Saturday 18th, symposium

We had three guest lectures in, Will  Morris, Nick White and Ben Newman.

Will Morris, 'The Silver Darling'

• Will Morris (http://whmorris.com) is Cheltenham based and does comic books.
• He had an Archaeology degree, but went into comic and graphic novels instead. 
• He met people through Thoughtbubble in Leeds (http://thoughtbubblefestival.com) and TCAF (http://torontocomics.com/about-tcaf/).
• Inspired by Gipi, an italian comic artists. (see right)
• He's done a comic called 'The Silver Darlings', about superstitions on a fishing boat, and silver knives being brought aboard can lead to bad luck. 
• He advised to enter competitions and meet at comic book festivals, as the comic scene is small in the UK so everyone knows everyone.
• He's never had an agent due to being present at festivals - all the publishers are there.
•  He also said to experiment in your own time, not on a live commission as they see your style and expect something similar, so if you continue experimenting , their paid work will differ to what they've expected.
• Approximately £150 for a page. He'll try and work in a day to make the pay work it.
• For panels and how to lay them out... What's the 'moment' on the page...make this the biggest panel. Work with the script. He works at an A3 size if he's working traditionally. 
• With perspective and exaggerating, he uses Manga Studio program.

I found Will to be interesting as you could see development in each project he did. His style, with inks and paint differ from conventional digital comics, and give it an organic feel. You can definitely see a connection between his and Gipis work, mainly through the medium used.

Gipi comic

Nick White - (http://www.thisisnickwhite.com)
(http://thisisnickwhite.tumblr.com)

• Worked with Anarak -  (http://www.anorakmagazine.com)
• Unsinkable press
• He has a teaching job in Norwich, where sometimes in boredom he made tiny books and sold them in matchboxes. (link)

I saw Nick last year at the symposium...and was disappointed that he had the same slideshow and not much weight to what he was saying. His work is fun and colourful...but what more can you say?