2:12

Hello Paul. Welcome to Comic Boom.

2:14

Hello. Thanks for having me.

2:16

You are very welcome. Can you give us a little bit of a

2:18

rundown of your journey as a comics

2:20

fan? You're obviously a, a big fan of comics.

2:23

When did that all start for you? Was it early

2:25

on or was it quite late in life? What's

2:27

the story?

2:28

When I was at primary school, I was

2:30

a very keen reader and my

2:33

mother as a way of fostering this

2:35

love of reading, would buy me

2:37

any comics from the news agent

2:39

that she could find. and so you got a lot of the Beano

2:41

and the Dandy stuff, but what really sort of grasped

2:44

my imagination, was reprints

2:46

of Hulk and Spider-Man, these

2:48

sort of marvel things. It's not the,

2:51

the market back then wasn't the way it is today. There's,

2:54

there's just lots and lots of American comics imported

2:57

into the country. It wasn't like that in the 1970s.

2:59

It wasn't particular like that in the eighties, to be honest. but

3:02

what would happen is, British publishers would buy the

3:04

rights to sort of reproduce American

3:07

superhero stories and they would reproduce

3:09

them in a sort of cheaper black and white

3:11

format. And you would buy a magazine

3:14

like just called Marvel and it would've

3:16

like, you know, spider-Man in it, and Hulk

3:18

and Thor and Ironman and Captain American

3:20

Daredevil, all these wonderful, wonderful characters.

3:23

So that was, that was kind of like how I first,

3:26

got into reading really and got into reading comics.

3:28

Really got into loving reading, I suppose.

3:30

And it is something I've reminded my mother about on several

3:32

occasions.

3:33

And that she must be very proud. That's a great thing for a mom

3:35

to do, to get someone into comics.

3:37

I actually, when I had the first, Excelsior

3:39

Award ceremony, I invited

3:41

my mother along. and when I actually like, tried

3:43

to thank her publicly for what she'd, uh, for

3:45

this love of reading she'd fostered in me, I

3:48

actually choked up a little bit. I, and, uh,

3:50

I had to have two seconds and just sort of compose

3:52

myself before going on again. You know?

3:55

So, uh, so yeah, she's very much aware

3:57

that she was the driving force beyond my early

3:59

love of, of comics and reading. Yeah,

4:01

That's really cool. But I think as a parent you don't,

4:03

you never know which things you try

4:05

and encourage your children to do so many different things. You never

4:07

know which things are gonna be the things that stick,

4:09

the things that are gonna sort of change their life.

4:11

I.

4:12

Yeah.

4:12

Same as a teacher as well,

4:14

I guess so.

4:15

yeah. You don't know what, in what

4:17

ways you're inspiring people when you are, so

4:19

what about you as a reader now? Are you still,

4:21

is it still very much Marvel focused

4:23

or have you branched out a bit?

4:24

I do read a wide variety

4:26

of different genres these days. I'm

4:29

kind of dictated to by

4:31

the work I do with the Excelsior Award, because

4:34

we do compile a long list all

4:36

through the year, so I

4:38

kind of have to just keep constantly abreast

4:40

of what's, popular, at any given any given

4:42

year really. So it kind of dictates

4:45

me a little bit what I, what I, I read, but

4:48

that's not a bad thing, it does sometimes

4:50

force me to read something I wouldn't normally pick

4:52

up myself. It's, it's a strange thing with school librarians.

4:54

We, um, we don't get a lot of time to read, but we have

4:56

to, we do have to kind of read professionally as

4:58

well. so I can keep on top of

5:01

what kids might think is, is

5:03

cool today. You know, we can't just forever

5:05

rely on Roald Dahl, Jacqueline

5:08

Wilson Potter, stuff like

5:10

We've gotta move with the times and it's, is there anything that's

5:12

really sort of stuck out to you recently

5:14

that you've read that you've, that's sort of stayed

5:16

with you and you thought, well, that's gonna be one and definitely gonna recommend

5:18

to people?

5:19

well, to be honest, we're in, we're in the very early

5:21

stages of long listing for, for next year

5:23

now. So, yeah, we've only had one month's

5:26

worth of long listing because we do it across the calendar

5:28

year. but, I did treat myself to a,

5:30

a black hammer omnibus with,

5:32

some money I got for Christmas, because

5:34

I'd only ever read it digitally before.

5:37

I loved it. He's absolutely wonderful stuff.

5:39

By Jeff Lamire an artist called Dean Ormston,

5:42

who lives in Barnsley actually. which

5:44

is very close to where I am. But it's a, it's a wonderful, wonderful

5:46

series. If you ever loved superhero

5:48

comics growing up, it sort of speaks to you

5:50

as a, not as a teenager, but

5:52

as a sort of middle-aged guy or middle-aged

5:54

woman who loved superhero comics growing

5:57

up. So that was a little treat. I've

5:59

also been reading, uh, an awful lot of

6:01

Daredevil and The Punisher, that's

6:04

mostly been inspired by watching

6:07

the TV shows that were originally

6:09

on Netflix. They're now, they're now on Disney Plus. So,

6:12

yeah, that's, that's two mediums that are sort of linking

6:14

together there.

6:15

I do think there's a lot of crossover between TV

6:17

and books. And it's not just comics it

6:19

is, it's other books as well. But I think it's really interesting

6:22

because it's, it does go both ways. Some people are coming

6:24

from it, from the book first and then going into the TV

6:26

and, and other people are coming from the other way around.

6:28

But it's, it's great to have that constant

6:31

sort of push and pull between the two, I think

6:33

it makes come across things that you wouldn't normally

6:35

read, or watch things that you wouldn't normally watch.

6:37

I think.

6:38

yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, We were only talking at

6:40

my school. We were only talking recently about some

6:42

teachers talking to me about how they don't like

6:45

the new book cover to Noughts and crosses by

6:47

Mallory Blackman because it. directly

6:49

ties into the TV show, which, I mean,

6:52

you can understand why, why a publisher

6:54

would want to do that, but there is

6:56

a sort of school of thought that you think, well, I did quite

6:58

like the sort of those, those lovely black

7:00

and white covers that the series used to have the

7:03

sort of the, the, the nice geometric shapes

7:05

and everything.

7:06

Yeah, from an artistic perspective or from

7:08

a design perspective, often the TV related

7:10

covers aren't as good, aren't they? They're just, they're not as,

7:12

as interesting. You've

7:15

mentioned the Excelsior Award, and that was one of the main things

7:17

I wanted to talk to you about today. Can you introduce

7:20

people listening, what are the Excelsior

7:22

Awards and how did they start? You

7:24

are brains behind them. What was the

7:26

aim of the award? I'd really like to hear about the journey

7:29

from, its from its beginnings to where it is.

7:31

well, it's very, it's very earliest roots actually.

7:33

Started with the Sheffield Children's Book

7:35

Awards. I'd been working in

7:37

Rotherham as a school librarian for several years,

7:40

and I'd just moved back to Sheffield and

7:42

the awards organizers, they, they generally

7:44

just do, novels. Basically, it's a

7:46

book award for novels and, and picture books, like

7:48

many of the book awards in this country are. But every

7:50

year they have a sort of guest award. And

7:53

in 2010, they wanted

7:55

to do, a guest award featuring graphic

7:58

novel. The downside of that was that nobody

8:00

works for them, knew anything about graphic novels.

8:03

So they contacted me and said,

8:06

would you be interested in helping us compile a short

8:08

list? so I said, yeah, okay, let's, let's, let's

8:10

do that. and it was a bit hurried.

8:12

It was a bit last minute. It was a bit sort of throwing

8:14

a few ideas together. But we got, we got it together

8:17

and it went really, it went down really, really well with

8:19

the, the school kids in Sheffield. and so when

8:21

we had the award ceremony, and to be

8:23

honest, honest with you, I genuinely can't remember who won

8:25

it

8:25

That was what I was gonna ask you, I'm

8:27

sure records exist. We can go

8:29

back and

8:30

they must, I honestly, my memory's just

8:32

gone on this one. Um, genuinely

8:35

can't remember what was on it. But, the year

8:37

after I went back to him and I said, I've got some really good

8:39

ideas of how we could make it better

8:41

this year, 2011, this was,

8:43

and the organizers said,

8:45

well, we're not doing it in 2011. We're

8:48

going to do a different guest award with no interest

8:50

in doing that. And I thought, oh, well that's

8:52

a real shame because you've built up some momentum

8:54

there. There's definitely a, a desire

8:57

for, for more stuff like this, for more

8:59

awards like this from the school kids in

9:01

Sheffield. so I decided to just do it myself

9:03

and, and do a sort of breakaway. And

9:05

I think that first year we had 17

9:08

schools apply for

9:10

it. well take part really. we had all the secondary

9:12

schools in Sheffield and somehow

9:15

word of it spread to

9:18

other schools in other cities. And

9:21

so I had about maybe four or five who said,

9:23

can we join in as well? And I thought, yeah, yeah, fine.

9:25

Kush can is no problem, really. so that first year,

9:27

was, was really excited and

9:29

we had a, a short list of eight books. And, um,

9:32

I can tell you who won. I remember that one. It was Black Butler,

9:34

which is a manga title. It's Marvel. It's still popular

9:36

today, which is Fab. and the year after

9:39

is when I opened it up nationally.

9:42

I thought, there's no reason why this has to be

9:44

just a Sheffields thing, just even

9:46

just a South Yorkshire thing, or even just north of England. So

9:48

I just put feelers out there via

9:51

social media and, and librarians

9:53

groups and said, you know, this is what

9:55

I'm doing. If you want to take part, let

9:57

me know. You're more than welcome. And

10:00

the second year in 2012, we got 77

10:02

schools doing it,

10:03

Wow.

10:03

is this massive increase. and so that's just

10:05

been kind of the way it's gone since. I mean,

10:08

going back to your earlier question about why we do it, I suppose,

10:10

we do it because we want kids to be able to.

10:13

Read these wonderful books. to be

10:15

honest, we, we are fully aware that not all

10:17

kids want to do the Carnegie

10:19

or the Sheffield Children's Book Award or anything that's

10:22

an equivalent. Some kids like reading things

10:24

that are different. So is the, that is the

10:26

primary reason for everything we do. It's, it's

10:28

to get kids reading.

10:29

And is it run in schools by a school librarian

10:32

or by a teacher and in a primary school what's

10:34

the process? You do the long list or,

10:36

or you'd come up with a short list then from

10:38

the long list with a, with a panel of judges.

10:41

that's right.

10:42

And then it, then it's handed over to the children

10:44

to vote.

10:45

yes, that's right. We, we compile

10:47

the short list that come out, but

10:49

we let the kids

10:51

choose the winner basically. and we do

10:53

that by, which is, I, I

10:55

think this is. Quite unique really. But we, we

10:57

do it by getting them to fill in a rating form

11:00

after each book they've read. When we

11:02

first started doing this, I was very much aware

11:04

that if you ask kids to read

11:06

eight books on a short list, by

11:09

the time they've read eight, they will probably not

11:11

be able to remember which one they

11:13

loved the most at the time of reading.

11:16

And what they will probably do is gravitate

11:18

more towards the character that

11:20

they know best.

11:22

Yep.

11:22

So if you were to have, eight books on

11:25

a short list and one of those books was a

11:27

Batman book, what you

11:30

might find is not all the kids, but some kids,

11:32

by the time you've read all late, we'll go, oh God, I can't

11:34

quite remember which ones I enjoyed the most.

11:36

So we'll just pick Batman. Cuz I love Batman. That's

11:38

what we didn't want. We didn't want any kind of unconscious

11:41

bias, I guess to use a modern phrase. We

11:43

didn't want that seeping in. So what we do is we get

11:45

kids when they've read a book straight away, they fill

11:47

in a rating form in which they

11:49

give it marks outta five for the

11:51

story, for the artwork, for the characters,

11:54

and for the dialogue so that they can

11:56

engage properly with how they

11:59

feel about what they've just read.

12:01

And they don't go away and think about it. They just

12:03

sort of, you get a really kind of like a raw

12:05

emotional reaction

12:07

to what they've just read, which is what we want. We want to

12:09

know genuinely what they've

12:12

enjoyed.

12:12

Do they have to meet all of them on the short list?

12:15

No is the simple answer. No, we don't

12:17

ever want it to feel as though it's, a really kind of strict

12:20

approach. I always tell librarians that

12:22

ultimately they are the ones delivering it in their

12:24

school. So if it

12:26

can be as flexible as they want it to be, if

12:28

they want their kids not reading a

12:30

specific book for whatever reason,

12:33

they might feel it's not appropriate for their

12:35

particular setting, they're, they're

12:37

more than welcome to take that book out. They

12:39

can replace it with another one from another short

12:41

list if they wish. Like I said, what we want

12:43

to do is get the kids reading. And not worry too

12:45

much about, about, whether it's suitable

12:48

or whether it's age rated I work in a school

12:50

that's probably very different to what other librarians

12:53

work in. We all work in very different

12:55

places with very different cohorts,

12:57

with very different, expectations.

13:00

Very different parents in some respects. so

13:02

yeah, as far as I'm concern, it has, it has to be flexible.

13:04

You can't be dictating to school

13:07

librarians what they should deliver in their particular

13:09

setting, because I'm not in that setting.

13:10

Yeah, I think it takes, must take the pressure off as well.

13:12

And it certainly, I've been a judge on the book

13:14

awards before and I love reading

13:17

and I'm happy to spend large amounts of time

13:19

reading, but still when I get a massive

13:22

pile of books through for book awards, it's very

13:24

stressful, ah, there's so much

13:26

to get through. Um, uh, so

13:28

it must, that does take that pressure element

13:30

off as well. You don't have to read all of it. You can still be involved.

13:33

You don't have to be able to kind of consume

13:35

large amounts of, of books in a short

13:37

amount of time. You can, you can just sort of

13:39

access it at your own pace. do,

13:43

are you sometimes surprised by the, the book

13:46

that's chosen. I guess when you're,

13:48

you are giving out the short list, you've got an idea

13:50

of which one is your favorite, how often

13:52

does that coincide? Which, which is the favorite of the,

13:54

the young

13:55

uh, ,uh, rarely

13:59

What do you think the

14:00

I'm, I'm frequently surprised to

14:02

be honest. I, I, there has been occasions,

14:04

I'll be honest, there has been occasions when I've put a book on

14:06

a short list thinking this is gonna

14:08

be fab, and it's just

14:11

not been at all. it's just completely

14:13

crashed and burnt. I won't reveal which books,

14:16

because I do, I do try to keep myself out

14:18

of the shortlist as much as possible,

14:21

so I don't actually reveal, I

14:23

always reveal winners, but I don't reveal losers, for

14:25

example. I recently wrote an article in

14:27

the school Library Association's Journal, about

14:30

using graphic novels in schools. And one of the

14:32

points I put was, don't buy Mr.

14:34

Miracle, which I dunno if you're aware, but Mr. Miracle

14:36

is, a book that was brought out a f two or three

14:38

years ago and it won all sorts

14:40

of awards. It was massively popular,

14:42

and I read it and it was extremely good. The

14:45

artwork was just phenomenal. The

14:47

story was, was something new and

14:50

interesting and fresh and a complete mystery throughout

14:53

it. And I put it on a one of our shortlists and

14:55

it really didn't do very well. So

14:58

there is this, I mean, I know what I've just said about not revealing

15:00

losers. That's the only exception.

15:03

but it is, it is a winner in so many other ways

15:05

that it is, it's not gonna be worried about that.

15:08

the, the guys who created that don't care because

15:10

they've got their own awards from something else, you know? But

15:13

it just shows you that we do obviously try

15:15

to choose books

15:18

that we think school children in the

15:20

UK will love. And I think by

15:22

and large we get it right. But there

15:24

are examples of books that are

15:26

critically well considered, shall we say, that

15:29

just don't work in UK school

15:31

libraries. And I guess that's fine because I think

15:33

something like Mr. Miracle, which is just an example,

15:35

I just, I, I, I like to use

15:37

because I know how

15:40

well received it was, and I know how many awards

15:42

in the US it won. but it's just an example of,

15:44

you just can't get it right every time. And, and

15:46

also you can't just rely on

15:48

other awards. Giving you a clue, you've

15:50

got to use your own savvy, you know

15:55

And you've got spinoff awards as

15:57

well. I'm calling them spinoff awards. They're probably

15:59

not the right word for them. That's why you've got kind of small

16:02

sub awards. Can you tell us a little bit about

16:04

those? Cause I think they're quite, interested

16:07

and fun.

16:08

Yes. Yes. The second part, I mean, I've been talking

16:10

about getting kids reading. The, the other part

16:12

of why we run the Excelsior Award was

16:14

to raise the profile of graphic novels and

16:16

of manga, which is Japanese comics

16:19

within school librarians, in the uk. And

16:21

the reason I introduced these

16:24

spinoff awards, the

16:26

JABBICA, which is the judge a book,

16:28

its cover award,

16:29

I love that one.

16:30

and the True Believers Award, which

16:32

is an award for the school that returns me the most rating

16:35

forms every year. The reason we introduce these things

16:37

is because we want to get school librarians involved

16:41

as well in a way that doesn't

16:43

require them to read every book on the short

16:45

list, but they can still feel as though they're,

16:47

they are involved in some way. Um,

16:50

the jica, for example, all the librarian

16:52

has to do, to take part in that, is just download

16:55

the, the, the voting sheet that I send

16:57

them. Just pick which cover they like the best and

17:00

then send it back. cuz I, I kind of think it's just,

17:02

I, it's, it's kind of important that

17:04

there's some fun element in it for librarians

17:07

as well.

17:08

And there's one around displays in the library

17:10

as well.

17:10

yes, yes, that's the enough said award.

17:13

nuff said is one of Stan

17:15

Lee's, uh, used to be almost Stan

17:17

Lee's primary catchphrases, which he use

17:19

when he was editing Marvel comics. he actually said

17:21

in one of the Spider-Man movies as well, when he had a cameo

17:23

in one of those, which is just a, a wonderful

17:25

moment. So yeah, we give an award out for the school

17:28

that has the best school display

17:30

as well that award came about because

17:32

I had, I did have librarians

17:35

who would send me pictures of their,

17:37

displays that they'd put up, and I thought, what, these are

17:39

marvelous, you know, and I can't just like, let 'em sit

17:41

and rot in my inbox. I should put

17:43

'em on the website. And then I thought, well,

17:46

we should have an award for this as well. You know, these, these

17:48

librarians out there who was, were really

17:50

getting into this and really put

17:53

in time and effort into it. So yeah, so we come

17:55

up with the, the Enough said award,

17:57

I talk to a lot of, librarians in my day job

17:59

and can people they love to get inspiration

18:01

for displays and things like that. Are those photos

18:04

still available on your website or are they up when

18:06

the awards are running? is there

18:08

some way of accessing those?

18:09

What I do is I keep on, all

18:11

this year's entries and then I think I boil it down

18:13

to the winner. And again, it, it's those judges that,

18:16

that just choose the winner every year. So

18:18

previous years the top display on the website.

18:20

What is the time scale of the award? So you've got the,

18:23

so the short lists have been announced. We're gonna go and

18:25

talk about those in a little while.

18:27

When's the winner announced?

18:29

okay. Right. Well, what we do is we open

18:31

registration in November,

18:33

and then we, we finalize all the short

18:35

lists in December. We try and do

18:38

it mid-December if we can. And

18:40

the idea behind that is that once we've announced

18:42

the short list, librarians

18:44

can put their book orders in before they break

18:47

up for Christmas, and

18:49

the bookstores and the book suppliers can

18:51

spend those two weeks getting those books

18:53

in. Cause they don't have a two week break for Christmas

18:56

like we do. so they can do all that work whilst

18:58

the librarian is enjoying

19:00

Christmas. And then when the librarian

19:02

comes back in January, hopefully their books

19:04

should start arriving, trickling in.

19:06

However it might be. and then that's when I send

19:09

them all their resources that they need, their rating

19:11

forms and their posters and stuff. and

19:13

then basically they've got until roughly

19:15

Easter, to work with it. we give it quite a

19:17

long, quite a long time really because,

19:20

some librarians might not get the,

19:22

li the books in quick enough. they might

19:24

find the kids are reading at a slightly slower rate

19:27

Hmm.

19:27

than other schools. so it just gives people a lot of time

19:29

to play with. and then we get to Easter and then people

19:31

can send all their rating forms to me at Easter

19:34

and I've can start the process of marking

19:37

them all as

19:38

So then you have to do like a big data

19:40

inputting job

19:41

Yeah,

19:42

that sounds hellish

19:45

it's, it is, it is. I'm, I'm a very

19:47

anti-d to an anti statistics kind

19:49

of guy. I like the creative process.

19:51

So looking at, yeah.

19:54

Look at all these different things and sorting out

19:56

what, what can be thousands of sheets of a

19:58

four paper, and then going through 'em and marking

20:01

them all. Uh, it can be

20:03

quite a bit of a nightmare,

20:05

but it's a labor of love, isn't

20:06

Yep. Yeah, absolutely.

20:09

um, and also, I, I always think, I

20:11

do get people every year who says to me, well, why don't you do it

20:13

online? Why don't you let the kids vote online?

20:15

And I, I'll go back to what I said about the rating form.

20:18

I, I don't want kids

20:20

to finish a book and then try and find a computer

20:22

and then log on and then find the website

20:24

and then input their data. I want the

20:27

immediate reaction for it. Yeah,

20:28

Yeah, I can see that, that, although

20:31

convenient for you, it's more of a barrier

20:33

than for the children to take part,

20:34

yeah, yeah, exactly. I want an authentic,

20:37

I want an authentic winner. Every year is what I want,

20:39

so we announced the winners,

20:43

mid-July. Really, we, we do it before the

20:45

kids have all broke up for the summer holidays.

20:46

That's

20:47

Uh, that seems to be the best way. Yeah, that's

20:49

the best way to do it. If, if you don't, then it drags

20:51

onto September and then you've lost a little bit of impetus,

20:53

I guess, with it as well. So, it gives individual

20:55

school librarians, again, the opportunity,

20:57

to do their own mini award ceremony

21:00

in their school with their kids and their, their

21:03

comics clubs and their readers and their award

21:06

official artists.

21:06

I suppose that potentially schools can have their own

21:08

winner as well as the main winner. Just thinking

21:10

about what their actual pupils have

21:13

voted for, it'd be quite interesting to

21:15

know. that's why I'd be interested to know

21:17

that's, yeah. I, to be honest, I used to do, that's at

21:19

one of the schools I worked at. I

21:21

met with the kids from my readers group after

21:23

the award ceremony, just for some

21:26

sort of feedback and just see what they thought of,

21:28

of, of the

21:29

Mm-hmm.

21:29

And, and they were all like, I

21:32

didn't like that book. And I said, well, funnily

21:34

enough, I said the book, you all choses,

21:36

there's your best book finish fourth.

21:38

Yeah. That's interesting.

21:39

And I don't, I have no explanation fear

21:41

as to why I said you liked that

21:43

one, but lots of other schools liked

21:45

this one.

21:49

I wonder if you could take us through some of the

21:51

books on the short list,

21:52

Well, actually, do you want to look at blue and red? Because

21:54

those, I'll, I'll be honest, those are the two pop

21:57

most popular awards, which

21:59

is kind of what I would expect anyway. most

22:01

of the schools that sign up are secondary

22:03

schools. I think it's important. We still keep primary

22:06

schools and sixth form colleges involved, but

22:08

they're not at the same numbers as the other schools. You know,

22:10

Come on. Primary schools get involved. I

22:14

I'm a primary school teacher right by

22:17

training, so I'll champion the

22:19

I'd love more primary schools. to join up. It's,

22:22

maybe It's just more difficult to get the word out,

22:24

Yeah.

22:25

I guess primary schools don't have their own librarians,

22:28

do they?

22:28

No, it would've to be like an English lead.

22:31

Some do, but mostly it's, it's like the,

22:33

the subject leader for English,

22:35

yeah. And I, and I would think it'd be quite

22:37

easy to run it in a primary school.

22:40

Okay, so the blue

22:43

short list, so it's for key stage

22:45

three children, aged 11 plus.

22:47

This is in the, I've got a nearly 13

22:50

year old daughter, so this is in her, age

22:52

range. interesting titles. What

22:54

can you tell me about them?

22:55

I'm gonna really try hard to do this without

22:57

showing any kinds of favoritism

22:59

or bias

23:01

we'll be scrutinizing your every word

23:04

thank you. Um,

23:07

I will also say as well, this is where

23:09

having a team of judges comes

23:11

in really handy because we're able

23:13

to read through a lot more books

23:15

than, than I could on my own. Which

23:19

again, I guess limits

23:21

the amount of bias I can put on any short list.

23:23

Yeah,

23:24

Um, so there's, there's

23:26

a couple of books on here that, I

23:29

must admit I have not read as

23:31

intently. I have more speed read

23:33

than I have the, some of the others. but that's fine

23:35

because I know other judges have read it and they've

23:37

said to me, it's really good this Paul, you need to get

23:39

on the short list. And that's good enough for me.

23:41

You know, if someone like Lucy Forrester, who

23:44

you are obviously gonna speak to soon, if

23:46

someone like Lucy Forrester is telling me a man is good,

23:48

I take notice. Cause she knows, she

23:50

really knows her stuff, you know. so

23:53

on the blue list I'll start with the two manga titles

23:55

actually. We've got Cat and Game. Which,

23:57

is one of those books that clearly isn't

24:00

aimed at somebody like me. But, uh,

24:03

one of the judges absolutely loved it. She said it was incredibly

24:05

sweet. It's about a, a sort of a

24:07

gamer in Japan. It's a manga title,

24:09

so it's set in Japan. who kind

24:12

of struggles with social relationships because

24:14

she's so into gaming, basically. That's, that's

24:16

kind of what she's really into. and she sort of accidentally

24:19

adopts a, a, a runaway cat,

24:21

and she slowly discovers

24:24

more about engaging with

24:26

real physical beings

24:29

through this, through looking after a cat.

24:31

Then she has prior to that, because

24:34

she, everything, all her relationships

24:36

have been kind of, um, digital and online

24:38

and. In that regard. So we'll

24:40

see how popular that one's going to be.

24:43

The, this one appeals to me. I'm

24:45

just looking at the cover as well.

24:47

It's got a very big cat on it. I don't actually, I

24:50

don't actually like cats. I'm just gonna say that now.

24:52

no, I don't either.

24:55

but the cover makes me feel like this. This

24:57

is something a bit different. You know? I'm intrigued

24:59

by it and it makes me want to read it.

25:01

the thing is with the cover as well, if you look at the cover,

25:04

if you really, I kind of look at it, I don't, you might have to look at it

25:06

digitally, but you can see

25:08

the, um, you can see the, the, the cover

25:10

is, is a painted canvas.

25:12

Yeah. It's got texture.

25:13

don't mean literally, but it's clearly copied from,

25:15

from that. You've got the, uh, the, the sort of crossing

25:18

over of the threads of a canvas on

25:20

it, which you don't realize until you really sort

25:22

of zoom in on it.

25:23

yeah. That's interesting. Okay. That's

25:24

So that's nice that it just shows you the, the level of

25:26

attention that the creator has put into

25:29

their creation.

25:30

Okay. And there's another manger as well on the short.

25:33

Yes, there is, it's called Run on Your New Legs,

25:35

it's about a young lad who loses

25:38

a leg basically and

25:40

has to give up a career, as a football player.

25:42

but through the story

25:44

discovers, a prosthesis that allows him to still

25:47

run. so he decides to switch

25:49

from football to, athletics,

25:51

which, he learns how to run

25:54

with the aid of this prosthetic. so like

25:56

with Cat and Gamer, like with many Mangas, it's

25:58

an ongoing series, so we'll

26:01

see. we'll see. what happens with that. But,

26:03

um, yeah, it's, um, it's, it's

26:05

interesting to have a, a character with a,

26:07

a, a clear disability

26:09

Yeah. And is that diversity of representation

26:11

something that you think about when you are shortlisting

26:14

as well?

26:15

definitely we've, that's always been one of the key,

26:17

guiding tenants since day one. We've

26:19

always wanted to produce shortlists

26:22

that had at least one book that

26:24

would appeal to every student, you know,

26:27

even if they hated all the other books on the shortlist,

26:29

they should always be one that appeals to them

26:31

in some way. and like you said, it can, it

26:33

can be things that, cross, gender or

26:35

race, religion.

26:36

Yeah.

26:37

This might be the first time we've had something that

26:39

so overtly looks at a,

26:41

a disabled character actually.

26:43

Yeah. There's not been much focus on, I don't

26:45

think from my perspective in publishing,

26:47

but it's just starting to happen where there's more

26:50

of a sort of proactive look at

26:52

actually our i'll

26:54

disabled people's lives being represented in, in

26:56

books. I think it's really important.

26:57

Yeah. And not just a sort of a day-to-day

27:00

life struggling with

27:02

a disability. Um, it's

27:05

a, it's a, how you can still be a sports

27:07

yeah, the, I mean the cover looks very,

27:09

active and um, Yeah.

27:12

sort of That's, yeah. Yeah, that's a good word.

27:14

Dynamic. Well, thanks for that

27:16

word,

27:17

Write that one down. Yeah.

27:20

Over Um, so

27:22

what else have you got on this short list then?

27:24

I've got a book called Acad, which is,

27:26

which represents Europe, and when I say European,

27:28

I'm tend to mean the kind of, France, Benelux

27:30

kind of areas That's for

27:33

some strange reason we've never quite tapped

27:35

into in this country. But it's a real thriving

27:37

and, and market over in Europe. Uh,

27:40

there's a, an awful lot of stuff

27:42

that's produced over there. So acad comes

27:44

from, I, I think it's French. It's published

27:46

by Cine book, C I N E

27:48

B O O K. I think they're

27:50

based in Canterbury, and they buy

27:53

the rights to all these European comics

27:55

that are, are published over there. Uh, and

27:57

they translate them into English and they translate

27:59

'em extremely well into English. They

28:01

take that part of it very seriously, it's very much

28:03

a dystopia. It's about,

28:05

an alien invasion. It's about, how

28:08

these aliens, exist in a kind

28:10

of different time space moment to the,

28:12

to humans so that when they come

28:14

through into our dimension, they kind of lock

28:17

that part of earth that they enter. And

28:20

humans then can't

28:22

live in that part of the world.

28:25

And it's about how the humans sort

28:27

of fight back. There's

28:29

a lot going off into it and, and I, I,

28:31

I, really like books with an international

28:34

flavor I don't just mean in terms of creators,

28:36

but the story itself is a proper world

28:38

spanning story as it should be if

28:40

it's about an alien invasion of earth.

28:45

You've got some, titles with, with

28:47

characters that people probably maybe a bit more

28:49

familiar with on here as well.

28:51

yes, definitely. I've got some, the death of

28:53

Dr. Strange. And the thing

28:55

who is a, a character from Fantastic Four Comics,

28:57

if you're not familiar. Both are Marvel

29:00

characters. Dr. Strange has obviously been made very,

29:02

been made very popular by Benedict's Cumberbatch

29:05

over the last few years. but what we don't

29:07

want to do is be

29:10

putting books in there that are just,

29:12

that are only in there because there's a film coming

29:14

out or there's a film recently been out. they have

29:16

to be, they still have to be good. they still

29:18

have to be readable. They still have to have really nice

29:20

artwork and they still have to, you know, draw

29:22

kids in. And at the end of it, the kid

29:25

has to feel as though they've been

29:27

on some sort of reading journey with a, a somewhat

29:29

of a, a sense of, uh, completeness

29:32

as well, rather than just part of an ongoing series

29:34

and it's been running for decades. so yeah, the death of Dr.

29:36

Strange is. Is not your traditional

29:39

killing of a superhero and then watch him get resurrected

29:41

again a few weeks later kind of thing. the premise

29:44

is, well, it's a murder mystery basically.

29:46

Dr. Strange answers the door and

29:48

is murdered, by an

29:51

unknown assailant. Uh, as readers,

29:53

we don't know who it is. You find that out later on in the book.

29:55

but the interesting part is that Dr.

29:58

Strange has, if you're not familiar with

30:00

Dr. Strange, he's the, he's the master of the Mystic

30:02

Arts. He knows magic and sorcery.

30:04

He's, he's prepared for his own murder

30:06

for a long time. So what

30:09

he's done is he's portioned

30:11

off like a section of his soul when

30:13

he was younger and like put it in, in

30:15

a separate dimension of its own

30:17

As you do

30:18

We all do it. Yeah. on,

30:20

its very least on the time of his

30:22

untimely death. So

30:25

as he's murdered this younger

30:28

version, this younger temporary

30:30

version of Dr. Strange comes

30:33

to solve the crime and has only so many days

30:35

to do it before he, he disappears

30:37

into nothingness and he

30:39

doesn't have any of the relationships

30:41

with the other supporting cast

30:43

characters that today's

30:46

Dr. Strange has. that make sense?

30:48

It does. I actually think so. Um,, the

30:50

cover is quite seventies.

30:53

I dunno, what would you, it's kind of got neons

30:56

and snakes and skulls, was

30:58

not appealing to me. But now that you've just talked

31:00

about it, I think sounds quite

31:02

good. I probably

31:03

well, the ver the version of Dr. Strange,

31:05

the, the sort of the, that comes into

31:07

the future to solve the murder

31:09

is kind of the seventies version of Dr.

31:11

Well, let me go.

31:13

Um, so I mean, things like, he doesn't, he

31:16

doesn't, he doesn't get 20, 23

31:18

or 2022 at all, but his only

31:20

purpose is to find out who murdered who

31:22

murdered himself, his future self, you know?

31:24

yeah. So it's very interesting. the

31:27

thing on the other hand, is written by

31:29

someone who's not known for writing comics.

31:31

a novelist called Walter Mosley, who,

31:33

I haven't read any Walter Mosley, if I'm honest, but I know

31:36

who he is. he writes kind of like hard

31:38

boiled noir detective fiction,

31:40

set in the us. and Marvel got him into write,

31:43

a story for them and he asked if he could write a thing,

31:45

story. Um, the thing is,

31:47

is also known as Ben Grim. and he writes this,

31:49

this story that I just thought was absolutely wonderful.

31:51

it's kind of crazy. It's kind

31:53

of all over the place. it really focuses

31:55

on a man who is a monster and

31:57

how he overcomes feelings

31:59

of loneliness. And how he has

32:01

to, and the sort of crazy stuff he has to deal

32:04

with on a daily basis

32:06

when kind of all he wants to do is be left

32:09

alone and, and to just sort of sit down and have a beer

32:11

and watch football. so yeah, I found that very

32:13

interesting. Shall we say?

32:15

Cool. so I know you mentioned earlier about librarians

32:17

getting the books in and so do, are

32:19

there sort of book sellers doing kind of packages

32:22

of all of the titles on the short list, so it's

32:24

quite easy to sort of get them in in bulk? Or

32:26

well, yes. One of the things that's, if we, that

32:28

we recommend, and it is only a recommendation,

32:30

it's not an order. on the website we give a direct

32:33

link to, an independent bookstore

32:35

in Sheffield called the Sheffield Space. Who

32:37

definitely when I first set up, they would be very,

32:39

very helpful in helping me form shortlists and things.

32:41

the guy who runs it is still one of our judges,

32:44

but we do recommend that you contact

32:47

the Sheffield Space Center and get them to take care of

32:49

it, because they are real specialists

32:51

in this field. obviously some schools have

32:54

very specific rules about where librarians can

32:56

buy their books from. We just met that recommendation,

33:01

So, the Excelsior Red Award

33:03

then is for 14 plus or

33:05

key stage four in schools,

33:08

and there's another five titles.

33:11

Oh, I've just seen the first one on the website. Says

33:13

Neil Gaiman next to it, which is cool. What

33:15

can you tell us about those?

33:16

Right. Okay. Cause I'm going through quick. We've got Chivelery,

33:19

which is by Neil Gaiman. it's an old short

33:21

story that Neil Gaiman wrote a long time ago.

33:23

And I think it's been made into a radio play as well at some

33:25

point. But, um, this is the first time it's

33:27

been made into a graphic novel. And

33:29

the artist is a, a wonderful artist called

33:32

Colleen Doran. And it, that's about

33:34

an old woman who goes to the

33:36

charity shop, local charity shop, And

33:38

she buys an nice looking cup and

33:40

it turns out to be the Holy Grail. And she gets one

33:42

of Arthur's nights knocking on the door and

33:44

saying, I think you've got the Holy grail. And

33:47

she's, no, no, I haven't. and

33:50

it's this wonderful kind

33:53

of, meshing between this retire

33:55

single old lady and the

33:57

Oman that she has in her house. And, and

34:00

the knight who, who could quite easily just

34:02

pick it up and walk out with it, but doesn't because

34:04

he's noble. so wants to give her something

34:06

in return for getting the hold of Grail from her. And

34:08

he brings her all these different

34:10

magical gifts, and they sit down and have cups

34:13

of tea together and jam sandwiches and things like this.

34:15

I like that. Sound like that sounds a bit whimsical.

34:18

yeah, it's, it's, and it's, the artwork's absolutely

34:20

beautiful as well. right. Moving on to

34:22

the hell, boy. Have you got that one?

34:23

Yeah. Hellboy

34:25

The bones of Giants?

34:26

Familiar with the name Hellboy? I've never read any

34:28

Hellboy though.

34:29

Hellboy is a, is a character who's been

34:31

written by Mike Magnolia for many,

34:34

many years, decades, really. and really all

34:36

you need to know about Hellboy is a

34:38

supernatural detective, really.

34:40

He's a demonn, but he works on earth and

34:43

yeah, he, he solds supernatural things.

34:46

Um, so the premise for this one is that, Thor's

34:49

dead bodies found in Sweden,

34:51

and so hell boy and is,, his

34:53

colleague Abe Sapien are asked to

34:55

come and investigate. Um, and

34:58

this dead body is, is still holding Thor's hammer.

35:01

And it leads into a whole kind of story

35:03

about, another guy who wants to resurrect

35:06

a, one of the old frost giants from

35:08

Norse mythology. So that one's, yeah.

35:10

Very much steeped in north mythology. And it's, kind

35:12

of dark demo. Um, but with that,

35:14

it's not violence in, in a serious way or anything.

35:16

It's just, Hellboy is always very dark,

35:19

it's a bit like Batman in, in some respects. Batman

35:21

is, is very rarely portrayed

35:23

in Daylights. If, if you have a look at any

35:25

books, you know, because it would look

35:28

ridiculous. They don't have him with the sunshine behind

35:30

him.

35:30

yeah. He's lurking in the

35:32

of the Knights.

35:32

he does.

35:33

Yes. moving on, we've got Deadpool

35:36

Samurai.

35:36

Again, I know Deadpool from the movies, but not from

35:39

comics. I've not

35:40

Yeah. He's nowhere near as Sweary

35:42

and Violent. And then, 18 rated as the movies

35:45

Okay. Good to know.

35:46

it's a, yes, uh, it's a manga

35:48

title, using Marvel's Deadpool character.

35:51

so it's a comedy, the violence

35:53

that's in it is a little bit, Tom and Jerry

35:55

itchy and scratchy kind of level. he does a lot of talking

35:57

outside of the page to breaking the fourth wall, talking

35:59

to the reader. Deadpool is a character. He's obviously

36:02

very, very popular. I don't think

36:04

we've ever had him on any short list before. So

36:06

Deadpool plus Manga just seemed

36:08

a real kind of like, easy choice

36:10

for this year, to be honest. Eve, again,

36:13

another dystopian kind of title. It's

36:15

all about Af Earth is there's not many humans

36:17

left. And how do you save the few

36:19

humans that are there? It's a typical kind of

36:22

sci-fi dystopia. there's a girl who comes

36:24

out of stasis where a, I think her

36:26

father's put her into stasis to survive

36:28

this whatever's wiped out, a lot of the rest

36:30

of humanity. And she's greeted by,

36:33

a robot's protector. but the robot protector

36:35

is, is wearing her

36:38

teddy bear from when she was a kid as a way

36:40

of immediately bonding with her when she comes out of stasis.

36:43

Let's see.

36:44

So, whilst it looks like a teddy bear, it's actually

36:48

this, um, Robot that will do anything

36:50

to protect her and look after her.

36:52

Cool.

36:52

so it's a quite nice visual straightaway.

36:54

this is Eve on the cover. and yeah, with

36:56

the teddy bear quite looks already quite action

36:59

packed. That one on the cover.

37:00

Yeah. And the last one is Lost Lad London.

37:03

which I've enjoyed some, which that

37:05

I've bought volumes two and three for myself

37:07

as well afterwards. but again, it's another, it's

37:09

another murder mystery. It's set in London.

37:11

The premise is that, the

37:15

mayor of London who isn't Sadiq

37:17

Kahn, and I should point out, the Mayor of London

37:19

is found dead on a tube stabbed,

37:23

and there's a lad

37:25

who discovers a bloody knife

37:27

in his pocket. He's no idea how it got there, though.

37:29

and he's clearly been framed for this murder,

37:32

and it's, there's another detective who

37:34

is trying to protect him at

37:36

the same time is trying to solve the murder. It's created

37:39

by a Japanese person, but it's details

37:41

of London are so spot on. I

37:44

can only, I can only think that the

37:46

person must have lived in London for a while there's

37:48

so much of it that's just you, you can't quite believe

37:50

it's come from someone who's never visited London.

37:53

I think that the, the artwork staff is

37:55

the, is the artwork inside the same as the artwork that's

37:57

on the cover here, which is quite bold, quite

38:00

sort of minimalist.

38:01

Yeah, it is. The

38:02

that's really, yeah. I feel like this

38:04

conversation's opened my eyes to like

38:07

murder mystery comics.

38:09

I never read any, why haven't I read them? That's exactly

38:11

up my street. So I'm quite excited about

38:14

that. A whole new world has opened up to me after this conversation.

38:16

Yeah, that sounds really cool. And that sounds on,

38:19

looks, looks really fresh and different

38:21

actually.

38:21

yeah, definitely. it's good to get a manga

38:23

that kind of doesn't look manga

38:26

-y, if you know what I mean.

38:27

Yeah. Very different style. Brilliant.

38:29

Well, thanks so much for that. That's given me, certainly

38:31

lots of, lots of inspiration of things,

38:34

that I could buy next in my ever increasing

38:37

comic budget, which is not good. this

38:40

podcast is so expensive,

38:45

It's, so, it's in, it's interesting that you were talk, you're talking

38:47

about genre like murder, mystery, genre. I

38:49

think there was this misconception that a

38:52

lot from teachers and, and from librarians as well,

38:54

that, manga is itself a genre and it's,

38:56

it's not, it's just a medium,

38:59

you know, and it's the Cinemagraphic novels because

39:01

they're so dominated by the superhero genre.

39:05

People think that's all there is and it's

39:07

not, you know, there's this, you

39:09

can have romance comics, you can have, um,

39:12

war comics, you can have horror

39:14

comics, fantasy, uh,

39:17

you can, you can do anything with it. It

39:19

is just a medium, it's a storytelling

39:21

medium.

39:22

It's knowing where to start, isn't it? I suppose if I'd thought

39:24

about it hard enough, I would've known that there must be

39:26

murder mystery comics out there, but which,

39:28

which ones are good and which that's why you

39:30

need, you know, these kind of like, like awards

39:33

and people like yourself who've got the knowledge to

39:35

kind of help you get an inroad, doesn't

39:37

it? Into finding the thing

39:39

that's right for you, I guess.

39:41

Yeah, and I do get people who contact me and,

39:43

and say, I'm starting up a new graphic novel

39:45

selection at the, at the library, and I don't know what

39:47

they get, and I just refer 'em to the past short

39:49

list on my website. I just, just go through

39:51

that, just have a look at that, see

39:53

what it brings up, see what, what knock ons

39:55

it has as well. You know, what, your web search also

39:58

suggests as well. I say

40:00

it's just a good starting point and also, you know,

40:02

the, which one's age appropriate as

40:04

well.

40:05

Yeah, exactly. That's really, really helpful.

40:07

So we normally, I always say we, lemme just stop

40:09

that and say that again. I normally, like this

40:12

podcast is like a great regroup of three points.

40:14

It's not just me. Um, aye,

40:17

Aye. Just, there's only one of me.

40:19

I I do the same thing. I

40:21

Yeah.

40:22

you know, oh, we, we, are going

40:24

to mark all these rating forms this summer.

40:27

No, it's just me.

40:28

Maybe it's, maybe we're just comforting ourselves

40:30

to make it seem like we got great loads of people for us.

40:32

Um, uh, so I'd like

40:35

to end the podcast with of couple

40:37

of key points that you'd like people

40:39

to think about or places that you'd like to direct

40:41

people to? Just, uh, anyone looking

40:44

to explore this a little bit more.

40:45

I think in terms of getting people

40:47

to have a look at something else, not just my website,

40:50

in, in Britain, if, if you want to look at the Cinebook

40:52

book website again, I would recommend that

40:55

that will give you a very different. Array

40:59

of stories to what you might expect

41:01

from, from America and from Japan and, and

41:03

even from Britain, really. So Cinebook book, definitely.

41:06

I'd recommend Gwen have a look at, classical comics

41:08

website. classical comics.co uk.

41:11

Brilliant. I'll put links in the, uh, in the

41:13

thank you. They're a company who

41:15

do graphic novel adaptations

41:17

of classics and of Shakespeare.

41:19

Oh, brilliant.

41:21

In my, in my library, in my school, I've got,

41:23

I think the, the full range.

41:26

Um, and they do, uh,

41:28

they take each Shakespeare and they each Shakespeare,

41:30

not each, they don't do every play to be fair,

41:33

but all the Shakespeares they do, they produce in three

41:35

different styles where the artwork

41:37

is exactly the same, but it's what's included

41:40

in the speech bubbles changes.

41:43

Um, so they have Shakespeare,

41:45

they have like an original text, which is in Shakespearean

41:48

language. They have, oh, I dunno what they call

41:50

it, I can't remember, but they have another version where it's, I

41:52

think it's called Plain Text, where it's this,

41:54

it's Shakespeare, but modernized,

41:56

you know, uh, it's English in,

41:58

in a 21st century capacitor. And they have a,

42:01

an easy text as well, I think, which is

42:03

the same, not Shakespearean

42:05

language and shrunk down. So what

42:07

you're doing is you've got three different ways of accessing the

42:09

story, but you can tailor

42:12

it to each student.

42:13

That's such a good idea. That's really, really

42:15

Yeah. Yeah. They do, Rome and Juliet

42:17

Macbeth, Tempest, They also do Dracula

42:20

and Frankenstein. Jane Air and

42:22

Inspector calls. Christmas Carol.

42:24

All of those curriculum texts.

42:25

Yeah, exactly. And they're really good and they do

42:27

teacher resources for each one of these things as well.

42:30

Fantastic. Anything else that you'd like to add?

42:32

I just think it's really important to consider

42:34

it as, consider graphic novels

42:37

and manga as just storytelling

42:39

mediums.

42:40

Hmm.

42:41

Um, in, in, in the same way

42:43

that a cinema is, the same way that TV

42:45

is. Radio plays, prose,

42:48

novels, even poetry. I've done

42:50

talks to teachers before

42:52

when I was working freelance, and

42:54

sometimes you'll get teachers who who'll

42:57

give you that sort of, that look, you

42:59

know, that sort of, I don't wanna be here. Look, this is

43:01

a waste of my time. You know? Um,

43:04

I know it's an inset day, but,

43:06

it.

43:07

Yeah. I've, I've, I've no interest in this. I've been told I've

43:09

gotta come, but I'm not bothered. and so you just because their preconceptions

43:12

are narrow, you know, they think I've no

43:14

bloody interest in Batman. I have no interest in Superman.

43:17

Why am I sat here? And you have to just

43:19

sort of explain to 'em. Well, actually there is, there

43:21

is more to it than that, you know, If

43:23

you look on my black shortlist, for example, now

43:26

the, the five books that are on my black shortlist,

43:28

any adult could read those and I think any adult

43:30

would probably quite enjoy them. so yeah, it is just a case

43:33

of crossing that bridge sometimes

43:35

and, and getting people to understand that,

43:37

you know, manga is not a genre.

43:39

Manga is a medium. Comics are

43:41

not a genre. Comics are a medium.

43:44

I mean, like I said, I've got graphic novels of Macbeth

43:46

at my school, for example. And Shakespeare is a great example

43:48

of, of that as well. It's, um, any,

43:51

any English teacher worth their salt. I think if they were teaching,

43:53

Macbeth would, they would do a deep dive

43:55

into the text. they would show you one of the movies,

43:57

the movie versions. they would take you to see it on stage

44:00

if they had the opportunity as well. So you've got,

44:02

you've got three different ways of telling the same story.

44:04

Just there. And, and that's what it's all about.

44:06

someone who's been on the podcast before at

44:08

Meher, she did, her ma and Shakespeare

44:11

studies and then is doing a PhD looking

44:13

at comics. And she was saying, and

44:16

I had never thought of it before, as the link

44:18

between the kind of, of a play

44:20

and comics because of the

44:22

dialogue. And then, you know,

44:25

and because comics often start as a script

44:27

as well, depending on, the creator

44:29

and their process. But often there's a script at the start

44:31

of a, of a comics writing process.

44:34

And yeah, that actually plays lend

44:36

themselves really well to being turned into comics,

44:38

Yeah, definitely. Uh, yeah,

44:40

so some, some graphic novels will give you pages

44:43

of the script at the back,

44:44

Yeah, I love that. I can't get enough

44:46

of the, of the process, bit of the back when I've

44:48

got

44:49

Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I like when I see interviews

44:51

like, like, uh, like a podcast like this with,

44:54

um, like a writer and an artist who've created

44:56

something together. And they said, we've

44:58

never met,

44:59

Yeah.

45:00

we've never met because we're in different countries. You

45:02

know, I just write the script. I send it to the artist.

45:05

The artist sends me the pages back and

45:07

I said, I, I met comments and

45:09

then send them back to him. And so the, the,

45:11

they have this relationship that just sort of travels across

45:13

the internet.

45:14

Yeah.

45:15

And that's, that's 2023 for you. I once talked

45:17

to a, a, an artist called Dave

45:19

Gibbons, who was most famous for doing a,

45:21

a very famous graphic novel called Watchman.

45:24

Yep.

45:25

And he said when he was write, when he was doing the art for that,

45:27

and Alan Moore was writing it, Alan

45:29

Moore would send him the script

45:31

pages via taxi because

45:34

it was just quicker than post, you know?

45:36

Um, he didn't have a fax machine.

45:39

They would, so they would just get him and just

45:41

chuck him in the back of his taxi and say, set those to Dave's house.

45:43

And that, that was like the 1980s. So

45:45

how far we've come

45:46

Yeah. Yeah. Things are a bit easier now. Uh,,

45:48

so for the final thing, if you can, if we could add

45:50

one, this is gonna be tricky, especially with someone

45:53

who's read as widely as you have. But

45:55

if we add one comic, or

45:57

graphic novel to our to be read piles

46:00

tomorrow, what would you recommend?

46:02

Could be an for an adult, could be child,

46:05

just if you just let us know which age you think it's suitable

46:07

for. What would you leave us with? Yeah,

46:11

listeners.

46:12

Oh yeah. Right. I think, um,

46:14

Watchman for an adult, definitely,

46:17

if you wanted to see something

46:20

that was mind blowing and so

46:23

clever and that

46:25

really dissected what superheroes

46:28

are and, and took them off

46:30

their pedestal a little bit as well and made them

46:32

realistic, which sounds ridiculous, and really

46:34

pulled apart relationships as well. Yeah,

46:36

yeah, Watchman is just an absolute work of genius.

46:38

I'll tell you what, there's another one as well I would like to recommend,

46:41

go on. I'll let you have

46:42

teenagers. Thank you. Um, there

46:46

was one I read last year when I was on holiday

46:48

in Scotland. ooh, I can't remember the full title of

46:50

it, but it was about Kang, the Conquer. Who

46:52

is gonna be the main villain, in Marvel

46:54

movies from now on. He's gonna make

46:56

an appearance in the next Antman film opens in

46:58

a couple of weeks, so if you wanted

47:00

I love antman

47:02

Yeah, yeah. Who doesn't?

47:03

excited. about antman,

47:04

yeah, so if any kids wanted to any back reading

47:07

on, on Kanga the Conqueror.

47:09

look for the most recent Kang book that came

47:11

out,

47:11

Oh, I will, I'll also, I'll dig around and I'll

47:14

find that and, and put it in the

47:15

I think it might be called Only Myself, left

47:17

to Conquer. I think that's what it's called.

47:19

Hmm. Good title.

47:20

Proper Bizarre Time Travel

47:22

story of like his future self kind of

47:25

teaching his younger self, how to become his future self

47:28

and how the younger self rebels against

47:30

that initially. Very weird. Blows your

47:32

mind a bit,

47:32

Sounds brilliant. Excellent. Thank you very much

47:35

for those recommendations, and thank you for spending so much

47:37

time going through the books and having a chat with me today.

47:39

I've really enjoyed it. I've got lots

47:42

of things to add to my to be

47:44

read pile now. Got my, uh, uh,

47:46

ever growing list, but

47:49

it's good. It's all good. It's enjoyable. It's not

47:51

stressful at all.

47:52

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,

47:54

I, I've read something recently, a guy who's, I

47:56

can't remember it was, but a, just a quote from someone

47:59

who said, you should buy books like

48:01

you buy wine. Not to supp

48:03

it all at once, but to just sort of save it

48:06

for specific occasions and for

48:08

when you're ready to drink it.

48:10

Oh, I love that. That's not how I buy

48:11

way. No

48:15

But maybe I should also

48:18

maybe I should move towards that

48:21

for both wine and books in the future.

48:23

Thank you, I feel like I've come out as

48:25

a better person.