Achi Baba

We are now in the final stages of our major project for this year, a graphic novel based on the attempts to take the hill of Achi Baba during the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War. We will be looking at the final effort of July 12th 1915, which is commemorated locally, but also the context of the broader campaign.

We are incorporating a range of sources and voices in telling the story, from war poetry, letters and field reports to contemporary articles from the sensationalist magazine The War Illustrated.  We will be sharing some artwork with you over the next few months, and also looking at the history of World War One comics.

The graphic novel, produced as a hardback, will be launched this summer and be available at Glasgow Comicon on Saturday 4 July. It will also be available for free at various community venues across Inverclyde during the centenary. Please contact us if you would be interested in receiving / distributing copies.

The Achi Baba project is supported by Heritage Lottery Fund through the First World War Then and Now programme, which is supporting many projects and programmes across the country. The fund is allowing people to learn about the Great War in a whole range of formal and informal ways, from new materials made available through museums and archives to new reflective / interpretive materials produced by schools and community groups for non-traditional audiences.

Inverclyde's Great War project, also supported by Heritage Lottery Fund, will be commemorating the Gallipoli campaign and Achi Baba with a number of publications, exhibition and a specially commissioned drama. You can now read the project exhibition book free online.


UPDATED : The book will be launched on Saturday 11 July 2015, in Dutch Gable House, Greenock from 10 - 2. Free copies of the book will be available.

Andy's very first pencil tests for the project earlier this year...

A more recent page, looking at the Gallipoli landings