studios and Japan Matsuri Festival.

http://susanyanmach.com/

Shamisa Debroeyrecently graduated from the infamous Sint Lukas Brussels under the supervision of Johan Stuyck, head of publishing house Oogachtend. She received an MA in Comics and finished top of her class. Mentored by Randall C., she worked on her first graphic novel ‘The Wanderer’, merging the autobiographical with her lively imagination. ‘The Wanderer’ is to be published by Oog&Blik in 2012 in Belgium and the Netherlands.

http://shamisadebroey.tumblr.com/

Jade Sarsonfuses tea-loving British roots with emotive Japanese influences, and combines traditional techniques with digital. She graduated in 2011 from the University of Lincoln with a First class honours degree in Illustration, and was recently shortlisted for this year’s Manga Jiman competition. She is currently juggling working on her webcomic Cafe Suada and her graphic novel Siddown!

http://teahermit.co.uk/

Merlin Evansis an illustrator and writer, partial to adapting hefty literary classics into lively, hand-drawn comics. She was awarded Emerging Talent runner-up for Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2011 by Shaun Tan and published in ‘Images 35: Best of British Contemporary Illustration’ annual. Previous clients include John Lewis, The British Library and House of Illustration. She is currently etching a graphic novel featuring historical love letters. http://merlinevans.com/

Lily-Rose Beardshawenjoys experimenting with creating comics using stitch, collage, paint and inks. A recent Illustration graduate from the University of Gloucestershire, you can find her comics and illustrations in the Inspired Comics Sci-fi anthology, “What’s The Time Mrs. Woolf?” ‘zine and “OLIO: The Cheltenham Journal of Illustration Vol.6”.

http://lilyrosebea.tumblr.com/

Karrie Fransmanhas published autobiographical comic strips in The Guardian. Her comic ‘The Night I Lost My Love’ ran in The Times. Her graphic novel, The House That Groaned, is published by Random House’s Square Peg. She has talked about her work at Saint Martins, London College of Communication, The University of Birkbeck, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and for The British Council and will have exhibited her work this year in London, Belgium and Moscow.

http://karriefransman.com/

Evelyn Hewettis an art student by day and a crazy comic lady by night. She’s currently drawing and writing an online web comic called Fruit Machine, a story about a young man with no control over his own heart, or his ego! It’s both a massively rewarding project and just a little eccentric! Any comic artist knows the feeling of meeting a new character for the first time. Well, the couple in this comic were two of the more polite ones.

http://fruitmachine.smackjeeves.com/

Amanda Elanor TribbleAmanda’s work is an exploration of the idea that two people, who live very similar lives on the surface, can have this drastically changed in the blink of a second, and that we have no real control over our fate. There is no dialogue, allowing the readers to project their own impressions of the characters upon the experience, highlighting the ability of a person to sympathise with anything we find familiar.

http://www.paintedlunacy.co.uk/

Olivia Rose is currently studying animation and illustration at Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge. She mixes manga style artwork with modern western influences, using a number of materials to create illustrations including watercolours, Indian ink, markers, paint and Photoshop. She has recently been featured in Murky Depths, and the magazines Kismet, Meuse and Stylenoir.

http://lahlahlou.com/

Taymah Anderson(Biography here)

Yasser Boukaddouris a 17 year old student of Art and Design at Quintin Kynaston, he has a love for manga/anime which is intertwined with part of his artistic practice. He aims is to become a games designer/developer and hopes to study Games Technology in University. His favourite comic artist is Akira Toriyama, and he loves the uniqueness in his drawing style and plot.

Stefan Alexanderwent to the specialist school, Springhallow, before studying Art, Design and Interactive Media at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College. There he was nominated for the Ceremony Award in 2011. He was also nominated for the Descendants Award in 2009 at Greenford High School. Stefan enjoys dancing, swimming, and does voluntary work on Saturdays. He is a keen artist, who vents his imagination through drawing.

Craig FitzgeraldCraig generally sticks with rough sketches and thumbnails, only occasionally attempting big projects. He is constantly drawing; be it character designs, sights on his commute to university, or doodling. While he struggles to gener-ate his own ideas, he has a knack for visualising other peoples’ and giving them form. For example, he produced the majority of the visual design, and set the animation standard, for a flash-based game at university.

... and the Workshop Participants! Migle Kalnutyte, Suphawadee Issarangkun Na Ayutthaya, Rhys Bailey, Kristina Simanauska, Ava Maria Garcia, Alim Bijan-Salmaji, Michael Tullio, Louisa Roberts Perez, Macia Blackett, Sandra Kalita, Jordy Muyolo, Wanta Kaewpanya, Alidaniel Wahed, Laila Elsidawi, Stephanie Silva, Nekayba Brumble, Adam Collett, Daryl White, Siara Nadeem, Jade Ebanks, Zoe Wilson, Loretta Keyode, Mohamed Mohamed, Grestin Alhia Royer Johnson, Ben Daniel-Mcloughlin, Luke Thornton, Mohamed Miyir, Alaa Eizein, James Boland, Tyron Augustine, Erald Pjetri, Josh Felicio, Shemahni Shepherd, Chandrakala Sunwar, Devi Gurung, Keera Lawrence, Adam Al-kadhimi, Kathleen Rutherford, David Greenslade, Viktorija Makarevic, Elian Martin, Ayesha Taupik, Elias Ducrali, Yousef Sengob, Rhys Rotimi, Aderike Phillips-Clarke, Maria Kerie, Vincent Rey Artan, Halima Borelly, Christiam Nicholas, Kiran Sangha, Melissa Cribbs, Dominic Sadler, Tre James Gordon, Danya Behra Fayham, Michael Adebayo, Pauline Serala-Webb, Mohamed Abdi, Ahmednur Abukar and Earl Armstrong.

PARALLEL LIVESThis is the first edition of 350.Printed in March 2012.

Individual stories are copyright © 2012 the respective artists. All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce material from the book, except for the purposes of review must be obtained from the publisher.

Published by londonprintstudio Comics Collective.Cover, editing, art design and design by londonprintstudio Comics Collective.

www.londonprintstudio.org.ukwww.londonprintstudiocomics.blogspot.com

Printed by MPG Biddles http://www.biddles.co.uk/

Thanks to John Phillips, Nadia Yahiaoui, Paul Dewis,Ed Pearman and all the staff at londonprintstudio, John Lyon’s Charity, Ealing Hammersmith and West London College, the interns and all the mentor artists: Ellen Lindner, Ben Davies, Emma Hayley, Lynn Weddle, Al Davison, Lizzie Spratt and Dan Franklin.

Have you ever wondered about the lives of the people you pass every day, or glimpse for a moment and never see again? Inside this anthology you will find grand tales of multiple lives by both young comic artist talent aged 21-25 and the young people they tutored. From the love lives of great historical figures, to the passengers on a time traversing train, this brilliant collection

of comics combines stylish visuals and uniquely imagined narratives for your reading pleasure.

The Parallel Lives anthology is the second book created by thelondonprintstudio comics collective, supported by funding from

John Lyon’s Charity, as part of a local community arts project.