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Bryan’s first published illustrations appeared in Mallorn, the British
Tolkien Society Magazine in 1969. In 1972, in collaboration with a fellow
student - the cartoonist Bonk - he produced a weekly strip for the college
newspaper.
After completing his education, Bryan worked in the underground press for
five years, creating, writing and drawing the Brainstorm Comix series for
Alchemy Press. The first three issues, the Chester P. Hackenbush Trilogy
(1975 -78), were reprinted in one volume entitled BRAINSTORM! in 1982.
Hackenbush was later Americanised into Chester Williams by Alan Moore for
the DC series Swamp Thing where he continues to this day. Issue six
featured The Omega Report (1978), a popular story which blended Sci-Fi, rock
music and comedy into a private detective pastiche. A 25 years anniversary
book collecting this material in a 120 page trade paperback was published
last November entitled, again, BRAINSTORM!
In 1978, Bryan began Frank Fazakerly, Space Ace of the Future, a space opera
parody for Ad Astra. This was later reprinted in one volume.
This year also saw the beginning of his epic saga The Adventures of Luther
Arkwright in Near Myths, reprinted and expanded in 1981 in the
ground-breaking comic art magazine Pssst! In 1982 the first collected
volume of Luther Arkwright was published by Never Ltd. This and Raymond
Briggs’ When the Wind Blows were the first British Graphic Novels. In Adult
Comics by Roger Sabin (Routledge 1993) he is cited as one of the creators of
the Graphic Novel form.
Bryan then created over 100 illustrations for a series of German
role-playing-game books and wrote and drew the Underground-style SF
comedy-adventure strip Scumworld for a year in the weekly rock music
newspaper Sounds.
In 1983 he began working for 2000AD. In collaboration with writer Pat
Mills, Bryan produced three books in the popular Nemesis the Warlock series
which were immediately reprinted by Titan Books. The first won an Eagle
Award for “Best Graphic Novel” and the character Torquemada the ‘Favourite
Villain’ award for three years running. He also worked on Judge Dredd by
Alan Grant and John Wagner, which included production of full-colour strips
for the IPC annuals and a 20 page RPG strip in the first issue of Diceman.
Returning to The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, he completed the story in a
9 issue comicbook version published by Valkyrie Press. This was followed up
by the three volume trade paperback reprint edition in Britain from Proutt
and the American edition of the comicbook from Dark Horse. Nominated for
eight Eagle awards at the 1988 UK Comic Art Convention, the Valkyrie edition
won Bryan awards for ‘Favourite Artist’, ‘Best new comic’, ‘Favourite
Character’ (Arkwright) and ‘Best Comic Cover’. In 1989 Arkwright won the
Mekon award given by Society of Strip Illustration for ‘Best British Work’.
The story, with its blend of science fiction, historical, espionage and
supernatural genres, its experimental, narrative techniques and avoidance of
sound effects, speed lines and thought balloons was a seminal work. Alan
Moore, Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Steve Bissette, Neil Gaiman, Michael
Zulli and Rick Veitch among others have all acknowledged its influence. Text
stories based on Arkwright have been written by SF authors John Brunner and
Colin Greenland. It now has a strong cult following and has inspired
fanzines devoted to the Arkwright mythos. The Luther Arkwright Role-Playing
Game was published in 1993 by 23rd Parallel Games. The whole story has
recently been reprinted in a single volume by Dark Horse.
For four years Bryan produced work for the American company DC Comics on
titles such as Hellblazer (with Jamie Delano), Sandman (with Neil Gaiman)
and the 200 page prestige format creator-owned series The Nazz (with Tom
Veitch). The Spanish edition of the Constantine story The Bloody Saint won
the Haxtur Award for best short story. The Sandman Special #1, The Song of
Orpheus, was nominated for a Harvey Award. He wrote and drew Mask, a
two-part Batman story for Legends of the Dark Knight. Nominated for two
Eisner awards, it was reprinted in 1996 with the addition of one extra page
in Dark Legends. The Spanish edition of Weird Romance, his 4 part story arc
for The Dreaming, has just won the Haxtur Award for Best Writer.
For Tekno Comix he worked on two 6 issue miniseries, drawing Teknophage (wr.
Rick Veitch) and writing Shadowdeath (Art David Pugh). For Cult Press, he
produced the covers for the cyberpunk comic series Raggedy Man.
Over the past fifteen years Bryan has created a variety of comic strips and
illustrations for publications as diverse as Imagine, Street Comics, Slow
Death, Vogarth, the Paradox Press Big Books, Stardust, Transmetropolitan,
The Radio Times, Wired, Knockabout, i.t. and the Manchester Flash. For
Xpresso he teamed up with top European writer Matthias Schultheiss to create
Brainworms. He has produced illustrations, including covers for DC
Superheroes Monthly, Octobriana, Wizards of the Coast, Sinclair User and
Computer and Video Games, art prints, posters, badges and logos. In 1992 he
was honoured to be one of the contributors to the first Arzak portfolio
published by Moebius’ Starwatcher Graphics. He’s also worked as a full-time
graphic designer for the Longcastle advertising agency and British
Aerospace. Knockabout Comics recently published X-directory - the Secret
Files of Bryan Talbot, a 32 page collection of black and white short strips.
In 1981 he worked with Science Fiction writer Bob Shaw on the Granada TV
Arts programme Celebration to produce Encounter with a Madman (Dir. David
Richardson) and in 1994 he produced the concept illustrations for a TV
movie adaptation of a Ramsey Campbell story, Above the World.
Bryan has held six one-man Comic Art exhibitions in Lancashire, London,
Tuscany, Finland and New York, appeared in numerous others and is a frequent
guest at international Comic festivals. Last year, he taught a 5 day comic
course at Ouro Preto University, Brazil. Editions of his comics are
published in Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil, France, Denmark, Sweden and
Finland.
His graphic novel The Tale of One Bad Rat, won an Eisner Award, a Comic
Creators’ Guild Award, two UK Comic Art Awards, two US Comic Buyers’ Guide
Don Thomson Awards , a Parent’s Choice Award and the Internet Comic Award
for Best Graphic Novel. It has been nominated for The National Cartoonists’
Society of America’s Rueben Award, a Harvey Award and a British Library
Award. In 1998 it appeared in the New York Times annual list of recommended
reading and is a set text in some schools and universities. It is used in
several Child Abuse centres in Britain, America and Finland. It has just
been reprinted in seven European countries, winning more awards in Sweden,
Spain and Canada.
His new 284 page Luther Arkwright graphic Novel, Heart of Empire, has just
been published in 9 parts by Dark Horse, already winning an Eagle Award and
nominated for two Eisners. It is to be published in one trade paperback
volume in Febrauary 2001 and a signed, limited edition hardback in May. A
CD-Rom version complete with over 60,000 words of commentary is also out in
May.
Since finishing Heart of Empire and writing the annotations for the CD-Rom,
Bryan has produced several illustrations and covers for various magazines
and Internet web sites, including character sketches and a frontispiece for
Gwyneth Jones’ next SF novel Bold as Love and has drawn and painted Sire – a
4 page Vampire strip for France’s Editions Carabas. He’s also written a
couple of movie treatments, a proposal for a TV SF series, developed a
concept for an animated cartoon and comic series, Cherubs!, and is on a
massive learning curve: learning how to use the computer to produce finished
artwork. His first finished piece of computer art is the cover to the
Italian graphic novel Winds of Winter by Gianluca Pirreda and Stefano
Cardoselli.
Bryan is currently pencilling the 4 issue miniseries The Dead Boy Detectives
and the Secrets of Immortality, written by Ed Brubaker, for DC Vertigo.
He has recently received the annual San Diego Comicon Inkpot Award for
"Outstanding Achievement in Comic Arts".
His website is at: http://www.bryan-talbot.com
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