If you are near Manchester on the 12-14th April, you should probably try and get along to the Graphic Novel & Comics Conference featuring speakers such as Martin Barker, Mel Gibson, Paul Gravett & Roger Sabin.
Comics and graphic novels enjoy a paradoxical relationship with mainstream culture. Their narratives and characters are familiar to mass audiences through their adaptations in film, television and other mass media. However comics’ texts are rarely known or read outside comic book cultures. In recent years comics have instigated themselves into the public consciousness due, to a number of diverse circumstances such as the narrative possibilities they offer in an increasingly complex transmedia landscape.