Great War Dundee – Comic Launch

Great War Dundee comic cover featuring Ian Kennedy painting of a Scottish soldier
Art by Ian Kennedy

On Friday 20th September from 10am-4.30pm V&A Dundee are hosting a FREE all day event inspired by the First World War. This joint Scottish Centre for Comic Studies and Great War Dundee (GWD) event pulls together many of the threads of the GWD projects that have taken place since 2014, and commemorates the GWD project officially drawing to a close. The event will cover topics such as the presentation of the First World War in comics and games, and attendees will get an opportunity to develop their own comic strips.

The Great War Dundee comic will also be launched at the event. The comic contains a story written by legendary comics creator Pat Mills, who worked at DC Thomson before creating the hugely successful British science fiction comic 2000AD. In the 1970s Pat Mills started work on one of the most acclaimed war comics of all time, Charley’s War. The artist for the ‘Ragtime Soldier’ story is Gary Welsh, one of the University of Dundee’s recent graduates. The other strips included in the comic are ‘The Women’s Toon’, written by Erin Keepers and Hailey Austin, with art by 2000AD artist Anna Morozova, and ‘Casualties of War’, written by Calum Laird and drawn by Elliot Balson. All these creators are graduates of the comics programme in Dundee. Ian Kennedy provides the cover artwork.

For more information and to book tickets please see the Great War Dundee eventbrite page.

There will be a signing with Pat Mills from 6.30-8pm in Dundee Creative Comics Space. No tickets are required to come along to this.