Myfanwy Tristram

Coolness abounds!

Cover of my graphic novel, Noisy Valley

Cover of Oracles by Olivia Sullivan

@cartooncounty.bsky.social moves to @waterstones.bsky.social (Brighton branch) for a special one-off this May - and ooh look, it'll be me and @zebko.bsky.social interviewed by @panelborders.bsky.social! Whoohoo! Join us!

Hoorah! Good times ahead

The cover of This Slavery graphic novel on a black background, with the British Book Awards Logo and the text Shortlisted Book of the Year Graphic Novel

A photo of the six shortlisted books in the graphic novel category: InvestíGators by John Patrick Green, Dog Man: Big Jim Believes by Dav Pilkey, Bunny v Monkey: Intergalactic Monkey Business, Who Killed Nessie by Paul Cornell and Rachael Smith, This Slavery by us and Ginseng Roots Craig Thompson

We’re flabbergasted to see This Slavery shortlisted for Book of the Year: Graphic Novel at the Nibbies!

What an incredible list to appear on, and isn’t it great to have a graphic novel category

Oh how wonderful! Congratulations to youuuuuu!

I'm having a solo exhibition And I need your help...

open.substack.com/pub/nikigroo... Super interesting on the viability of doing illustration work for charities, etc.

From thermal underwear to ‘hairy’ jam: World Book Day titles take over UK book chart Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey: Total Chaos! was No 1 in the chart last week as the Top 10 was dominated by the charity’s discounted children’s reads ahead of annual event

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m... Go @jamiesmart.bsky.social ! Incredible sales figures and some great comics advocacy 🙌

To celebrate World Book Day we have some fun facts to share to help raise awareness of the value of comics via The Comics Cultural Impact Collective (CCIC)

There is a 'Reading for Pleasure Crisis' in the UK amongst 8-18 with rates at their lowest since records began... but not amongst comics readers! Nearly twice as many young comics readers said they enjoyed reading compared with non-comics readers (58.6% vs.33.1%). *National Literacy Trust Research

40.3% of 8-18 year olds read comics 27%of adults read comics once a month 31% of adults do/have read comics The audience for comics in the UK is large and more diverse than for traditional artform in terms of class, ethnicity and neurodivergence. *Research from 1. The National Literacy Trust 2. The Reading Agency 3. Professor Andrew Miles and YouGov/Manchester University

Comics are big business. 2025 was the biggest year for comics since accurate records began (£78.7m across adult and kids' via BookScan). Waterstones reported tripling of sales and store mix for Manga & Adult GNs combined from 2019 to 2024.

To celebrate #worldbookday we have some fun facts to share via The Comics Cultural Impact Collective (CCIC). Join us to help raise the value of comics in the UK. thecomicsculturalimpactcollective.org/Join-Us

Yes exactly - for all my misgivings about TikTok, it does at least retain that aspect of the early, optimistic spirit of the internet.

Which ok, is quite sinister, but as that’s mainly kooky art projects for me, I’m going to decide is unlikely to cause any trouble.

I was sceptical for a long time, but I get a lot of joy from it!
Some of my favs:
Woman who is crocheting a giant version of her birth control information sheet
A bloke who lives in an old military tower
A dad who makes amazing songs from his toddler’s stories
TikTok eventually learns what you like.

You Can Just Do Stuff

Except TikTok, where I’m still lucky enough to see things like mad crochet projects, and reconstructions of cities made out of cardboard, etc.

Modern day version of the flower fairies!

It's the rarest thing in comics to watch characters age in real time. It's equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking. Love & Rockets, man. 💔

I worry sometimes that scrolling through Bluesky is basically to read a list of problems, with few solutions offered.

An ornate, green metal fencepost looking a little like a cactus. On top someone has placed a small woolly hat. Both fencepost and hat look like they’ve been through some rough weather.

I’ve been moaning far too much about AI on here recently, so let’s stop to enjoy this fencepost wearing a woolly hat and flexing its little biceps.

I don't see why it's so unreasonable to ask any company that wants to use someone's work to license it, on an author opt-in basis. The ALCS already collects fees for secondary rights and uses: it's not like it's beyond the realm of possibility to organise something similar.

Have you created anything lately? I'm wondering whether you've ever experienced the joy of making, for example, a painting, a drawing, even a piece of pottery or a model. Perhaps this is something you haven't encountered since your schooldays? I am sure that MPs - and especially those with parliamentary roles - are so busy that any such form of recreation soon falls by the wayside. But I wanted to explain to you why, as a professional illustrator, I am so viscerally and furiously opposed to the government's rumoured adoption of a 'commercial research exception' for AI training. It is theft, pure and simple. It is theft of the many many hours I have put into creating my work. Worse that that, it is a theft that will contribute to the complete devaluation of my work - all artwork. Keep AI away from the creative arts. Selling off artists' rights to train AI is immoral. The artwork we have created is not a resource that is free for the government/AI companies to simply pick up and use; it is ours. We sat at our desks and laboured in its creation. We brought our very selves to it, all that we are, knowing that no-one else could create something precisely like it, because we are all unique.

It genuinely makes me despair for the world we live in, when we set the pursuit of money above all that is good and creative. At the beginning of this letter, I asked whether you had created anything lately. That is because, if you have, you will understand that creativity is the speaking of one human soul to another. It is an activity that is worthwhile in and of itself, one that improves your skills, brings satisfaction and self-respect, helps counter mental health issues, teaches one to face challenges and overcome them - all factors which are missing in the typing of a prompt and the immediate "satisfaction" of generating an image, all while using the world's resources in a time of climate emergency. Brighton is a city of artists. There are painters, illustrators, comics artists, muralists, studios, galleries, all relying on the income that their unique skills, their unique abilities to express themselves, can bring them. What a depressing world where we put the artists out of a job and settle for a generic slop from this thieving technology. Please assure me that you will vote in support of your many artist constituents.

I am sure you have heard this quote from Joanna Maciejewska many times, as AI is debated in Parliament: "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes." It's a light-hearted way to express a vital truth: creativity brings joy to life, and generative AI is the death of that joy. Yours sincerely, Myfanwy Tristram

I was moved to write to my MP about AI this morning (again). I don't know what it takes to touch someone's heart/moral self, but I can only try!

If you want to do the same, www.writetothem.com is a very easy way to do so - you don't need to know who your MP is to use it.

Get ready to turn up to protest in person if they push this through

I swear to god, none of these decision-making politicians have the slightest idea what it means to create something. If they did, in their hearts they would not be able to allow this to go through.

WriteToThem WriteToThem is a website which provides an easy way to contact MPs, councillors and other elected representatives.

If you’ve never written to your MP before, maybe you don’t know who they are, go to www.writetothem.com.

If you’re part of any creative groups, unions or other organisations in the uk you should be passing news like this along and spreading the world. News like this gets has the chance to be overlooked but if enough organisations kick up a fuss things can change.

*robes come back into fashion*

He’s such an influencer that now I’m looking for purple shoes too.

Purple shoes? They’ll be in for a season and then straight into landfill.

You know how people always say, “if you’re so anti consumerism why are you using an iphone, eh eh?”. Well, Dave, I notice you have a few lovely personal possessions there, including some luscious robes!

Contact support - Get answers from our AI assistant, with access to 24/7 expert human support on paid plans

First time I've seen this - it's like an admission that AI assistance is trash, and so you only get to talk to a human if you pay premium (WordPress, although I'm unclear whether it's WP itself, or the maker of the theme I've installed).

A panel from This Slavery graphic novel, in which Rachel (our hero) and Jip (a very good boy) stand listening at an internal door. They both look unimpressed by what they hear

A panel from This Slavery graphic novel, showing a very fancy bedroom (four poster bed, William Morris prints, pre-raphaelite art on the walls). In the foreground a blonde woman lies face down alongside a dropped violin and bow. She is barefoot and wearing a nightie. There is blood on her right hand

The book cover. The text reads ETHEL CARNIE HOLDSWORTH’S THIS SLAVERY, a graphic novel by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard. The full page illustration shows two women standing back to back in a steep terraced street at sunset. The blonde woman holds a violin, the dark haired woman wears a man’s coat. A young man looks at them from an upstairs window on the left, and on the right there is a perky white and brown dog. In the distance the factory chimneys smoke. It’s all very ‘mills & doom’

What are you up to this evening, fancy coming out for a drink?

We’ll be in The Walrus in Brighton talking to @cartooncounty.bsky.social about making This Slavery graphic novel

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
“No one could have expected a place like that to flood. It was too high up the valley, too far from the river. But flash flooding and trapped brash nonetheless conspired against the people of Pentre that day.” #Rhondda