“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech."
Friday, October 16, 1:30-2:30pm, SAIC Ballroom
John Miers (www.johnmiers.com) studied fine art at London’s
Slade School and Chelsea College and published his first mini-comics on
graduation. Following a period as a commercial illustrator, he returned to
comics, with a particular interest in wordless narrative. His work is particularly concerned with issues of language and perception. Miers enjoys a career
as a teacher of fine art and graphic design, and is a regular contributor to the
Association of Illustrators’ yearly “Best of British Illustration” exhibition
and annual.
This just in: on Oct. 2, 2009, Miers won the inaugural Web & Interactive Design Award in the new Digital Artist competition organized by leading art and design magazines and sponsored by Intel and Future Publishing. Visit www.johnmiers.com to see why!
The primary focus of Miers' ICAF presentation will be Babel, a wordless comic interpreting the Biblical legend (page 7 of which appears above). The starting point for the Babel project was the idea that varied pictorial styles could be used in speech balloons as a metaphor not only for the confusion of tongues but also the divergence between individual experience and material reality.
Incorporating sources drawn from the history of visual narrative, Babel seeks to demonstrate how comics’ inherent use of multiple processes of signification can lead to unique and complex ways of depicting language and perception. Miers' talk will incorporate a slideshow displaying each successive page of Babel, and, in addition, he will tease out the larger considerations raised in each page and discuss influences on the work, as well as other examples of sequential art that address similar concerns, from Asterix to the Devonshire tapestries.
The above page from Babel was recently chosen as winner of the monthly poster competition by the online magazine Don't Panic and also appeared in an exhibition at London's Pitzhanger Manor Gallery. Other examples of Miers' work can be seen below:
