Anna Meredith, Neil Forsyth and Greg McHugh among Scotland's hottest cultural contributors in 2013
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89 Glasgow Comic Con
Hot strips
2013 was a record-breaking year for Glasgow Comic Con: its 2200 visitors were the most that the city’s CCA has ever had at a single event. Not bad going for an event that began just two years ago with 500 comics fans assembled in an old church building, and just one reason why it’s a new entry in the Hot 100. ‘It feels really good!’ says event co-producer Sha Nazir on The List’s recognition of GCC’s Hotness. ‘For us to be recognised is a nice pat on the back, in that we’ve obviously done something right in terms of promoting the people who are making comics in Scotland.’
It’s the makers that GCC is all about, as Nazir explains: ‘We put on an event that highlights comic creators – artists, writers, letterers, colourists. What we are putting on is a comic con that is a book festival, and people are coming for that very precise thing. They’re not going to the more general, commercial kind of comic con where you can meet the C and D-list celebrities; we’re purely about the artform.’
That approach has chimed perfectly with a groundswell among Scottish comics. ‘There’s been a rise in the number of independent creators,’ says Nazir. ‘It’s a bit like a music scene, where all of a sudden you get a bunch of people who start encouraging each other and start making and making and making. And in Glasgow it has become more of an aspiration that people can actually do it, seeing Scottish people like Mark Millar and Grant Morrison having such success abroad and also in their own country.’ With plans afoot to expand the venue capacity for 2014’s edition, which will also be part of the Homecoming Scotland programme, Glasgow Comic Con certainly won’t be cooling down any time soon. (PG)
88 Anna Meredith
Electro composer
Equally at home in the concert hall as the club, composer Meredith had her body percussion piece, ‘HandsFree’ performed at the 2012 Last Night of the Proms, following it with this year’s EP of neo-classical synth bangers, ‘Jet Black Raider’. (SS)
87 Michael Pedersen
Poetry pioneer
Along with co-founder Kevin Williamson, Pedersen runs performance night Neu! Reekie!, a ‘monthly headfuck’ of poetry, animation and music which has now spread to Glasgow from its roots in Edinburgh. Pedersen’s debut poetry collection, Play With Me, was published in July. (KL)
86 Neil Forsyth
Master of Servant
Forsyth’s creation, cantankerous Dundee pensioner Bob Servant, made the leap from the internet and printed page (including a column in The List) to TV. Played by no less than Brian Cox, it lost none of its Scottish humour in translation. (HN)
85 Greg McHugh
TV comic
The Edinburgh-born and bred, Glasgow and Stirling-educated comic-actor made much creative hay this year with more Fresh Meat on Channel 4, the station which also aired him in Dates (he played Callum opposite Gemma Chan’s Erica). Over on the Beeb, he cropped up in Bob Servant Independent and Bad Education. (BD)
84 Union of Genius
Soup stars
The Edinburgh soup specialists discovered that the best way to expand along sustainable and ethical principles was to crowd-fund their development. In doing so, they’ve won fresh business, new fans and much admiration from the local food scene. (DR)
83 Subcity Radio
Eclectic station
Scotland’s answer to legendary freeform radio station WFMU, Glasgow University-based Subcity draws its DJs from the city’s underground clubbing, music and arts scenes. Their experimental programming and events offer everything from black metal to sound poetry, footwork to dub. (SS)
82 Sound Festival
Sonic celebration
City-wide humming and gloriously out-of-tune string quartets were among the sonic wonders in this year’s Aberdeen-based Sound festival. This event has been sharpening the cutting edge of contemporary classical and reaching out into many other musical styles across north-east Scotland since 2005. (DK)
81 85A
Absurdist collective
Straddling many disciplines including performance, film and music, the Glasgow-based collective will follow up their screening of expressionist homage Chernozem at Summerhall by bringing a subversive circus to the forthcoming Commonwealth Games. Expect high-concept absurdism, pyrotechnics and masks: lots of them. (LI)
80 Claire Cunningham
Dance auteur
Teaming up with the National Theatre of Scotland gave Cunningham the opportunity to present an uncompromising examination of her own relationship with crutches at the Fringe. Her inclusion in the Auteurs season makes her the first dancer to lead an NTS production. (GKV)