Liquorice: sweet, appeals to adults and children, beneficial to health.
Liquorice is something of a compendium, the beginning of a work in progress, a platform for play, experimentation and reflection. This is an ongoing project which will be published quarterly.
Emerging from Streeten's process of creating an autobiographical graphic novel for a Master's Degree, Liquorice is a documentation of the process in the form of a comic-ish, magazine-ish, illustration sketchbook-ish .... creation.
Finding the destination was overshadowing the joy of the journey Streeten's aim is to reflect and embrace the haphazardness and distractions of the creative process....the graphic novel develops alongside the day to day activity of life: the stopping to make a meal for family and friends, play and chat with children, or read out an interesting bit from a newspaper. Rather than deny this aspect of life Streeten has decided to include it, inviting 12-year old daughter Sally Plowman to actively participate (in the way a parent is encouraged to actively participate in a child's homework) and including contributions from both Sally and artist husband John Plowman.
It is becoming an unintentional family project, developing from the natural day to day discussion about what one member is doing and the views of the others on what they should do and how. Also reflecting the different relationships which occur within a family, so collaborations between father/daughter, mother/daughter emerge in Issue two alongside the separate contributions.
Liquorice claims to be a work in progress, rather than a finished object, a personal and honest approach, borrowing from an ecclectic mix of genres and forms but shunning the shackles of categorisation.
Early girls' comics featured paper dolls. To that end a paper doll competition runs in each issue. The intention is for this to be open to all.
A Paper Doll Gallery will shortly be introduced on the website to show our favourite entries.
Reflecting the way the media separates and categorises women, eg women's hour, women's page; Liquorice introduces a Women's Page, a Men's Page and a Children's Page.
Issue One includes an essay on an aspect of the graphic novel, and looks at the gender balance in the graphic novel. This is based on Streeten's academic dissertation research.
Liquorice NUMBER ONE was published on 20 November 2008 by Plowman Press.
Liquorice NUMBER TWO was published in April 2009 by Plowman Press.
For further information and images
please contact NJ Streeten 07903 474 006
