April 18th - 6-8 / Micheal Connerty - ' Pioneers of the American Comic Strip'

NGG gallery – templebar cultural trust Talk and slideshow ( approx 110 mins)

This talk covered the early development of comics in the US, which will mean looking at some of the incredible work that appeared in the (often full colour) comic supplements of newspapers in Chicago, New York and San Francisco in the first decades of the 20th century. During these years the young medium was full of experiment and innovation, by amazing artists like George Herriman, Winsor McCay, Frank King and many other greats. The work by these pioneering artists could be strange and surreal, or gritty and anarchic, or beautiful, or primitive, or plain dumb (in a good way!)- we’ll look at a wide range of what was around in the years before the arrival of the comic book in the late 30s. This really was a fantastic and informed talk on the development of the comic from the back pages of the american papers to full colour compliments and works of great and technical printing processes propbably impossible to match today for me particularly the works of Windsor McCay.