In May the British Library is showing an exhibition titled Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK and The Guardian has paired several contemporary authors up with artists for collaborations to mark the event.
The first of these is graphic artist Frazer Irving’s adaptation of AM Holmes’ short story “Do You Hear What I Hear?”. Holmes won the Women’s Prize for Fiction last year for her novel, May We be Forgiven. Keep an eye on The Guardian‘s Weekend comics special for more collaborations between writers and artists, including Gillian Flynn and Michael Faber.
Tim Martin from The Telegraph has written about the exhibition and the long history of comics being used to comment on society and promote social change:
Long before the activist group Anonymous took as its symbol the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta by Dave Lloyd and Alan Moore, comics in Britain were sowing moral panic, conjuring utopian visions, expressing solidarity and protesting for social change.
From the banned Sixties magazine Oz to the religion-baiting webcomic Jesus and Mo, from the 19th-century Illustrated Police News to the superhero satire Watchmen, and from the Beano to Viz, the UK’s comics creators have delighted in sedition and anarchy, exploring their medium’s outsider status to dramatise the changing faces of society, with outrageous and often thought-provoking results.
Book details
- May We be Forgiven by A M Homes
EAN: 9781847083227
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Image courtesy of The Guardian