Manchester Blog Awards

It's Wednesday night and time for the long-awaited and much-Twittered-about glittering prize-giving ceremony of the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards, held in conjunction with the Manchester Literature Festival, Arts Council England, Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) and creativetourist.com.

The show is being held in the newly spruced Band On The Wall, where the tables, set out cabaret club style, soon fill up with the brightest and best from Manchester's burgeoning social media scene. The soundtrack is provided by the reborn (for one night only!) Bloggerpalooza mp3 bloggers, while compere for the soiree is self-proclaimed Manchester media princess Maria Ruban, squeezed into a very tight, very red dress and hitting something of an impasse trying to extract catchphrases from a rather unforthcoming audience. Various shortlisted bloggers present their favourite posts, including Emily Morris of My Shitty Twenties, Dave Hartley of Dave Hartley's Weblog and Katherine Woodfine of Follow The Yellow Brick Road, while author and judge Jenn Ashworth also reads an extract of her work.

Eventually, it's prize-giving time and the mic is handed over to Manchester Blog Awards organiser Kate Feld, who came up with the idea for the event in 2006 'in response to the growing numbers of writers, artists and photographers in the city who use blogs to publish their work online'. Kate expresses her delight at the record number of entries this year (topping 200) and explains that the panel of judges included (as well as her good self): author and columnist of The Guardian Naomi Alderman; Dave Carter, head of MDDA; Richard Fair of BBC Manchester; Mike Noon of Arts Council England North West, and author (and last year's winner of the Best Writing On A Blog category) Jenn Ashworth.

So, without further ado, here's the list of (and links to) the winners and runners-up at the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards. Drum roll, please...

Best City and Neighbourhood Blog: Lost in Manchester (anonymous). One of the judges said: 'Sometimes it's easy to forget to look at what's right under your nose. I love its unashamed raw passion for Manchester.'
Runner-up was The Manchester Zedders (Liam Purcell and Marie Pattison).

Best Personal Blog: My Shitty Twenties (Emily Morris). One of the judges said: 'Moving, thoughtful, funny and wise. Sometimes heartbreaking, always uplifting.'
Runner-up was Cynical Ben (Benjamin Judge).

Best New Blog: Words & Fixtures (Clare Conlon). One of the judges said: 'It was the only blog out of the twenty-four shortlisted that made me laugh out loud.'
Runner-up was Songs From Under the Floorboards (Andy Wake).

Best Writing On A Blog: My Shitty Twenties (Emily Morris again). One of the judges said: 'It's almost impossible not to get drawn into the story that this blog tells.'
Dual runners-up were I Thought I Told You To Wait in the Car (Richard Vivmeister Hirst) and Dave Hartley's Weblog (Dave Hartley).

Best Arts And Culture Blog, sponsored by creativetourist.com: Run Paint Run Run (Ella Wredenfors). One of the judges said: 'Opinionated, heartfelt and pleasantly rough-around-the-edges, a blog with an infectious enthusiasm for art.'
Runner-up was The Manchester Hermit (Ansuman Biswas).

Blog Of The Year: Lost in Manchester (still anonymous). This was awarded to the blog with the highest aggregate score in the competition. One of the judges said: 'Quirky, original and focused, with an eye for detail. Putting the extra into extraordinary.'

Well done to everyone involved, and long may the tradition continue!

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Clare Conlon is a freelance writer, editor and press officer. Her blog, Words & Fixtures, won Best New Blog at the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards.

Photo by Brian Slater

Vvoorp Vvoorp!

Vvoorp Vvoorp! Comic Book Adventures in Time and Space | Saturday 18th October 2008 | Lass O’ Gowrie Pub

Frankly, I feel as though I am still recovering from this event. The day was utterly jam packed, bursting at the seams, full of stuff to keep the fanboys ( and indeed fangirls ) happy. I tried to write a full chronological rendition of what happened, but it turned into a not very good epic poem. Needless to say it was a day-long-Doctor-Who-in-comic-form extravaganza, conveniently located in one of the best pubs in Manchester.

Panels started at 9.30 in order to fit everything in before the football started. We meandered from the backup scripts in Doctor Who Magazine, or DWM by those in the know, with the inimitable pie-consuming Dez Skinn and Ade Salmon, who currently has pages of his work on a Cybermen comic for DWN on the walls of the snug.

Dez Skinn outside the Lass O' Gowrie

From there we twisted through the highs, challenges and pitfalls of creating comics and animations based around the popular TV series, eventually ending with the unforgettable comedy duo that is Gary Russell and Tony Lee. They were discussing the latest forays of the Doctor in US-only comics, during which Tony Lee managed to reveal, despite Gary Russell instantaneous retraction, some exciting news about the future of the series. Gary Russell also tried to hypnotise the audience into buying the trade paperback of Agent Provocateur despite its only being officially available in the US and Canada.

Tony Lee giving away secrets while Gary glares at him to be quiet.

However, he highlight for me was the panel with Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, discussing their work on an original comic for Torchwood Magazine. D’Israeli gave some insight into his working habits, demonstrating how he developed his images from drafts to finished product.

Ian Edginton and D'Israeli

Latest Torchwood Comic by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli on the big screen

From quite early on it was clear that the day was going to run over, despite being planned with military like precision. The Doctor Who comics scene seems pretty close knit, and while the staff were chasing round trying to feed, film, photograph, water and generally tend to the guests, all the while ushering them in the right direction, the guests seemed content to watch their colleges on stage, gossip and never be around when the organisers were looking for them. In terms of gossip, these guys could put Dot and Ethel to shame!

Dez Skinn in the snug

The series of panels were punctuated by a charity auction, with the proceeds going to MIND, and despite a few technical hitches, which resulted in half the pub being unable to see the powerpoint presentations, I think everyone who attended had a wonderful time. Luckily, when the football fans turned up just after 5, the fun didn't end and the Doctor Who aficionados and celebrities were ushered upstairs to continue carousing and were treated to a free and intimate stand up show by Charlie Ross.

John Freeman gives a slightly more comprehensive version of the day here , while the full line up, including all the guests, can be found here.

Ella Wredenfors is an Art History graduae, a Captain Beefheart aficionado and fizzy water connoisseur. She writes an arts, culture, and comics blog @ www.runpaintrunrun.net.

Destroy Powerpoint

Destroy Powerpoint @ Manchester Art Gallery | 17th October | 1pm

When life gives you lemons, the hackneyed saying goes, you make lemonade. When management inflicts Powerpoint on you, you subvert and contort it into joyful literature...

David Gaffney’s wonderful hour of storytelling does not do what it promises, it does not destroy powerpoint. Rather, it strangely invigorates the forms. It reveals, with brilliant, luminous use of text and picture, a minor urban folk art, germinating out of the mundane soil of office life. Anyone who has served their sentence as a temp knows that the office work place is always rife with currents of sexual tension and emotional, professional and intellectual frustration.

Powerpoint is an art form with rules, most of which David Gaffney instantly points out he has broken. All the text of his stories eventually end up on the screen, revealed in various sequential methods. In seeking to subsume powerpoint, it seems that David Gaffney has become its master. The result is that the hour spent in the conference room in the back of Manchester Art Gallery is, like those interminable, powerpoint centred training days, actually a pleasant communal reading experience.

The first is a trip down memory lane for most of us, in which Gaffney subverts the form of powerpoint . In The King of Powerpoint he first adopts and mimics the old style of over head projectors, acetate and those smudgy green, blue and red felt tip pens, reserve of the maths and science teachers. As the story progresses he moves through early powerpoint style, through clip art and templates, giving us a visual potted history of the development of presentation technology.

The stories that David Gaffney tells us are all quite familiar, belying his previous career as a debt counsellor. They are grimy with petty discontent and tawdry hopes for romance, but always seem to end with a promise of action. They occur within lonely moments, of queuing, of plotting, promising a future in which dazzling, mad, disjointed steps are made away from the everyday, towards the objects of happiness and freedom.

He ends with Is your thought really necessary, commissioned for Wigan Words Festival, it is a twisted vision of a world where thoughts have a palpable, excretory existence. Therefore, as “thought-fill sites” fill up, need to be discouraged. Wigan, as one of the most thoughtful places in Britain, needs swift action. A civil servant, instructed to create a presentation to be given to a board, must find answers to problems without promoting any original thought. Naturally this illogical task pushes him into a downward spiral of tail biting, circular thinking, of which imagination, memory and unnecessary thought can be the only result.

David Gaffney is the author of Never Never published this year, as well as Sawn-Off Tales.

City Life does a better job of reviewing this event. However, more nonsensical writing by Ella Wredenfors on topics such as Art, Culture and all round geekery about Manchester can be found at runpaintrunrun.net.

An Interview with Hannah Berry

Hannah Berry is a newly published graphic novelist, with her first novel Britten & Brülightly, published by Jonathan Cape, attracting praise from many quarters. Located in Brighton, she's visiting us in more northern climes for the Manchester Literature Festival, taking part in Between the Panels on Sunday October 19th at the Whitworth Art Gallery Lecture Theatre. In preparation she's answered a few questions for Ella Wredenfors and the Manchester Literature Festival blog.

EW: Hi Hannah, could you introduce yourself and your novel?

HB: My novel is set in a non-specific 1940s British city, and follows private investigator Fernández Britten through a murky suicide-or-possibly-murder case, while dogged by his own, even murkier feelings of despair at his career-long perpetuation of human misery.

It's quite a dark story, but it has some occasional humorous moments. Britten's desolate musings are often counterbalanced by the optimism of his partner – Stewart Brülightly – who is, for reasons never explained, a talking teabag. For my part, there's not a lot to introduce as this is only my first book! (I'm still young. There's still time.) I wrote B&B in the dying weeks of university while studying illustration at Brighton in a moment of defiance - comics were never really looked upon kindly, even in art college - and I worked on it for a further three years before it was finished.

EW: It is clear your influences are not typical of British graphic novelists. There is a cinematographic feel to the work, and it is reminiscent of Guarnido & Canales' Blacksad, in its noir-ish painterly style. What would you say were your key influences with Britten & Brülightly?

HB: I'd say you're pretty close to the mark! A lot of the tone has come about though my love of films, particularly films with a more contemporary take on noir. There's something compelling in their oppressive, brooding atmosphere and very purposeful use of light. I think my artistic style has is definitely been inspired by European comics. Blacksad is a mighty fine example (though I still have a way to go before I reach that standard…). I don't know if its because comics are taken more seriously as an art form there, but a lot of comics that come from France and Belgium in particular have fabulously involved artwork; fully painted and with breathtaking depth. Even when the scenario is everyday they can still be incredibly evocative. From the start that was always the only route I wanted to take – to do a graphic novel where every panel was a painting in its own right.

EW: Unlike most graphic novels, Britten & Brülightly was not first published as a serial, do you think this influenced the novel?

HB: Definitely. It meant the book could have one long and winding dramatic arc throughout, whereas writing for a serial would necessitate continuous climaxes to keep people buying the next one. With a graphic novel you have the luxury of knowing that your audience have already bought the story in its entirety. As a result, the pacing is less staccato and the storyline can be more involved and convoluted, and any shocks or revelations are free to appear at any moment, giving them more of an element of surprise. Perfect for noir.

EW: This is your first published work, how are you coping with the aftermath of publication?

HB: It's a strange situation. I've enjoyed many years of being quiet - speaking softly, not making waves, not being noticed particularly; and now suddenly I find myself required to have an opinion! It feels like someone has moved the rock and now everyone can see me, staring back up at them. Don't get me wrong – it's fabulous to have been discovered, but it's all made me very, very self-conscious. I doubt I'll ever get used to the notion that strangers are reading my book…

EW: After taking part in Between the Panels, what other events will you be attending?

HB: I'll be on a panel at the Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds on 15th November (though I'm not sure who the final line up for the panel is yet), and then the next day I'll be part of another panel on writing graphic novels, along with Paul Duffield, Oliver East and Marcia Williams, as part of the ComICA festival. I'll also be coming along to the ComICA talk on the 19th November by French bandes dessinée celebrities Guibert and Benoit (but in the audience, obviously).

EW: Britten & Brülightly is a beautiful book, what can we expect from you in the future?

Thanks! It's still a bit in the air at the moment (as I write this I'm waiting to see if I have another publishing deal with Cape), but I have an idea for the next project, and the idea is for a ghost story. I love horror. I know it's a genre that's been used and abused a lot lately, but I think there's still uncharted waters, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into another dark, brooding (fully painted) little number.