EVENT: Comics Spotlight at WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival 2014!

Increasingly, comics and graphic novels have become a welcome addition to literary events around the country, and the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival 2014 is no exception! The WORD Writers & Readers festival returns to Christchurch, kicking off tomorrow with 70 literary events running over the next five days, showcasing quality fiction, politics, food writing, poetry, music, crime, satire, the Christchurch rebuild, children’s books and free family events.

Cartoonists and comics are highlighted in three events over the course of the festival; the first is Reading Favourites, featuring Sarah Laing - author of the comic series Let Me Be Frank, and The Fall of Light - along with writers Kate de Goldi and Carl Nixon, as they discuss their favourite New Zealand books and the art of reading. Laing will also be discussing her in-progress graphic novel on the life of Katherine Mansfield, which should be fascinating for those curious about the process of producing a graphic biography. The event takes place on Friday afternoon at 2.30pm. More details on the event HERE.

The increasingly prolific Dylan Horrocks is the focus of the second event, Journey To Hicksville, which takes place on Saturday 30th at 2pm. Horrocks needs no introduction to the uninitiated, as the author of the seminal graphic novel Hicksville (1998, first published in NZ in 2010), Incomplete Works which came out earlier this year, and The Magic Pen, due out in November. Horrocks will be discussing his career, comics and more, with filmmaker and fellow cartoonist Jonathan King. For ticket information and details check HERE.

The final event is Capes & Tights: Superhero Comics, on Sunday 31st at 4pm. Join Philosopher Damon Young, YA author Karen Healey and Jonathan King, as they discuss the many issues surrounding the genre of superhero comics: has Hollywood ruined comics? What does copyright mean for fanfic? Are superhero comics inherently sexist? And are they ideologically sound? All this and more, in a conversation moderated by Dylan Horrocks. For ticket information and details check HERE.

So this weekend if you're in Christchurch, make sure you get to WORD to enjoy some our cartoonists discussing their work and the unique storytelling that the comics medium has to offer. Visit the WORD Festival website HERE.

- AK!