Jonathan Cape
Haunting story of two girls and UFOs wins U.K. short comic contest
A panel from Corban Wilkin's "But I Can't"
The winners of the Observer/Jonathan Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Competition were announced over the weekend, and the top prize winner was no newcomer: Corban Wilkin is just 22, but he has participated in the contest four times.
“The only thing I’m sad about is that I won’t be able to enter again,” he told Rachel Cooke of The Observer. “I’ve loved doing it over the past few years. The brief is tricky – a very limited format and yet complete freedom of subject matter – but it’s a challenge I relished. Once you enter, your writing improves pretty quickly. Four pages is a small space in which to tell a proper story.”
Wilkin’s winning short story, “But I Can’t,” can be seen on the contest website or his own site. The story follows two girls, starting when they are 8 years old and share a fascination with UFOs and bringing them through their teens, as they take drastically different paths. He packs an amazing amount of story into just four pages, sketching the characters in a loose, expressive style with brush and ink and a limited color palette. Wilkin, who cites Craig Thompson and Seth as his influences, is also working on a longer graphic novel, and the prize money will be most welcome, he says, as the rent is due.
The runner-up is Steven Tillotson’s I, Yeti, in which the Abominable Snowman gets all philosophical.
(via Forbidden Planet)
Check out the trailer for Bryan Talbot’s Grandville: Bete Noire
It’s been more than a year since Bryan Talbot announced a third volume in his anthropomorphic-steampunk series Grandville, and he’s close enough to the end to release a trailer. The video features Talbot himself as well as a number of his characters and the art looks pretty smooth. The book is due out in December from Dark Horse in the United States and Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom.
D&Q announces a collection of artist Kate Beaton’s work
Tom Spurgeon broke the news that Drawn & Quarterly has acquired the North American rights to publish a new collection of work by cartoonist Kate Beaton titled Hark! A Vagrant.
Using the name of Beaton’s website, the book will collect comics she has published there, as well as some new strips. The Montreal-based publisher plans to have the hardcover collection on store shelves in the Fall of 2011. UK fans will see her book put out through Jonathan Cape.