I feel like you fostered some of that DIY energy, that community spirt. You've had a lot of involvement in the organizing of fairs and workshops over the years. Broken Frontier soundbite: “Cleverly constructed, ever playful with the form’s language, and employing some sparkling dialogue and characteristion, it’s a graphic novel you will return to time and again. In fact, this joyous, witty, poignant and, most importantly, very human story is the book we all needed as a counterpoint to the challenges of 2020.” Read the full interview here Female Christian mystics were all the rage in the medieval period. These mystics lived precarious lives that depended on whether they could get support from Bishops and Priests. If they were verified by such a man, they often become an anchoress, and were walled up in a cell to live a life of prayer and holy contemplation for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, they may be called a heretic and imprisoned or even put to death.

It's worth noting that 1518 is right at the very end of what we think of as the medieval period, and a lot of references I used where from an earlier time. I used a bit of creative license here because I felt that dancing plagues were a quintessentially medieval thing, and the people I'm depicting in the book, who are mainly peasants, certainly had a medieval way of looking at things.

The Dancing Plague

Yes! I was about two-thirds of the way through when the pandemic started. There is a lot of parallels between then and now. I recognised the same blaming of minority groups, the same superstition, the same attitude of the authorities who both initially went for a "herd immunity" approach. There doesn't seem to me to be much progress in thinking an illness is caused by 5G rather than by demonic possession. The thing about comics is that they communicate through marks made by another human hand, that you can relate to as such. If the marks are perfect, how can you relate to them? They’re inhuman!

This choreomania or St Vitus’s Dance seized hundreds of men, women and children, who jigged and whirled to the point of physical exhaustion and, apparently in some cases, death. It was recognised as demonic possession or divine retribution for whatever sins could be conjured. As difficult to interpret now (as a psychological reaction to social injustice?) as it was then (as a collective demonic possession?), the story of the “Dancing Plague” finds suitably extraordinary expression in the utterly unique mixed-media style Gareth Brookes has devised to tell it. The pioneering blend of his trademark “pyrographic” technique with sumptuously colourful (and literal) embroidery perfectly reflects, in a beautiful work of art, the enduring fragility of our human condition – from “choreomania” to coronavirus. Home’ is a guided tour of places of memory, drawn with charcoal and ink on paper hand towels from images found on google street view. It is Brookes’ latest short experimental comic and will be launching at the show. The story is told through the eyes of Mary, who experiences mystical visions. Her life story is intertwined with the narrative of the dancing plague. I wanted to tell the story from an individual’s perspective and through her mystical visions I was able to try to present the mindset and belief system of a medieval person alongside the historical events that took place, and maybe even throw some light on why this bizarre thing happened.

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The “Superhero” Trademark: how the name of a genre came to be owned by DC and Marvel, and how they enforce it Gareth has been a visiting lecturer at Wimbledon School of Art, the University of York St Johns, Staffordshire University and The Royal College of Art. He runs regular workshops in embroidery, printmaking, comic and zine making, most recently running workshops in embroidery at Bradford Literary Festival and in monoprint printmaking (with Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants) at The ICA, London. He also organises the South London Comic and Zine Fair, an annual book fair featuring small press publishers and artists, which encourages new artists to exhibit their work.

As in most of his work, Brookes applies some unusual artistic techniques, eschewing simple ink on paper. Here he depicts the mortal world using pyrography, lending it an earthy, drab, somewhat oppressive quality. He contrasts this against the story’s otherworldly elements, which are depicted with brightly coloured embroidery. The effect is great, and the whole thing is just a pleasure to look at, with a suitably mediaeval aesthetic. The Dancing Plague tells a true story, from 1518, when hundreds of inhabitants of Strasbourg were suddenly seized by the strange and unstoppable compulsion to dance, from the imagined perspective of Mary, one of its witnesses. Prone to mystic visions as a child, betrayed in the convent to which she flees, then abused by her loutish husband, Mary endures her life as an oppressed and ultimately scapegoated woman with courage, strength, and inspiring beauty. The mystics I chose to base my character on were Christina the Astonishing and Margery Kempe. Christina the Astonishing could levitate, sit in an oven without burning, and stay underwater for days at a time. Margery Kempe on the other hand didn’t have any superpowers but was more of a rebel and an eccentric. She was a middle class business woman, mother of fourteen children who pronounced herself holy and travelled around delighting and irritating people with her divinely inspired pronouncements and constant crying and wailing at any mention of Christ’s passion. These crying fits would last for hours or even days and made her unpopular with fellow pilgrims who travelled with her on various pilgrimages. Anthony Bale is a leading expert on Margery Kempe so I was able to get some valuable insight into her as a character. I would urge everyone to read The Book of Margery Kempe, which is the first autobiography written in the English language. The first thing I did was to find out a bit about the period of time the dancing plague took place in. I needed to find some kind of visual language and points of reference for the comic. The 1518 dancing plague (I read as I feverishly Googled) was one of many such medieval events, wherein ordinary people had the sudden compulsion to dance. This compulsion spread around the population like a contagion, until hundreds of people were dancing themselves into a state of collapse or even death.Right now, I need a bit of a rest! I tend to make shorter, experimental small press work in between graphic novels, so I'll probably do something along those lines. Broken Frontier soundbite: “ Flake is proof positive that Matthew Dooley’s comics are the perfect blend of absurdism and humanity. A triumphant debut for one of UK comics’ most underappreciated rising stars.” Read the full review here The pyrographic elements are used for the elements that are “of our world,” like the humans and the buildings. Meanwhile, the embroidery elements represent the stuff that falls under the purview of the supernatural: the demonic figures that force the humans to dance, for example, or the heavenly visions experienced by the narrator. For me it’s all about the vulnerability and struggle of wrestling with these very physical processes, the creativity and unexpectedness that comes from not knowing what you’re doing and always being in danger of failing. I’ve heard people say it takes 10,000 hours to master your style or your line or something, but to be honest I think it takes 10,000 hours to become boring and mediocre. The moment you master something is the moment you stop being creative. It worries me a bit that people think it essential that they study comics to get anywhere. Degrees, masterclasses. Dustin Harbin and I were talking to a young comics student who couldn't understand that we hadn't learnt comics, not in a professional setting. Not that I think professional study is a bad thing, just that the costs mean it will not be accessible to all.

the focus is on the dancing plague that broke out in late mediaeval Strasbourg, when one woman’s uncontrollable dancing developed into a kind of mass epidemic. Utilising processes such as pyrograph., embroidery and monoprint combined with materials which include calico and paper handtowels, Brookes employs unique approaches to produce beautiful sequential art.The Fall of the Damned, 1470 by Dirk Bouts, sketch, tracing and finished panel it inspired in The Dancing Plague Bruegel lived in the period shortly after the 1518 dancing plague, so this was a very good start. His paintings and drawings of peasants were very helpful in beginning to figure out what ordinary people might have worn at the time. Helpfully, Bruegel had also done some drawings of a dancing outbreak. Before we get to the subject matter of this surprisingly confronting comic, The Dancing Plague, we must first consider some of the marvellous artistic techniques used by its creator, Gareth Brookes. Mr Brookes’ education includes the study of printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London. A definition in the dust cover sleeve describes one of these: “pyrography”, the use of heated tools to create effects in drawings or designs. And indeed, throughout the comic, scorch marks appear, to indicate the presence of the divine or supernatural. I don't think there's a simple answer and I don't really try and speculate too much in the book, like all good mysteries, it should (and probably will) remain unsolved.