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Saturday 25 September 2010

In Review: Clint #2 - real life superheroes and Kick Ass 2

clint2.jpgThe second issue of CLiNT, Mark Millar and Titan Magazines' British news stand anthology, mixing comics with a range of features that include a focus on 'real-life superheroes' and an interview with Charlie Brooker, is a much-improved mix on the launch issue.

Maintaining an edgy, Nuts/Zoo style feel to the format, which rankles with some comics fans but should appeal to the magazine's teen target audience, strip-wise, this issue continues Kick Ass 2 and delivers more chapters of Jonathan Ross' Turf, Frankie Boyle's bonkers Rex Royd, Nemesis and a fun three-page 'Space Oddity'. Pit Stop by Mateus Santolouco is one of many great pitches to the mag made via the MillarWorld forum and a good choice.

Also this issue -- the first slice of Mark Millar's American Jesus, already published in the US but which I gather is part of a trilogy of planned stories being released by Image in the US.

Of these, despite the vicious content, Nemesis proves the surprise hit of the issue for me, with a brilliant chase scene and some truly nasty developments as the super villain storms the Pentagon. Steve McNiven's art is superb throughout.

Turf again benefits from the larger page size of CLiNT and writer Ross begins to rein in his verbosity to let the Tommy Lee Edwards gorgeous art on this 1920s vampire tale do the storytelling.

There were mixed reviews of Frankie Boyle's Rex Royd - and I'm afraid the writing is again disappointing and the content of this tale the most potentially offensive to the kind of religious types, that frankly, Frank, you really don't want to upset. The titular 'hero'(?) continues his crusade against superheroes and super beings, this time taking down God in the Garden of Eden after God performs a pretty monstrous act on Eve.

It's all very shocking and will no doubt have Daily Mail readers up in arms, but at the end of the day, how many of CLiNT's target audience even know who God is and will really take in the import of such a ridiculous storyline?

American Jesus, with terrific art from Peter Gross is definitely intriguing - I'm curious to see how this develops, although I could of course simply pick up the collection.

And then of course there's the 'headline act' - the second part of Kick Ass 2, as Millar and Romita's would-be superhero takes a stroll in Times Square with another costumed hero whose only weapon is a silver-foil covered baseball bat. There's some fun dialogue for comic fans - a teen admitting he fancies Aunt May - and Kick Ass revealing his life's desire is to be part of the Justice League.

But the story also exposes what might be a critical flaw in Millar's masterplan to break comics out of what he sees as something of a ghetto on the news stand - much of the humour is dependent on knowing something about the comics the target audience, allegedly, have never heard of. (Although of course, they may well have heard of their film and cartoon incarnations, to which Millar is careful to refer).

Overall, though, CLiNT #2 is a well rounded and much stronger issue than the launch, and some of the features are hilarious, such as the 'Save Money on your Mobile' spoof ad and the full page iPad gag. The longer features are stronger, too - especially the real superhero feature - and seem a better fit this time around. Yes, you've still got the Zoo-inspired stuff like a 'Sexy Chavs' pin up, which is sure to annoy comic fans but once again, this title is aimed at a teen audience that loves this stuff.

Fingers crossed, they liked the first issue enough to buy this one.

Official CLINT web site


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CLiNT on Twitter

Discuss CLINT #2 on the downthetubes forum (membership required)

More reviews:

Bleeding Cool: CLiNT #2 Numbercrunching

Friday 24 September 2010

Colliding Words and Pictures: An Interview with Sarah McIntyre



Sarah McIntyre (left) with the 'Fleece Station' creative crew  - Lauren O'Farrell and Gary Northfield - at MCM London 2010. Photo: Jeremy Briggs
Cartoonist and illustrator Sarah McIntyre first came to Matthew Badham's attention via her Vern and Lettuce strips in weekly subscription-only comic The DFC. Since then, like many others, he's been following her work both online and in print. She's a fantastic artist whose mini-comics never fail to make us smile.

Vern and Lettuc e by Sarah McIntyre
In this interview, Sarah talks about her art education, the links between comics and picture books, and why she sees a healthy future for the British comics scene...

(This interview is also being cross-posted on the Forbidden International blog)

downthetubes: Are you a formally trained or self-taught artist?

Sarah McIntyre: A bit of both, really. A very kind art teacher give me after-school oil painting classes, starting when I was five. I spent the next six years mostly painting kittens, puppies and rather tedious landscapes, but it made me love mucking in with paint. My high school art teacher was also great in that she didn't make me follow the class assignments, just let me set my own projects and get on with them, even if I had to stay through lunch break or after school.


Sarah and a 'slightly dotty' Hungarian
I also took a few oil painting classes from a wonderful and slightly dotty Hungarian woman who collected filing cabinets full of dead crows that had been run over on the road in front of her shop, so we could draw them.

I didn't think I could earn any money doing fine art, so I studied Russian at university. But in the United States, we have this great option of completing a 'minor degree', which is half a regular degree, so I did my minor in History of Art. And the professors there let me fudge the requirements a bit so a lot of that time was spent drawing life models in the art studio instead of memorising slides.

Before my last year of university, I spent two years in Moscow, running around its galleries and museums, teaching myself a lot about Russian painting and its arts and crafts movement at the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century. Until I realized I couldn't live on the pay of three dollars an hour, I worked in the Moscow branch of Shakespeare & Co bookshop, and we hosted these marvellous arts evenings where I got to meet loads of fascinating painters, sculptors, writers and poets, and occasionally I'd get to see their studios.

I spent several years working as an illustrator, just taking a few evening classes here and there. My favourite short course leader was Elizabeth Harbour, who set loads of brilliant little book projects, similar to the kinds of things you see at small press fairs now. She's the one who got me set on the path to making full books, not just drawings.


The Bottle - art college
work by Sarah
About five years after moving to London, I enrolled at Camberwell College of the Arts to do my Master's degree. I was lucky, it was the first year Janet Woolley began leading the course, and it was still small, only 14 students. (I think it's over 50 now). Jan combined being a total powerhouse with being quite mumsy; she really cared about the people on her course and looked after us at the same time as pushing us hard and being utterly frank with us.

What I didn't learn on that course, I was able to pick up from the Association of Illustrators Business Start-up classes and seminars led by the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators. And Ellen Lindner, who was on my course [and who now edits the anthology, Whores of Mensa], started me off learning about comics, pointing me to the kind of comics I actually liked, not the kind I'd seen when I walked into mainstream comic book shops.

I think it wouldn't have been too difficult to slide through the course without doing much; I tried to come up with at least one piece of artwork every day and I think that decision made all the difference. I only felt I'd made my first real breakthrough about a week before the final show. Jan and the Graphic Design leader actually let me set up a second, separate show in the hallway because my work had changed so dramatically between the stuff I'd carefully printed up for the exhibition and the artwork and comics I'd been doing in the meantime.

downthetubes: So when did you actually start making comics?

Sarah: When I was about eight years old, I used to make a magazine called Family Favorite and leave it on my neighbours' doorstep, ring the bell and run away. I think the first comics I ever made were for that magazine, and they were copied, possibly even traced, from Archie comics. But all the comics I ever read in the Seattle Times or Archie seemed to have funny punch lines, and I didn't think I would ever be able to do that. And I read a few of my mother's stashed-away story comics (Jack London's White Fang, a couple fairy tales) but they were so old and brittle that I didn't think people still made them. I didn't even connect them as a storytelling medium with the funnies in the newspaper. In fact, the linework and colours looked so polished to me that I never even thought about real, live people making them at all. Maybe I thought they grew on trees or something.

Comic created at college
by Sarah
I think my first comic was a little book I made for my dad for his birthday, telling his life story from my point of view. It was more of an illustrated book that a comic, but if would have fit in with minis you see at small press fairs.

My first comic I made at art college was a double-page spread about some yobs throwing a beer can into the Thames and then the river bursting its banks to take revenge on everyone. Ellen gave me some good tips on it and it made me start thinking more seriously about making comics.

I read a book called On Sight and Insight by John Hull about the experience of blindness and thought I'd write a graphic novel with a character in a soundscape environment, simulating blindness, but in a visual way, using typographical artwork. That subject was way too big for me at the time and I had to shelve it. I also made a couple travel minis and took part in an online comics jam with some people on LiveJournal.

Then the opportunity came up and I cheekily promised David Fickling I could do a page a week of comics for The DFC. I practically had my fingers crossed behind my back when he asked me if I could do it; I had absolutely no idea if I could, and I sweated bullets. But I approached Vern and Lettuce like a children's book, just drawn within panels instead of pages, and the editor didn't ask me to stop, so I figured it must be okay. I was overwhelmed when people started telling me they liked it.

Vern and Lettuce by Sarah McIntyre
downthetubes: What did producing Vern and Lettuce, a weekly comic, teach you in terms of making comics and also the business, deadline, discipline side of being a comic artist?

Sarah: I was already used to deadlines and discipline from making picture books, although I still had a lot to learn about the business side of things. When I started with David, I was approached by one of the best agents in the business and she's made my work phenomenally less stressful.

Vern and Lettuce Pencils





Pencils stage for a page of Vern and Lettuce
Vern and Lettuce Inks





Inks for the same page...
Vern and Lettuce Pencils - Final Colour






Initial lettering...

Vern and Lettuce Pencils - Initial Colour

-- and the final page
In terms of making comics, I'd never submitted more than a few single illustrations in digital form, and I still had a lot to learn about Photoshop. I still only really know what I need to know, but I try to keep things simple by sticking as closely as possible to the methods of traditional printmaking.

For Vern and Lettuce, I tried to think of the layers in Photoshop as the layers in a screen print, one layer per colour. I hate the overly slick, airbrushed effects and gradients so many people rely on in Photoshop; it often it makes beautiful linework look like cheap pizza flyers, or makes everything look muddy. But I love the imperfect, slightly textured look of hand painted signs, and I saw some gorgeous revolutionary posters in Moscow in places like the Mayakovsky Museum. They owe a lot of their visual power to the fact that the painters didn't have many colours of paint, they just made do with two or three tins. With Photoshop, I can access millions of colours, but if I just stick to a few, my work looks so much better.

There's a lot of experimentation in Vern and Lettuce with this; I was very strict with myself in the first few pages, then I started to introduce more and more colours until about episode twelve, when I got frustrated and reined in my colour palette again.

Writing was also difficult, the relentless pace of the weekly deadline. In the beginning I had a few weeks to play with, but then I took a holiday and after that, I was finishing bang on the day the strip was due for print. There's this tricky thing, just like in picture books, where there's supposed to be a sort of 'flip' at the end of the story. It can be a joke, but it doesn't even have to be funny, just something to give the strip closure and make the reader look at things a bit differently.

A lot of the other DFC people I talked to started their stories with this end point in mind, but I never did. My way of working was just to put Vern and Lettuce into a situation and see where they went. They're so real to me that I can hear exactly what they'd say to each other. And sometimes they defied tight little endings, they still weren't very domesticated animals.

A few times they got me into a real panic and I'd ring up my DFC colleague Woodrow Phoenix, who lives nearby. He would patiently look at where my strip had gone and then walk me through to the end of it. It's been the same working in a studio with Gary Northfield; it's shown me that endings aren't magic, that much of the job just requires focusing and taking things to their logical conclusion, and then one step beyond. I think it's the ‘one step beyond’ that looks like magic to the rest of us. (I think DFC artists James Turner and Jamie Smart live in the land of one step beyond.)

Doing comics jams with David O'Connell also helped me get my writing out of terrible ruts. In a comics jam, I can't get pig headed about where a strip is going; when I hand the next page over to Dave, he always takes it in a direction I would never have dreamed up. When I get his page and start on the next one, it's almost like a completely fresh story.

That really helped show me that there's never one solution to telling a tale, the permutations are infinite, and when I'm stuck, instead of blundering on with something dull, I can step back and send the story flying in a completely different direction. And writing with friends makes things more fun.

Vern and Lettuce were great to me that way, in introducing me to so many amazing comics friends who know how to combine hard work with being a bit silly.

downthetubes: Can you give me a couple of examples of 'flips' from your own work?

Sarah: Well, things such as the raisins in Vern's cake ingredients, which turn out to be something much less palatable. Or the little stowaway moles that parade out of the airship, just as Vern thinks he's going to get some peace in his park keeper job.


Comics jam work with David O'Connell
downthetubes: You make comics and picture books. What's the difference between the two? Is there a difference? Is any distinction arbitrary, they are, after all, both collisions of text and art? What do picture books do well that comics don't and vice versa?

Sarah: This is a huge subject, I can do long workshops on the answer to this, and it needs me to show lots of visual examples. But I was amazed with The DFC, at how smoothly I could transition from picture books to comics. In the old days, a lot of picture books had very simple formats: a picture, possibly in a box, with text underneath. But there’s more of a move to vary formats in picture books now, and make the text intertwine and work with the pictures. I’ve always liked doing this, and never wanted to leave it solely to the book’s designer.

Often in picture books, you’ll see several small images on a page, which picture book editors would call ‘vignettes’, and comics people would call ‘panels’. Many picture book people (Russell Ayto, Mo Willems, Posy Simmonds, Raymond Briggs, Satoshi Kitamura, loads of others) have been using comics formats for years, even if they wouldn’t have called it that, or wanted you to call it that. I remember the surprise of learning that Maurice Sendak’s 1970 book, In the Night Kitchen, was a direct tribute to Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. I always knew it as a picture book, but of course, it’s a comic, too, and a love letter to comics.

I don’t think there has to be any boundaries between picture books and comics. I think they can flow into each other entirely seamlessly, and keep people developing their visual literacy well after they’ve moved on from reading only children’s books. And it lends added sophistication to children’s books, when kids can read a book that’s slightly above their level without it being a huge break from picture books to text-only novels.

I think this merging needs two things to happen: Editors need to overcome their prejudices against books looking too much like comics, or ‘cartoony’ (a damning adjective in an editor’s office). And I think this is happening, as they realise there’s a market, and librarians go nuts trying to get their hands on these books that ‘reluctant readers’ will pick up. (You can see this happening with picture book publishers such as David Fickling with his DFC Library, Walker Books, a bit with Templar; and even more so in the USA with Toon Books, Scholastic Inc and others.) Some editors are starting to warm up to speech bubbles, as a clear and vibrant way of showing who’s talking on a page.

Children’s magazines such as Okido and Anorak are just getting on with it and making lovely non-traditional, kid-friendly comics. And some publishers are tentatively starting to experiment with publishing adult picture books, such as those by Audrey Niffenegger (although she had to prove herself first with a text-only novel).

It’s essential that comic fans do their best to let people know about the new books they love, so we’ll get a chance to see more of them. Write reviews, blog about them, make as much noise as you can.

The second thing is that comic creators need to go visit the children’s book sections in shops, see what’s happening right now in publishing, and accept that some stories can be told without having to rely on sexual clichés, excessive violence or bad language, and that it doesn’t make them a wimp for writing these kinds of stories.

(I keep hearing comics people saying ‘I’ve got this amazing character, who fights this character, it’ll be awesome!’ And that’s their whole story.)



I think sometimes people switch into a different mode when they’re writing for children, they get very patronising, clichéd, or even boring (because their adult comics rely on sex or cheap shock tactics and they suddenly can’t use them). Or they over-egg the pages with so many high-impact graphics that there’s no resting time for the eyes and it’s hard to read. There’s nothing wrong with a comic that has a single panel on a page.

I think simpler formats with less panels may be a way forward for making comics for children. Astrid Desbordes Reflections of a Solitary Hamster does this well: sometimes a single panel, sometimes two, three or four panels, but the large pages have plenty of breathing space.

Kids like clear stories with solid plot lines and well-developed characters they can relate to. I believe, if you can write an excellent story for children, adults will like it just as much as the children. I think it was Philip Pullman who said something about the difference between kids books and adult books: that adults remember what it was like to be kids and can relate to the experience, but kids have no idea what it’s like to be adult yet, even though they wish they could. So you need to keep that in mind if you’re writing about adult characters or including adult conversations in a children’s book, don’t talk over their heads. You can have more than one story going on a page at the same time, but the simplest story always needs to be the best one, don’t neglect it for subtext.

In terms of format, picture books tend to be shorter, full-colour, and better paid for the amount of work put into them. You might earn as much for a 32-page picture book as a 200-page graphic novel. Which means the picture book editors will scrutinise each page in much more depth. As comics get more popular (and I don’t doubt that they will), hopefully publishers will raise their payments for comics, but it may take the best comic creators getting good agents, or really learning hard negotiation tactics before this happens.

downthetubes: What next for Sarah McIntyre?

Sarah: A week after Vern and Lettuce comes out, I’m launching another picture book with the writer Anne Cottringer, called When Titus Took the Train. (You might recognise one of Anne’s other books, Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero). The editor and designer said they really wanted me to illustrate it because of my ‘comic sensibilities’.



I originally thought they wanted it in comics format, but it’s more of a straightforward picture book. But there are bits of comics creeping in from all sides. Woodrow lent me some of his Western comics, such as Bat Lash, Buffalo Bill and Johnny Thunder so I could get into the wild frontier swing of things.

The story’s about a kid named Titus who goes by himself on a big train journey, which gets more and more fantastical, so it’s not entirely clear what’s really happening and what he’s imagining. Bandits, white water canoeing, a T-Rex… actually, Gary helped me with the dinosaur because mine wasn’t looking nuts enough. I thrust a post-it note across the studio at him and begged, ‘Gary, please please will you draw me a T-Rex?’ He scribbled something in two seconds that was just perfect. So you might notice that my dinosaur looks an awful lot like Gary’s Derek the Sheep. (I call him Derek the Dinosaur. It’s one of my favourite spreads.)

downthetubes: Who would you like to big up, comics-wise, on both the small press and the pro' scene?

Sarah: I’m constantly amazed by the pictures Warwick Johnson Cadwell keeps making. Such amazing line work and colouring, and he looks every part the boat captain that he is. (I’m a bit smitten with him, can’t you tell?) He contributed to the first Birdsong anthology, and I’m also keenly watching the work of another contributor (and one of its editors), Will Kirkby. He also has gorgeous line work, and I’m hoping he takes his more epic, Japanese influenced tales and turns them back to his hometown in Sheffield to tell more personal stories. (But that’s just me, we’ll have to see where he goes.)

Darryl Cunningham is on a roll after launching his hard-hitting novel Psychiatric Tales. Viviane Schwarz is working on a marvellous sheep comic with Walker Books and she’s posting its progress on her blog.

My three studio mates at the Fleece Station, Gary Northfield, Ellen Lindner and Lauren O’Farrell all have amazing projects up their sleeves at the moment and we all joined together because get so excited about each other’s stuff. We all work in slightly different areas, and I think some great thing are going to happen in the places where our creations cross over. And the DFC Library crew are making magic, I’m so excited by the books they’re putting out.

I think Nikki Gamble, who heads the Write Away website and huge picture book review database, is very hot on comics for children and teenagers, and sharing them across the country with teachers and librarians. So I’m hoping we’ll get a lot more comics in front of kids with the help of people like her, Paul Gravett and others, and the industry in Britain will make even more business sense to publishers and booksellers and really take flight.


• There are more details of Vern and Lettuce on the DFC Library website (along with sample pages) and also on the David Fickling Books blog.

• Sarah McIntyre also has more details of the book on her website and her blog.

• Our review of Vern and Lettuce will be published on 30th September, just as it goes officially on sale

Thursday 23 September 2010

Agent Fireball: Debriefing A Cold War Spy

In February 1977 DC Thomson released the first issue of Bullet, their new boy's adventure comic, at the same time that IPC released Action. The two comics went head-to-head as weekly action adventure anthologies with photographic editorial characters.

If the success of a comic for a publisher is that it makes a profit without causing them any problems, then Action failed spectacularly after a mere nine months. By the same measure, Bullet succeeded for almost three years.

Action's photographic editorial character was the somewhat manic looking Steve, portrayed by writer and future Tharg, Steve MacManus, while Bullet's was the altogether more suave agent Fireball. Unlike Steve, Fireball also featured in his own eight-page strip in each issue of the comic and the title was built around the character in the same way that Warlord before it had been built around World War II spy Lord Peter Flint.

Earlier this year downthetubes negotiated an information exchange with agent Fireball and, in a scene reminiscent of a classic cold war spy swap, interviewer Jeremy Briggs was dispatched alone across a damp, foggy bridge to a meeting with DC Thomson editor Garry Fraser. With a career spanning titles as diverse as Nutty, Commando, the Topical Times Football Book and Classics From The Comics as well as Bullet, Garry talked to downthetubes about much more than just moustaches and his Fireball medallion...

The result of their meeting has been classified "DTT Eyes Only" and can be viewed on the downthetubes main site.

Laydeez Do Comics: Ellen Lindner Talk


Whores of Mensa 5 - On Sale Now! from Ellen Lindner on Vimeo.


(with thanks to Peter Lally at Alternative Press): Comics’ artist Ellen Lindner will be discussing the process of putting together the just released issue of comics’ anthology Whores of Mensa at the next Laydeez Do Comics event in London (Monday 27th September).

The latest issue of WOM, on sale now, features comics by Cliodhna Lyons, Maartje Schalkx, Jeremy Day, Richard Cowdry, Peter Lally, and many more.

Ellen will also explain why she feels anthologies matter, and self-publishing in general - especially her experience self-publishing her graphic novel, Undertow.

Ellen’s talk should be very informative as she has a very full experience of this whole field and the issues creators may face, including fundraising, editing, launching, selling, t-shirt /badge/merchandising, cake-making, etc. -- all while still carrying on a personal artistic career, having an outside life, being a married woman, and her budding film actress career.

All to produce a small-press work - what madness!

• Laydeez Do Comics – Talk by Ellen Lindner - Monday 27 September, 6.30pm, The Sewing Room ,  The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ
• Laydeez do Comics  - www.nikjep.demon.co.uk/layindex.htm

Whores of Mensa: www.whoresofmensa.com
• Buy Issue 5 of Whores of Mensa here



Wednesday 22 September 2010

Charlotte Corday Times Two - graphic novels, that is...

London-Calling-cover.jpgTime Bomb Comics has confirmed their next release, the graphic novel London Calling, will be launched at the British International Comics Show next month (October 2010).

Written by screen-writer Stephen Walsh with stunning artwork by renowned Commando artist Keith Page, London Calling is a complete thrilling adventure, told in a style that harkens back to classic British comic strips of yesteryear.

Set in a 1950’s London one-step sideways to our own, secret agent Charlotte Corday encounters invading Martians, talking puppets, unexpected cameos, and the vampire-hunting coppers of the Metropolitan “V” Squad as they deal with an outbreak of vampires at Highgate Cemetery.

Both Stephen and Keith will be attending a signing session at the Time Bomb Comics table during the BICS weekend, where another Charlotte Corday tale featuring a different incarnation of the universe-hopping femme fatale - the steampunk adventure The Iron Moon - will also be on sale from Print Media Productions.

• For more information on London Calling visit: www.timebombcomics.com

Bryan Talbot signing Grandville Mon Amour

The Jonathan Cape edition of Grandville Mon AmourAce artist Bryan Talbot will be signing his latest graphic novel Grandville, Mon Amour at Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR on Thursday 2nd December (6 - 7.00pm).

This follow up to his earlier steampunk tale, Grandville, is officially published in the UK on 16th December by Jonathan Cape, with a US edition from Dark Horse released on 22nd February 2011.

Set three weeks after the finale of Grandville, Grandville, Mon Amour pits Detective Inspector Archie LeBrock of Scotland Yard against an old adversary, Edward 'Mad Dog' Mastock - a psychotic serial killer whose shocking escape from his execution at the Tower of London begins this fast-paced, Hitchcockian steampunk thriller. With a range of new and fascinating characters and a mix of Holmesian deduction, knowing humour and edge of the seat action, Grandville Mon Amour continues the vein of high-octane adventure begun in the first volume. Can even LeBrock escape the past or do heroes have feet of clay? Follow the badger!

The Dark Horse edition of Grandville Mon AmourListing the accomplishments of Bryan Talbot is a daunting task – arguably the creator of the first British graphic novel, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, the credits to his name are too numerous to mention. He started in the underground comics scene of the late 1960s and his work has spanned the flagship series of 2000AD as well as Batman, Sandman, Hellblazer amd Fables.

The Observer described his last graphic novel, Alice in Sunderland, as "one of the most exhilarating books in years".

"I'm setting these stories in a world that is fantastical but one that is taken for granted by the characters," says Bryan of the Grandville saga, talking to Comic Book Resources last month. "A little like the three protagonists in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly who weave their way through the American Civil War without once having to stop to deliver a chunk of exposition that informs the audience of the causes and culture of the milieu. We are imparted this sort of information, but only in passing, when it's an unobtrusive part of the storytelling and fits naturally into conversation or plot."

The first Grandville was a response, in part, to British and American governments lying to their citizens in the lead up to the Iraq war. For Mon Amour Bryan says that there is a real-world inspiration but "it's more general.

"It could be seen as statement on terrorism and its consequences, the way it dehumanizes the exponents and destroys or scars lives. You could make parallels with Irish terrorists – on both sides. But still – it's a fun adventure story folks! I think it's a good thing to have hard-edged topics that make people think alongside an exciting ride."


• More about Bryan Talbot at: www.bryan-talbot.com

Comic Book Resources Interview with Bryan Talbot
August 2010

Pre-order Grandville Mon Amour from amazon.co.ukPre-order Grandville Mon Amour from amazon.co.uk


Pre-order Grandville Mon Amour (Dark Horse edition) from amazon.comPre-order Grandville Mon Amour(Dark Horse edition) from amazon.com

Action comic strip Hookjaw to return in Strip Magazine

PJ Holden's cover for Strip Magazine #1
Hookjaw, a Jaws-inspired strip that first appeared in the controversial 1970s British weekly comic Action, will feature in the new Strip Magazine, which will launch in early 2011.

Lancaster-based Print Media Productions has agreed a deal with UK publisher Egmont to feature Hookjaw in the Magazine, re-publishing the strip in colour – and also has an option to publish Dredger, the hard-nosed secret agent who also featured in Action.

Probably the best-remembered and certainly most popular strip in the comic, HookJaw, inspired by the classic blockbuster movie Jaws, was created by Pat Mills, scripted by Ken Armstrong and drawn initially by Ramon Sola, followed by Felix Carrion and Eric Bradbury. Consistently topping reader polls, it was Mills who decided to make the shark the star of the strip which tackled environmental issues and corporate greed with equal relish.

The strip also caused controversy on publication, one of the stories that rapidly saw Action become a target of campaigners outraged by its violent content -- and its social commentary. The controversy Action created saw the comic 'banned' after just 37 issues, returning to the news stands only after its characters had been toned down and effectively emasculated by management demands on the editorial team.

The entire controversy was documented in Martin Barker's book, Action - The Story of a Violent Comic, published in 1990 by Titan Books.

In all, three Hookjaw stories featured in Action before the ban.

"Pat Mills gave the strip an environmental edge," notes Strip Magazine editor John Freeman. "This was a shark that never balked at eating corrupt humans or criminals out to make money from our oceans - along with anyone else unlucky enough to get near him.

"Hookjaw was just one of the strips that provoked the public campaign against Action, but its success also paved the way for comics like 2000AD and it's interesting to read the strip in that context today.
The first page of  Hookjaw as it will appear in Strip Magazine, coloured by Gary Caldwell and re-lettered by Jim Campbell

"We're sure there are plenty of the shark's original fans out there eager to catch up with the beast – and younger readers will be interested to see what all the fuss was about."

The strips have been coloured by Gary Caldwell and re-lettered by Jim Campbell.

One challenge remains for the new publisher: tracking down good quality of some issues of the original comic, which can fetch high prices.

"The printing on the comic, as with many classic British weeklies, was variable," notes Freeman. "Some pages of the comic we've sourced so far are fine while others are muddy, with print errors and heavy blacks. We're hoping collectors might be able to help in our quest to ensure the very best reproduction of these classic strips."

Hookjaw joins a line up of strips that includes work by PJ Holden, Michael Pennick, John Ridgway, James Hudnall, John McCrea, Phillip Hester and others.

Alongside STRIP Magazine, Print Media Productions is releasing a range of graphic albums that include creator-owned projects by Ferg Handley, Kev Hopgood, Gordon Rennie, SMS and more.

The first of these, the steampunk adventure The Iron Moon by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page, will be on sale from next month (October 2010), launching at the British International Comic Show in Birmingham.

• For the latest news about Strip Magazine visit: www.stripmagazine.co.uk

Hookjaw © Egmont UK

Tuesday 21 September 2010

BBC3 seeking comic fans for new show

New downthetubes forum member Bee Smith works for Renegade Pictures, a TV Production company based in London whose productions include The Lion Ranger and Cherry Goes....

They are currently looking for people to take part in a new four-part factual entertainment show for BBC3 that is all about young couples who have just moved in with each other for the first time and are trying to come to terms with the realities of living with someone of the opposite sex.

Amongst many other things they're looking for guys who have passions and hobbies that their girlfriends may have to come to terms with - and they're particularly looking for men with a passion for comics, films and gaming.

• If this sounds like you or you just want to find out more please get in touch by emailing living@renegadepictures.co.uk or telephone 0207 449 3292.

Tube Surfing: Tony Lee on writing, Richard Starkings on Elephantmen and Pete Ashton on comics (what's not to like, you lucky, lucky people!?!)


Links, link, links.
Links, links, links.
Links, links, links, links...links, links, links (sung to the tune of Postman Pat):

Tony Lee shares his comics-writing process over at his blog...

'So recently on my Twitter page,' he writes, 'I spoke about blocking out comics, and in particular how I work. And, having spent a large amount of today scripting a chunk of pages that I spent much of last week getting ready, I thought I’d take the tweets that I put up a few days ago, re jig them about a little and put down in words just how I write a comic, blocking out pages and all.'

• There's still time to enter Thought Bubble's Northern Sequential Art Competition (the closing date is 9th October 2010):

'The theme of this year's competition is 'November in the North of England'. Your story can be told with text and illustrations or by imagery alone. It must be a new, complete story with six panels or more. The page must contain the story's title. Your story must be A3 in size so that if you win we can be sure the reproduction will be good quality for print. One entry per person.'

• Ooh, there's a Self-Publishers' Fair in Manchester on 3rd October 2010...

• I very much enjoyed this interview with writer, editor, publisher, letterer and karaoke singer Richard Starkings...

'If you’re a regular comics reader, your life has probably already been touched by Richard Starkings – his company, Comicraft, has provided lettering and graphic design for Marvel, DC Comics, Dark Horse, and Image (among others) on some of their most prominent titles, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, Marvels, Astro City, Batman: Hush, and many more. However, Starkings is also very well known for his science fiction/noir/adventure series for Image Comics, Elephantmen! We were fortunate enough to be able to interview this very talented writer (and, full disclosure, one of our karaoke pals) and ask him about the future of Elephantmen.'

• Blogger, photographer, (ex) zinester, DIY culture enthusiast, social media specialist, comics fan and all-round 'man about the Internet' Pete Ashton has been talking about small press comics. Here's a video of his presentation on the emergence of the British Small Press Comics scene in the early 1980s.

Anyway, that's all for now, folks. Ta ta until my next Tube Surf...

Monday 20 September 2010

Art agency Pickled Ink's hunt for new comic artists

Art illustration agency Pickled Ink has launched a new award in a bid to find an artist to draw a new graphic novel by Super Gran creator and writer Jenny McDade.

Working with Jenny, the creator/writer of the TV series Super Gran, who cut her teeth writing strips for the British girls comic Tammy, and comic book author and editor Pat Mills, the agency is searching for an outstanding character-led artist to illustrate Jenny’s first graphic novel script, Party Girls. The winner will be awarded £1000.00 and a contract of representation at Pickled Ink, whose current artists include Hanako Clulow, Hattie Newman, Hannah Bagshaw and many others.

In brief, they're asking for: character design of two lead characters; and a 20 frame sample sequence and a front cover design. The winning artist must be an existing or recent graduate, able to draw modern fashion, facial expression, great storytelling, and be generally '2011'.

"There's a huge gap in the comic market," notes Pat Mills. "In my view, 50 per cent of the population are largely not catered for. Female comics were once massive - more popular than male comics. But because the industry is now so male fan-based, this whole market disappeared.

"Girls comics like Tammy were selling 250,000 copies a week, compared with 2000AD once selling 200,000 copies a week," he points out via Facebook. "People still read 2000AD, but there's no female equivalent now. Yes, there's Manga and female fantasy, but nothing - to my knowledge - that could be called mainstream female drama, aimed at an audience who would not describe themselves as fans.

"So Pickled Ink and Jenny decided to do something about it. Jenny has put together a female graphic novel with a Sex in the City flavour.

"I think this is a really exciting move," he feels. "Bear in mind we often have to go outside the regular artpool to find the new look we are after in comics. I went outside the regulars to find Glenn Fabry to draw Slaine. The editor of Eagle went to his local art college to find Dan Dare artist Frank Hampson. With a new artist, they will often put so much more into their work because they have so much to prove.

"And Jenny's excellent story requires a really strong fashion spin, lots of drama and emotion and comedy. So many artists who could produce this kind of work are booked up forever or are locked into male comics only. So this is definitely the way to go to find someone new and dynamic.

"I can't wait to see who we discover!"

• The deadline for entries is Monday 8th November 2010. Download a PDF of the full brief here on the Pickled Ink web site

Pickled Ink web site

Pat Mills on Facebook

Creating Tammy: a downthetubes feature by Jenny McDade

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