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In the Biography section, you can find the life story
of everyone involved in the creation of the Heart of Empire Comics: Bryan
Talbot, Angus McKie, SMS,
Ellie DeVille, and even the story of
those only involved in this CD - James Robertson!
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), was 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.
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Issue six featured The
Omega Report (1978), a popular story which blended Sci-Fi, rock
music and comedy into a private detective pastiche. (see illustration
on the left)
A 25 years anniversary
book collecting this material in a 120 page trade paperback was
published last November entitled, again, BRAINSTORM!
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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 groundbreaking 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
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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.
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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'.
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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.
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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 st
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.
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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, Transmetropolitan, 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.
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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 five one-man Comic Art exhibitions in Lancashire, London, Tuscany
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.
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His last
graphic novel before Heart of Empire for Dark Horse Comics,
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 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.
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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 Frances Editions Carabas.
Hes 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.
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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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Click here to return to the
top of the page. Also see Bryan's full
stripography.
Also see the
biographies of all of the other creators of the comic and CD: Angus
McKie, SMS, Ellie
DeVille, and even those of those only involved in this CD - James
Robertson!
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Buy the Heart of Empire Directors Cut
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