Comics Unmasked : Art and Anarchy in the UK

Abstract

Comics Unmasked at the British Library and was the largest comic exhibition to be held in the UK. Comics Unmasked drew from the British Library’s extensive comic collection, displayed alongside original artwork provided by leading creators. As a counterpoint to this focus on traditional media, I curated the digital comics section of the exhibition. Drawing on my experience as a leading digital practitioner and my previously published research into the history of digital comics, I assembled a retrospective of significant works by UK creators. In addition to preparing the works for display and authoring their accompanying contextualising texts, the role involved the restoration of a key “lost” work, Club Salsa by Dave McKean and Chris Miller. My work highlighted the range of challenges involved in archiving digital comics. It also formed the basis for the digital comic chapter in the Comics Unmasked book that was released to accompany the exhibition.