Rare Remembrance Day!

An idle 'Accent UK' search on ebay surprisingly revealed quite a few of our titles on offer including a few out of print ones including the original first printing of Zombies which is now close to selling out of its second printing too!

What really caught my eye though was the very, very first release from the newly established Accent UK, Remembrance Days from March 2003 I think, celebrating our formation on Remembrance Day November 2002.

Rarer still is the fact it has been signed by - as far as I can decipher - almost all of the original contributing creators and Accent UK founders/alumni!!

The stories & art on this one will be 'raw' in part but it was our debut and was well received at the time. We printed 300 which in hindsight was pretty ambitious but they all sold out except for the couple of file copies Dave and I kept as a memento - I think mine were also signed so I won't be bidding on this copy! 

I don't know who the seller is but this is a nice seldom seen piece of our early history - 15 years ago, jings!

Remembrance Day

On the 11th of the 11th as we reflect and remember the fallen here's a wordless look at two of the newly coloured pages of my strip from Accent UK's first anthology, 'Remembrance Day' which will feature in my second Moments of Adventure collection. (Art by me, colours by Aljoša Tomić).

The full black and white version can be viewed here.

Tatton Park Moments of Reflection

Tatton Park's WW1 Commemorative Flame

The centenary of the outbreak of World War One has quite rightly been in the spotlight allowing everyone time for reflection either on their own or as part of an organised event.

For someone with a lifelong interest in history and military matters I too have spent much time reading and reflecting on the conflict and its legacy. This interest and my close connections with Tatton Park lead to me earlier this year joining a small research team and contributing to an exhibition held there to commemorate the war and its impact on the estate, its workers and of course the Egerton family.

The exhibition took its "We Will See it Through":Tatton Reflects 1914-1918 title from a rousing recruitment speech given by Alan De Tatton, at Knutsford town hall shortly after the wars outbreak - no mean feat given that at the wars declaration he was enjoying a spa break in Germany and initially held captive!

The preparation for the exhibition was both challenging and rewarding as we slowly uncovered many fascinating stories and from an original concern about whether we would have 'enough' material it soon became clear that the worry would be about what to leave out. Sadly, even in a sizable display room, there wasn't room to include everything but we included some fascinating exhibits both from Tatton's collection and through loans and donations from relatives of those connected with Tatton at the time.

Sadly I don't have any close-up pictures of the display items - sorry!

There weren't photos of some of the featured estate workers, so I provided these images

The children's colouring & reading table proved very popular!

The exhibition was appropriately opened on 4th August 2014, the centenary of course of Britain's declaration of war 100 years before. Coincidentally the date was also Maurice Egerton, Tatton's last Lord's, 40th birthday. Tatton had also been chosen as one of the focal points of the local council's WW1 commemorations, under its Cheshire East Reflects banner. This saw the installation of an eternal flame in its grounds which was lit by Tatton's MP, chancellor George Osborne in a special commemorative event on the 4th August which I attended.

 

As Tatton's 2014 season draws to a close, preparations for the forthcoming Christmas event are underway, meaning that our WW1 exhibition has now closed. Research though continues and it is planned that the exhibition will return, updated at a future date as commemorations reflect the wars duration.

Given the exhibition's closure and today's armistice date I thought it timely to show a few of the exhibition and the commemorative flame images here. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the exhibition and for the many poignant visitor comments and memories received which gave a deeper meaning to this year's commemorations.  

Remembrance Days



Well with Remembrance Sunday today and the armistice anniversary tomorrow, I like the nation have been in a rather reflective mood so dug out Accent UK's very first anthology book from back in early 2003 after our first meeting in a former cotton mill in Stockport, appropriately enough on armistice day, November 2002.

 

The book itself is long since out of print and I've had to scan the pages from my contribution from my file copy so apologies for the quality reproduced here. It was an interesting time for all of us involved born out of the very early comic shows in Bristol, although sadly there seems to be only Dave West and I left from the contributors list, still involved in the British indie comics scene today?

 

For more information on Remembrance Day and the Poppy appeal, see the British Legion.