UK comics

The nominees for the third annual British Comic Awards were announced last Friday, and it's a noticeably more mixed bunch of books than previous years. The awards are divided into five categories: Best Book, Best Comic, Young People's Comic Award, Emerging Talent and Hall of Fame; the latter is decided upon by the members of the committee, whilst the Young People's Comic Award is voted upon by children in participating schools. Winners for the remaining 3 categories are chosen by a panel of judges. The award ceremony takes place on the Saturday evening of Thought Bubble comic convention, one of the UK's premier festivals.

Here in the UK, the advent of November means one thing to comics folk: Thought Bubble. Britain's premier comics festival will once again see a host of international comic stars -- Jillian Tamaki, Emily Carroll, Scott Snyder, Boulet, Tim Sale, Jeff Lemire, Emma Rios, Becky Cloonan, Jason Aaron, Vanesa R. Del Rey (to name a few) -- rub shoulders with Britain's finest: Joe Decie, Dan Berry, Isabel Greenberg, Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Mike Carey, and more. With it comes the approach of the British Comic Awards, now in their third year and conceived by founder Adam Cadwell with an aim to recognize the very best in UK comics. The awards are an annual celebration that take place on the Saturday evening after the first day of the con, and consist of five categories: best comic, best book, emerging talent, young people's comic award, and the hall of fame.

Breakdown Press, currently the most interesting outfit operating in UK comics, continues apace with the publication of exciting book after exciting book. Earlier this year, in June, it announced the launch of a new line of translations of classic and avant garde Japanese comics in association with manga scholar and translator Ryan Holmberg (who previously worked with PictureBox in a similar capacity), the first of which was Seiichi Hayashi 1969 'blues manga,' Flowering Harbour. The second book in the publisher's alternative manga line will be Masahiko Matsumoto's The Man Next Door, collecting four gekiga stories from the 1950s. The book will be released to coincide with the London Cartoon Museum’s Gekiga exhibition, which begins on September 23rd, and will be available online at the Breakdown Press store shortly after.