Ctrl.Alt.Shift-A New Anthology Comic

[king mob]

This has snuck in under the radar but it's getting a load of press in today's papers, including this piece in The Guardian.

It is a comic book collection without a cape, dodgy mask or death ray in sight. There are, though, plenty of baddies.

This week sees the publication of a new anthology aiming to encourage young people to get interested in – and angry at – corruption in its many forms and guises.

The people behind the project are Ctrl.Alt.Shift, which describes itself as an experimental youth initiative. It was set up last year by the international development agency Christian Aid and aims to use art – whether comics, film or music – to create a new generation of activists.

"We are all about politicising a new generation, and comic strips, with their rich, subversive history, seemed a perfect match for us," said the group's director, Katrin Owusu.

The resulting anthology contains stories which cover everything from state-sponsored brutality and murder in Colombia to the systematic ravaging of Congo's natural resources. Two of the most powerful stories are based on the real experiences of anonymous sources. One, by Judge Dredd writer Pat Mills, features the son of an Iranian ayatollah who rebels against the system and exposes corruption. The other exposes corruption surrounding Aids relief to villages in China.

The anthology is coedited by Paul Gravett, founder of the annual Comica festival, which runs at London's ICA from Thursday. He is convinced that comics, in these days of information overload, can play an important role in getting people angry. "Comics can grapple with these big questions very provocatively and they lodge in people's minds better, somehow, than the constant images we see on TV and on the internet. We want to engage with people and get them to feel that they can actually make a difference."

Gravett said comic book writing was flourishing as an art form. "It went through something of a dip in the 90s when there was a hope that the graphic novel was going to make it big and somehow it didn't quite click. It's taken a while for it to come round again."

Its boy's club reputation is also being lost, according to Gravett, helped by the huge success of graphic novels such as Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's account of her childhood in Iran, and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, which was Time magazine's book of the year in 2006.

No subject is off limits. One of the most successful graphic novels this year was Robert Crumb's interpretation of the book of Genesis, while one of the most anticipated is Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza.

The anthology will be accompanied by an exhibition at London's Lazarides gallery which will feature some of the more well-meaning but toe-curling attempts by comic books to engage with serious issues – for example, a Lois Lane comic entitled I Am Curious (Black)! in which Superman's girlfriend takes on the body of a black woman for 24 hours, and Heroes Against Hunger, which sees Superman and Batman visiting Ethiopia during the 1986 famine. There will also be an edition of Reagan's Raiders, in which Ronald Reagan's face is superimposed on Captain America's.

Some of the best-known comic book writers are represented in the anthology, and it includes contributions from writers better known for other things such as music stars VV Brown and Lightspeed Champion.

Owusu said she had been "absolutely blown away" by the work and imagination that had gone into the strips.

Corruption, she said, was all too often seen as an issue which affected only war-torn states and tinpot dictatorships. It was also used too much as "a get out of jail free card" with people shrugging "that's the way it is over there".

"The subject absolutely struck a chord with writers and artists I think and we got so much material, we couldn't get it all in a book."

The £4.99 anthology will be available at Ctrl.Alt.Shift's website as well as comic book retailers, and while – because it is about corruption – there is much doom and gloom, Gravett said: "There is also humour in there and there's passion and there's anger and there is hope too. There are strips which say 'we can do something'."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009...ook-corruption

Anything written by Pat Mills is worth picking up, but the mix of creators such as VV Brown is an interesting one, so I'll order a copy and see how it all actually works.

http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/

[Tobias March]

Yeah my gf sent me on the link earlier. Sounds like a worthy cause.

[Charles RB]

Saw two interviews and previews of Mills' story in Crikey!, so I'm interested.

[Weetomuncher]

I'm interested mainly because of the people involved but it sounds interesting so I'll try and get a copy ASAP.

[king mob]

Here's the cover.

[Charles RB]

Doesn't look that exciting a cover, to be honest.

[Tobias March]

Dave McKean gave a presentation on his segment, relating to the 'AIDS Village', in China. Looked incredible (and heartbreaking).

I'll be buying a copy.