Resonance104.4fm

The UK’s only weekly radio show about comic books returns today after a three week break for Christmas and the theme of this month’s shows is four generations of British cartoonists. Later episodes this month will feature Alex Fitch’s interviews with Peter Doherty (not the Libertine!) who is an underated Judge Dredd artist from the early 1990s to the present day, an up and coming young artist called Marc Ellerby who is currently featured in a group show at Brent Museum and with Alan Moore and Pat Mills about their favorite cartoonist, the late Ken Reid who drew classic humour strips such as Roger the Dodger in the 1950s Beano and many other tales in the Dandy and elsewhere.

This week Alex is talking to the beloved British children’s illustrator Raymond Briggs who in the 1970s created some of the most treasured kids books of the late twentieth century such as The Snowman, Father Christmas and Fungus the Bogeyman which were all turned into successful and memorable animated cartoons in the following decade.

If many people only know his work from the cartoons, it’s entirely possible they don’t realise that Briggs has been drawing his books in comic strip format since the early 70s and is one of Britain’s finest and ironically least recognised comic book creators. This has started to change in recent years with the last year alone seeing Briggs talk about his work on stage alongside Brian Talbot at Comica at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, being awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Cartoon Art Trust while Jonthan Cape reissued Gentleman Jim as one of their classic British Graphic Novels…

5pm Thursdays, repeated 11.30pm Sundays, podcast at podcasts.resonancefm.com (natch!), blog at panelborders.wordpress.com