Barcelona and Kosmopolis Literary Festival

I was lucky enough to be invited by the British Council to the fantastic Kosmopolis literary festivalin Barcelona on March 14th-16th. It’s incredibly exciting to see more and more literary festivals all over the world embracing comics, and even better to see the British council supporting them too! I travelled along with the lovely Paul Gravett, Peter Stanbury, Paul Rainey and Dave Mckean who all provided fantastic conversation over some incredibly tasty dinners.

I ran a workshop titled: ‘Experimenting with comics: from sculpture to digital’ where we looked at how the medium of comics could determine the message. You can read a description of it here (in Spanish… or with the aid of Google Translate!): http://www.cccb.org/kosmopolis/es/noticia?idg=43559. The group who attended where so enthusiastic and thoughtful and that combined with the venue’s breathtaking views over the rooftops of Barcelona as the sunset really left me buzzing! Dave Mckean also popped along and enthusiastically joined in the debate over the definition of ‘comics’. 

You can see a video (part English, part Spanish) about comics with us all in it here. Although Spain is facing such difficult times economically it is great to see so much enthusiasm at the festival for the importance of culture and storytelling in all it’s forms. Many, many thanks to the lovely Isabella Petith from the British Council and Juan Insua from Kosmopolis for inviting us!