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BHP Comics founder Sha Nazir will launch the UK's first literary agency dedicated to graphic novels today.
Nazir's 9 Panels Agency will represent a variety of unsigned graphic novels and comics from UK-based creators. The agency’s aim is to bring graphic novelists to new audiences internationally in print and to expand into the film and TV market with their titles.
The agency will run independently of the Glasgow-based indie publisher, and the launch list includes creative duo writer Fraser Campbell and artist James Corcoran (Alex Automatic), Scottish artist and illustrator Kat Hall (the Paper Moon series), Dan Whitehead - who previously worked on books and comics based on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings - and cartoonist Marc Jackson, who has created comics for the Beano.
Nazir said: “Comics have come out the shadows of cult fiction and the book sources are now leading the way as mainstream entertainment. We see it as only right to help speed up the growth of the book market to create a platform to promote new, unsigned talents, of which there are hundreds in the UK alone.”
The agency, @9panelsagency on Twitter, will launch today (Thursday 29th August). Nazir, who can be contacted on hello@9panels.co.uk, will be attending Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
Earlier this month Curtis Brown signed BHP Comics, which was highly commended in the inaugural British Book Awards Small Press of the Year, to represent the indie publisher's titles’ film and TV rights.