Mathematics and comics

Rather a long time ago now I was in love with mathematics enough to study it at university. I've forgotten most of what I learned there, I cannot even understand the language any more, but the fondness remains.

Another passion that developed at university was for comics. So when I saw that Comica were doing a talk on mathematics and comics I just had to go.

The talk was on the new graphic novel Logicomix and was with the writer and artist on the comics side and the only mathematician anybody knows, Marcus du Sautoy, on the other.

What followed was another exhilarating talk. This was partly due to Marcus' questioning which showed his interest in storytelling, just as he did a year ago at the Royal Society. But good conversations need all participants to play their parts well and author Apostolos Doxiadis and artist Alecos Papadatos certainly did this with their erudite explanations and insights.

The talk itself would have made it a great evening but the icing on the cake was to get Marcus du Sautoy to sign one of his books and Apostolos Doxiadis and Alecos Papadatos to sign my newly purchased copy of Logicomix. Another Xmas present in the waiting.

I was also able to catch organiser Paul Gravett to thank him for the excellent Comica season; thanks I am delighted to repeat here.

Dark we were and golden eyed

The first event that I went to in this year's Comica Festival was a panel talk on the arrival of American comics to the UK via fanzines, conventions and iconic shops like Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed.

I recall that my first visit to Dark They Were was on a trip up to London from Southampton University in '77 for a march against cuts in student grants (anybody else remember student grants?!) when I managed to do some quick shopping before the protesting began.

The shop blew me over with a ground floor packed with science fiction books many of which, like the comics on the floor below, were only available in the UK through a few specialist shops, none of which were in Southampton or Weymouth.

The basement was like Aladdin's Cave for me, except that you can read comics and gold is pretty useless of itself.

The sense of awe must have been blatant and soon I was talking to a helpful member of staff. Back in Southampton just getting comics regularly (from WH Smith) was a challenge and there was no way to get any news about comics. Suddenly I was surrounded by more comics than I could imagine and was talking to somebody who knew what happened in Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 (featuring one of my favourites, Adam Warlock). I still have a Dark They Were shopping bag somewhere.

But back to present day and the talk. The panel consisted of five people who were heavily involved in the start of teen/adult comics in the UK, as retailers, distributors, fanzine producers and artists. And they were all clearly fans too.

The hyper-active Paul Gravett (the organiser of Comica) sat in the front row and nudged things along when the reminisces threatened to take the talk away from the rather loose script that it was attempting to follow. A little like herding cats but when cats are as cute as this, who cares?

The talk was aided by some period photographs and art work which really helped to recall those days. I was particularly impressed that legendary artist Brian Bolland showed us the cover of his first ever comic, drawn just for fun as a child, in which there was absolutely no sign of the talent or distinctive style that would emerge later.

The panellists were all informative and entertaining, which is always a winning combination, and so I had a rewarding afternoon. This was betrayed by the large grin that I wore throughout.

Learning about comics

I've been reading comics for the best part of fifty years and been a serious collector for over thirty but I still learnt a great deal about the art from a talk at ComICA by Bryan Talbot.

ComICA is a festival celebrating the best of comics today and it is to my shame that I have not managed to get to one of their events before.

ComICA is organised by Paul Gravett who probably knows more about comics than anybody else around today. His knowledge and enthusiasm drive the festival.

In his excellent talk, Bryan explained some of the approach to and influences in his latest book, Grandville, a detective story with animals!

Without the talk I would have got the cultural references in Grandville to Rupert the Bear and Mucha etc. but Bryan explained so much more about the history of anthropomorphism in the graphic media and the other subtle references he has made to famous paintings and drawings.

Almost as a bonus, Bryan also explained the way that he crafts a page through layouts, the use of colours and action lines that guide the flow between panels.

Bryan demonstrated his storytelling skills in the way that he told the story behind Grandville, he even managed to make PowerPoint look interesting!

The presentation showed us pictures that helped to shape Grandville while Bryan narrated the story.

His knowledge of, well everything, was phenomenal and even reached as far as Racey Helps' Happy Families playing cards - I am sure we used to have a set of these.

I went in to the talk thinking that I knew quite a bit about comics but I learned a great deal in the hour or so and was thoroughly entertained in the process too.

I'll definitely be going to more ComICA events.

Many thanks to Bryan for the talk, to Paul Gravett for arranging it all and to Bryan (again) for patiently autographing every copy of Grandville with a drawing as well as a signature. Why did I agree to have my copy as a Christmas present?!

Arthur Brown, 40 years on

The whole evening at the ICA was billed as "Freak Out, Ethel! An Evening of Musical Mayhem" but my reason for going was to see Arthur Brown (again).

The evening opened with Malcolm Boyle's one-man play, The Madcap, about Syd Barrett. This gave an interesting insight into the early years of Pink Floyd and was enhanced by some interesting interpretations of some of Barrett's songs.

Then came Circulus. The event's blurb called them "Britain's finest neo-medieval psychedelic folk-rock band", but I thought it was awful. Trying to mix all those themes just did not work and it was not at all clear what they were trying to be. The period costumes hardly helped.

Then came Arthur with a truly magnificent set. To merely list the songs, all of which are established Arthur Brown concert material, would not do it justice as the show was made by the dramatic, vigorous and enthusiastic performances by Arthur and regular musician Nick Pynn.

I was at the front of the stage by Nick and it was interesting, and awe inspiring, to see how the familiar string instruments played by hand were complimented by various boxes of tricks played with his feet. The was particularly obvious during his solo in The Devil's Grip (one of the songs Arthur played in the original concert 40 years ago). Nick went up enormously in my estimation, and he was pretty high up before.

Arthur, of course, was very much the focal point of the set and he more than lived up to expectations. His vocal range, volume and expression were as strong as ever, he pranced around the stage energetically and his facial expressions told the songs' stories as much as the words did. This was the best Arthur Brown performance that I've seen.

The final act were The Pretty Things about whom I knew little except for the songs covered by Bowie on Pin-ups, both of which were played. A bit hit and miss for me but the two straight blues songs were very good, particularly as Arthur Brown joined the band for the first of these.

There was also some good news from the guy on the merch stall with promises of more gigs with Nick to support the new acoustic album when it comes out and, sometime later, some gigs with Instant Flight to promote the DVD of the Astoria gig in 2005.