shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2019-10-11 08:24 pm
shewhomust) wrote2019-10-11 08:24 pm
West of the Pennines
We are spending the weekend in Kendal, at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. Another year, another cottage: I'd happily return to the Marketplace Hideaway, but it was already taken. So we are on Beast Bank, which is very handy for the Brewery during the day when the back gate is open, and not much further along the road after dark.
We took the direct road, as it was past midday by the time we set off: but the A66 is still spectacular. It was sunny east of the Pennines, but the west has a reputation to keep up: the hills were green and grey and dotted with white sheep, the sky was grey and silver, and the margin between was blurred. We were safely in our cottage before the heavens opened, with a great clattering on the plastic roof of the lobby - and it had stopped by the time we'd had a cup of tea and were ready to go out, so that was OK.
I arrived at the festival knowing only of one event that I definitely wanted to go to: the official launch of Bryan and Mary Talbot's Rain. I hadn't looked in detail at the programme (actually, I hadn't looked at the programme at all) because I find the website very hard work. So it wasn't until we picked up our passes, and a paper programme at the box office - they also gave us a handy calculator to display what's on when, so I suspect I'm not the only person who struggles with this! - that we realised that there are several interesting things overlapping that timeslot. Luckily we saw Bryan and Mary in the foyer, so I was able to apologise and say we would join other members of my reading group and go to their event at Books on Tyne, and tomorrow we would go and learn about Belgian comics instead. They were very understanding: Oh, said Mary, I wanted to go to that!
The Gala opening event was a celebration of Viz, a panel of artists attempting the world record for drawing 150 characters from Viz in an hour: they say there is such a thing, and who am I to disbelieve the guys from Viz? I was impressed at the ability of the audience to recognise a huge number of characters. I recognised one or two myself: it's not that I don't think Viz is a good joke, but it is still just the one joke. It felt like a very long hour, and although I was interested to compare the artists working on paper under a camera, and those working direct on a tablet, but I wish we'd had time for Hannah Berry to say more about the progress of her laureateship.
And home, past some of the shop windows displaying art in the town's Windows Trail: tomorrow, more Belgians than you can shake a stick at.
We took the direct road, as it was past midday by the time we set off: but the A66 is still spectacular. It was sunny east of the Pennines, but the west has a reputation to keep up: the hills were green and grey and dotted with white sheep, the sky was grey and silver, and the margin between was blurred. We were safely in our cottage before the heavens opened, with a great clattering on the plastic roof of the lobby - and it had stopped by the time we'd had a cup of tea and were ready to go out, so that was OK.
I arrived at the festival knowing only of one event that I definitely wanted to go to: the official launch of Bryan and Mary Talbot's Rain. I hadn't looked in detail at the programme (actually, I hadn't looked at the programme at all) because I find the website very hard work. So it wasn't until we picked up our passes, and a paper programme at the box office - they also gave us a handy calculator to display what's on when, so I suspect I'm not the only person who struggles with this! - that we realised that there are several interesting things overlapping that timeslot. Luckily we saw Bryan and Mary in the foyer, so I was able to apologise and say we would join other members of my reading group and go to their event at Books on Tyne, and tomorrow we would go and learn about Belgian comics instead. They were very understanding: Oh, said Mary, I wanted to go to that!
The Gala opening event was a celebration of Viz, a panel of artists attempting the world record for drawing 150 characters from Viz in an hour: they say there is such a thing, and who am I to disbelieve the guys from Viz? I was impressed at the ability of the audience to recognise a huge number of characters. I recognised one or two myself: it's not that I don't think Viz is a good joke, but it is still just the one joke. It felt like a very long hour, and although I was interested to compare the artists working on paper under a camera, and those working direct on a tablet, but I wish we'd had time for Hannah Berry to say more about the progress of her laureateship.
And home, past some of the shop windows displaying art in the town's Windows Trail: tomorrow, more Belgians than you can shake a stick at.