Comic stars enter the MindField this September

MindField is the collective name of spoken-word events at the Electric Picnic music and arts festival at Stradbally, Co. Laois, Ireland from the 3rd to 5th September. This year sees a focus on comics included in the programme too, and guests will include Emma Vieceli, Pat Mills, (both pictured above), Steve Bell, and more alongside bands such as Roxy Music and Public Image Limited! Sounds like quite an event.

Here's the full details from MindField organizer John Byrne (no, not the X-Men artist):

"MindField at Electric Picnic has been described by Channel Four’s Jon Snow – one of last year’s undisputed stars – as a cross between Glastonbury and Hay-on-Wye and it’s difficult to better the great man’s take on it.

MindField, presented in association with RTÉ Radio One, is great meeting of minds and voices celebrating the art of conversation, debate and performance with subject matter that ranges from comic books to literature to the politics of the Middle East and all points in between. Essentially, MindField is a three day, seven venue conversation for the nation that will inform, inspire and entertain.

This year, the MindField arena at Electric Picnic has again expanded to seven elegantly decorated tented venues in the midst of parkland trees behind the main stage at Electric Picnic"

And here are the details for our event...

Graphic Content: The Big Comics Chat

Join us in the MindField on (Saturday) September 4th at 5 p.m. for a chaotic and fun-stuffed rocket ride through the inner and outer reaches of the comics and cartooning universes. Our intrepid and esteemed panel will cheerily dissect and debate the “sequential art” scene as it and was: offering thoughts, opinions and recollections on a wide range of topics, including: Classic British comics, Manga, Bande dessinée, Girls’ comics, John Major’s underpants, the Irish small presses, and much, much more. Masked and caped crusaders may also get an occasional mention…

Guests:

Pat Mills is affectionately (and accurately) known as the “godfather of British comics“. A comic industry legend, he was the founder of 2000 AD, Battle and Action. As a writer he has created some of the UK’s most seminal and best-loved comic stories: Sláine, Charley’s War, ABC Warriors, Nemesis the Warlock and many more. Among the other credits on his extensive CV are Marshal Law, Metalzoic, The Punisher 2099, Requiem Vampire Knight and Batman: The Book of Shadows.

Emma Vieceli is a freelance artist and writer based in Cambridge. Artist for 2 of the acclaimed Manga Shakespeare graphic novels (and featured in the award-winning Comic Book Tattoo and Marvel's recent Girl Comics amongst other publications), she is currently working on two graphic novel series: one for Oni Press and one for Penguin Books. She also continues to work on her own independent series, Dragon Heir (printed through Sweatdrop Studios).

Steve Bell is one of most original and respected figures in contemporary cartooning. He has produced illustrations and comic strips for many different magazines, including Social Work Today, Punch, Private Eye, New Society, Radio Times, New Statesman, The Spectator and the Journalist. Since 1981 he has written and drawn the daily If… strip in The Guardian, creating such memorable images as - John Major with his underpants worn outside his trousers, Tony Blair with Margaret Thatcher’s rogue eyeball, and George W Bush as a chimpanzee. He has had twenty seven books published, including a cartoon autobiography of George Bush called Apes of Wrath, an anthology If… Marches On and, most recently, a Tony Blair self-help guide titled My Vision For a New You. His work has been published all over the world and he has won numerous awards.

Philip Barrett has been self-publishing comics since 2001, including writing and drawing 9 issues of his catch-all title 'Matter' and contributing to numerous anthologies. With Liam Geraghty he has produced 'Gazebo' and 'The Littlest Arsonist'. In 2010 the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry published Philip's 'best-of' collection 'The Human in Me'. He is a co-founder of Edition Book Arts which celebrates the craft of the book and self-publishing. Philip helped get the ball rolling on the regular Dublin Comic Jam and is particularly interested in how good comics are at documenting the collision between the worlds of the fantastical and the mundane.

Mel Gibson is a UK based comics scholar, consultant and Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University. She has run training events about comics and graphic novels for libraries, schools and other organisations since 1993. Her published research has addressed such varied topics as girls’ comics, picture books, children's literature, graphic novels and manga.

For more info visit the website at:
http://www.electricpicnic.ie/