21.05.12

At November's Thought Bubble Sequential Arts Festival in Leeds, UK comics publisher Blank Slate Books staged the official launch of "Nelson," a new book which playfully blurs the line between graphic novel and anthology. Stalwart British comics artist Rob Davis had the ambitious idea of bringing together the very best of the UK's cartooning talents to work on one narrative, ultimately gathering 54 of them to tell the story of one woman's life from 1968 to the present day. He and his co-editor, the equally stalwart Woodrow Phoenix, brought together a line-up of artists that show how the UK comics scene is enjoying something of an explosion in original graphic novel, small press and webcomics publishing; as well as a liberal sprinkling of contributors who should be very familiar to US comic readers such as Sean Phillips, Duncan Fegredo, Philip Bond, Dave Taylor, Glynn Dillon, Warren Pleece and Simon Gane.

Davis' career path is somewhat typical of UK creators of his generation, producing the semi-legendary fanzine "Slang" around the same time Phil Bond and Warren Pleece were doing the same on "Atomtan" and "Velocity," respectively. Just as his peers were working on "Kid Eternity" and "Shade The Changing Man" at Vertigo, by the early '90s Davis was also working on a post-"Watchmen" reinvention of a major comics icon. Davis was simultaneously deconstructing the mythos of the classic British footballing comic "Roy Of The Rovers," introducing themes of legacy and social realism to the adventures of the sporting hero with the improbably long career.

Source: Comic Book Resources