Sally Heathcote, Suffragette signing at Gosh!

I had the opportunity to speak to Mary and Bryan Talbot at Comica Comiket Autumn 2012 and I got Bryan to sign Grandville Bette Noir. Unfortunately I could not get their joint book, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, signed as it was inexplicably not on sale at the event.

So when they made a joint appearance to sign their new book Sally Heathcote, Suffragette I was keen to go. So keen that I turned up the day before, but that was because Bryan's website had the wrong date on it and I had not checked the Gosh! site. And I had taken a half day holiday.

Never mind, I spent the unexpected time off looking at Comics Unmasked and went back the next day for the real event.

Joining Mary and Bryan was Kate Charlesworth who is the main artist on Sally Heathcote, Suffragette. Mary wrote it and Bryan is credited with the layouts.

Gosh! soon had a little system going where we started with Mary (right) before moving on to Kate (centre) and Bryan (left). There was some organisation to do on the table too as all three were signing Sally Heathcote, Suffragette, Bryan and Mary were signing Dotter of Her Father's Eyes and Bryan was signing lots of other things.

But note that Bryan does not sign books, he draws little caricatures in them, and obviously this takes a little longer. Nobody was complaining though as that just meant more time to talk to the three of them.

Most, if not all, of my Bryan Talbot books are already signed by him so I bought another one, The Tale of One Bad Rat. This tackles the difficult subject of child abuse and has one much praise for the way that it has done so. It is to my shame that I had not bought it earlier.

While waiting for Bryan to sign my books he kindly let me look at a preview of Grandville: Nöel. on his iPad. As I did so he kept asking if I had spotted some reference or other to this or that classic painting. I had not. Bryan seemed to be both surprised and amused by this.

Grandville: Nöel will be out later this year and is going on my Christmas List with another new publication of Bryan's work, a deluxe reprint of the two Luther Arkwright books collected as Arkwright Integral. I'll have to hunt Bryan down in the new year to get these signed too.

It is because of storytellers like Bryan that I read comics and it is because of the enthusiasm of people like Bryan that I like to go to comics events.