Mary M. Talbot's Blog

2025 continues to be busy. On Saturday 1st-Sunday 2nd November, Bryan was a guest at FACTS Belgian Comic Con, which was in the Flanders Expo centre in Ghent. The day before, there was a signing in the centre of Ghent, at Paard van Troje,  a great independent bookshop, with substantial graphic-novel sections in both Dutch and English. Before the signing, Kris, the proprietor, took us for lunch followed by a long walking tour of the fine city centre. Thanks for a great afternoon, Kris. For the rest of our visit, we were in and around the Flanders expo complex, some distance from the centre. Unlike most ‘Comicons’ these days, this annual 2-day event actually features comics quite prominently, alongside the usual games, cosplay etc. Bryan was kept pretty busy and we were well looked after by the friendly crew. When it was all over on the Sunday evening, we went out for a final nosh with fellow guests: Steve Leialoha, John McCrea and his daughter Ellie. Cheers! Then a few days later we were off again. Bryan’s Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor has just come out in English, so we were down in London for that. On Thursday 6th there was an invite-only launch event at the Cartoon Museum, where it was great seeing friends and family. It was a rare treat to have our sons Robyn and Alwyn there. Also Bryan’s French publisher, Laurent Lerner, came over from Paris to attend. Here we are in a bar afterwards, with my brother Bill Atherton, Robyn and Laurent. This private event was followed on Saturday 8th by a public signing session in Gosh! That’s James Robertson, who runs Bryan’s website, sitting next to him.  Thanks to Alwyn Talbot and Mauricio Molizane for the Cartoon Museum and Gosh! photos. So where’s next? Oh yes, Edinburgh. Maybe see you there?

The international guests were in Bowness by Thursday, the day before the festival began. They were cordially invited to come on a leisurely cruise on Lake Windermere. We had the pleasure of joining them. It was a perfect evening. On board, we met Tonje Tornes, a Norwegian publisher who had come to the festival for the international rights fair on Friday and Saturday. Mohammed Sabaaneh, an exhibitor from Palestine, is sitting behind us in the photo below, though we only got to meet him later.The following afternoon we took one of the guests, Craig Thompson, out for lunch and a bit of sightseeing, along with two mutual friends, Dave Scroggy and Rosemary Thornton. Here we are at the Mason’s Arms and Cartmel Fell Church, two of the locations in Bryan’s beautiful Tale of One Bad Rat. We went to the opening event and awards ceremony in the evening (details available here) and to Grant Morrison’s on-stage interview with John McShane (available to view here) We were mostly in the Comics Marketplace, however, where our son Robyn joined us for the first time this year, with his own self-published comic, hot from the press. Read all about it here!

We’ve been on the train to France again! This time we were guests at a warm and welcoming science fiction festival in Mérignac, near Bordeaux. Bryan’s five-volume Grandville series had been selected for the Prix ActuSF Graphique, so he was there to receive it and, of course, to continue promoting his recently published Carnets de Stamford Hawksmoor.There was a reception at Mérignac town hall in the evening for all the people invited to the Festival Hypermondes #5. These guests included Jean-Pierre Dionnet, founder of the legendary magazine Métal hurlant, and the co-creators of the Cités obscures cycle, Benoît Peeters and François Schuiten. Benoît is a scholar who has written extensively on Hergé, among others. He was my predecessor as Visiting Professor of Graphic Narrative at Lancaster University.

5th – 13th September 2025 The launch of Les carnets de Stamford Hawksmoor began in Espace Bis, the exhibition space of Bulle! bookshop in Le Mans. There’s an exhibition there of Hawksmoor original artwork, until 27th September. It was officially opened on the 5th with a panel discussion session alongside Fred Simon and Matz, who also have work on display there. We had a relaxing, touristy day in Paris, after which there were five more bookshops to go for Bryan’s launch tour. The next stage took us down to revisit the lovely city of Toulouse, for signing sessions at Le Comptoir du Rêve, . After that, we travelled back north (and I’m not going into the complications that entailed…) to bookshops in places we’ve never been before: La Dule en Bulle in Reuil-Malmaison, Ça va buller in Strasbourg and L’Octopus in Epinal. Finally, we returned to Paris for a last signing session at La Planète Dessin in Montparnasse. Phew.  

On 8th and 9th June, we were at the warm and welcoming Enniskillen Comic Con in Northern Ireland, with numerous other guests, including 2000AD veterans Garth Ennis, Will Simpson and John Wagner. The organisers were proudly showing us the comic they’d facilitated, written and drawn by all the pupils at Irvinestown Primary School. On 21st June, we were down  in London for a Cape Graphic Novels one-day event at Foyles bookstore. The day was showcasing Alison Bechdel’s new book, Spent, which she presented in lively fashion in the last session. Before it, there were three panel discussions, pictured below.

The Italian edition of Bryan’s Legend of Luther Arkwright launched last week. ARF! Il Festival del Fumetto and Tunué, the publishers, invited us to a small, friendly festival in Rome to promote it. Bryan was kept busy with interviews, panels and signing sessions, though we took a morning off to do some sightseeing. Our hotel balcony had a fine view of the festival site – a former abbatoir! On the way to Rome we stopped over in Paris and then in Milan, where Bryan did a signing in a comicshop called Supergulp. As we were staying close to Gare de Lyon in Paris, we checked out the Cinématèque that’s close by. Well worth a visit! There was a extensive exhibition on the work of Wes Anderson. We looked around that and then the permanent exhibition on the beginnings of cinema, with particular focus on Georges Méliés. We came home to the splendid news that Bryan’s Granville series has won a French literary award: the 2025 Prix Graphique of the ActuSF Prize for Uchronia! Each year, ActuSF rewards the best works relating to alternative history. The prize will be given the weekend of Sept 20th-21st, at the Hypermonde Festival held in Mérignac, near Bordeaux. We’ll be there!  

Just back from Angoulême’s 52e Festival de la BD! Grandville Force Majeure, the fifth volume in the series, was published in France last September and it was great to see it among the books honoured in the festival’s Official Selection. Bryan was at the Delirium stand in the Nouveau Monde tent for the whole weekend. In there he was as busy as ever, signing and sketching – not only in multiple copies of all five Grandville books but also in advance copies of L’histoire d’un vilain rat. This is the new French edition of The Tale of One Bad Rat, an interesting new departure for Laurent Lerner’s independent publishing house, Delirium. On Saturday morning, Bryan was on a panel co-chaired by Damien McDonald and Paul Gravett, with two other British creators whose work is published in France, Joff Winterhart and Jon McNaught.     Of the many exhibitions at the festival we went to see just one: Posy Simmonds. Herself. When the crowds had dispersed on Sunday afternoon, I nipped back with my camera. Here’s a few photos: Since we were travelling down to Angoulême by train, we stopped over in Paris. We were able to spend a few days there before the festival, doing some visual research for the next project. On the journey back, we had a free day there. It was bright and sunny, so we checked out the Jardin des Plantes. A bitterly cold day in early February – not the ideal time, perhaps. Practically everything was asleep, both in the garden and  the zoo, apart from this hardy little chap – a red panda: and these harbingers of spring:

It’s been a busy year. At least, in terms of travelling about. In late September, we were off to Bowness-on-Windermere for a very relaxed Lakes International Comic Art Festival. A pleasure to be there, as always, and with no talks, signings or table to attend this year, we just hung out chatting with people, which was great for a change. For an account of the weekend, check out Andy Oliver’s post on Broken Frontier. Then in early October (ie. the following weekend) we were off again, this time to the Festival des Livres d’en Haut in Lille. We were in France early last month for a mini signing tour, when the French edition of Force Majeure, the final volume in Bryan’s Grandville series, came out. At the festival in Lille, we had just two long afternoons sitting at the signing table, chatting with readers. And, of course, getting to know some of the other festival guests over the weekend, which is always a pleasure. If we’re invited back, though, we’ll go dressed for the Arctic; the hall we were in was as cold as a tomb!

Just back from another comics festival, this time a small, friendly affair in the Pyrenees. We had the pleasure of introducing more French readers to Bryan’s Grandville series and to Louise Michel, la Vierge Rouge, the only one of our collaborations out in a French edition, so far, at least. We had an on-stage conversation about our work on Sunday afternoon, but mostly we were sitting at the signing table, chatting with readers and getting to know some of the other festival guests, which was great.

We’ve had the UK media at the door twice this month, wanting to speak to Bryan about his long career. Why now? Because he’s been chosen for the highest accolade in the English-language comics world: entry into the prestigious ‘Hall of Fame’ of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. It’ll be presented to him at the San Diego Comic-Con in July. Finally! Here are links to the excellent coverage by Duncan Leatherdale for the BBC, published last week, and by Tom Barton for ITV, broadcast yesterday evening.