Talk

The art of the graphic novel: Stephen Collins and Isabel Greenberg

Festival of Ideas

Saturday 8 September 2018 1.30 - 2.30pm

The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts

£12, £8 concessions

Chaired by the Observer journalist and critic, Rachel Cooke, two prize-winning authors and illustrators discuss the art of the graphic novel.

Rachel Cooke was instrumental in setting up the first British prize for graphic novels – the Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize. In this panel event, she chairs a discussion with two winners of the prize – Stephen Collins and Isabel Greenberg – followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Collins is an illustrator and cartoonist whose work has appeared in many publications worldwide, and he has a weekly comic in The Guardian Weekend magazine. Having won the Observer/Cape/Comica prize in 2010 with Room 208, Collins published his debut graphic novel, The Gigantic Beard that was Evil, with Jonathan Cape in 2013, and was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Book of the Year Award and an Eisner Award. His collection of strips Some Comics was published by Jonathan Cape in October 2014. He is currently working on his second graphic novel, Susan Wogan's Journey To The Stars, which will be published in 2019.

Isabel Greenberg is a London-based illustrator and writer. Her first graphic novel, The Encyclopaedia of Early Earth, published in 2013, was nominated for two Eisner awards and won Best Book at the British Comic Awards. In 2016 she published The One Hundred Nights of Hero. In 2011, she won the Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize. She exhibited work in the Memory Palace exhibition at the V&A, had a solo exhibition at Cecil Sharp House and was part of a show called Pick me Up at Somerset House. She is about to start work on a new graphic novel about Brontë juvenilia.

£12, £8 concessions

Book signing after the event

Stephen Collins and Isabel Greenberg will be signing books in the Burlington Gardens Wohl Entrance Hall, outside Pace Gallery, from 2.45–3.30pm on the day of the event, Saturday 8 September. Free, no need to book.

Observer critic Rachel Cooke's picks

8 graphic novels everyone should read

DJ performance: Hannah Faith

Free

Every Friday and Saturday evening throughout our Festival of Ideas we’ve invited some of our favourite DJs to takeover the Royal Academy, performing eclectic sets of dance, house, disco and electronica in Burlington Gardens' Wohl Entrance Hall.

South London based DJ and sound curator Hannah Faith is deeply influenced by her travels throughout the globe, reflected in her electric soul, jazz-funk and afro-house infused sets. She’s performed numerous Boiler Room sets, featured on Gilles Peterson’s radio station Worldwide FM, and now regularly hosts shows on Rinse FM and NTS.