Giant Sized Band-Thing!

The 2008 Birmingham International Comics Show launch party saw the emergence of Giant Sized Band-Thing; four UK comic creators teaming up to perform for their peers. Behold! Liam Sharp on vocals! Phil Winslade on lead guitar! Paul H. Birch on bass! and Charlie Adlard on drums!



The next BICS event (now re-named the British International Comic Show) will take place on October 3rd - 4th at Millenium Point, Birmingham. More details here soon, but for now check out the website here:
http://www.thecomicsshow.co.uk/

Toxic's best free gift ever?

The latest issue of Egmont's top boy's comic-mag Toxic comes bagged with a free gift that's a step above the usual plastic toy that most comics have these days. It's a hand-held electronic game!

Admittedly it's only a mono screen and graphics are limited to the sort of basic animation of a digital watch (and batteries are not included) but nevertheless this is a freebie of higher quality than has been seen in comics of late. The hand-held can be adjusted to feature several different games of the Tetris / Space Invader type, with various speeds/settings. A far cry from the days of a cardboard "Thunder Bang" or "Team Tabs" (although over-40's will no doubt have preferred the latter).

A blog on comic free gifts of the past will appear here soon.

On to the comic itself, and Toxic No.145 has more pages this issue with a bunch of comic strips. Jamie Smart's new strip Count Von Poo is back again, and also included is Rex by John Short and Alex Paterson, Robin Hoodie by John Short and Laura Howell, and two helpings of Team Toxic by me (one of which is reprint). Plus a new pull-out Team Toxic poster by Jon Rushby, and all the usual features on game cheats, new movies, as well as a host of puzzles and jokes for the holidays and an additional free gift of Ice Age stickers.
40 full colour pages. £2.99

Toxic website: http://www.toxicmag.co.uk/

Heeeere's Johnny!

Steve Holland's Bear Alley Books have just announced the third title in their new line of albums reprinting classic British comic strips. It's to be two volumes of Johnny Future, which originally appeared in Odhams' Fantastic weekly in 1967-68.

The first volume will also include The Missing Link, the original name for the strip before it, and the title character, evolved into the superhero Johnny Future. Overall, the strip ran through Fantastic issues 1 to 51 with episodes of various page lengths in black and white, plus a 14 page full colour complete story in the Fantastic Annual 1969. All strips were drawn by Louis Berjemo, whose beautiful and dynamic artwork gave the scripts a considerable lift.


Johnny Future was the only British strip in Fantastic, with the rest of the 40 page weekly taken up with reprints from U.S. Marvel Comics.

The Missing Link/Johnny Future is a fondly remembered strip by many readers who grew up with comics in the Sixties, including Alan Moore, who was inspired enough to name one of his characters Jonni Future when he created the anthology Tomorrow Stories for Wildstorm Comics.

Both volumes of Johnny Future are scheduled for October, and will include an foreword by veteran comics writer Steve Moore (who was actually on the staff of Odhams back then), an info-packed introduction by Steve Holland, and new covers by Garry Leach with Una Fricker.

Meanwhile, the first two books from Bear Alley, Cursitor Doom and The Phantom Patrol are coming this month, and can now be ordered from the Bear Alley Books blog at http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.com/

John Ryan 1921-2009

Cartoonist John Ryan, most famous for his creation Captain Pugwash, has died aged 88.

John Ryan was born in Edinburgh in 1921 and fought in Asia in World War Two, where his skill at caricaturing his commanding officers sometimes led to him being reprimanded. After the war, he became a school teacher, and married in 1950. That same year, in order to earn extra money, he came up with the character Captain Pugwash which he produced as a comic strip for the early issues of Eagle.

The comedy adventures of Horatio Pugwash, Captain of the Black Pig, and his pirate crew including Master Mate, Barnabas, Willy, and Tom the Cabin Boy, only took up a modest amount of space on an Eagle page, and ran for just 19 issues before the editor cancelled it for allegedly being too juvenile. However, greater recognition was to come. Ryan revived the character years later for a series of children's books beginning in 1957 and a new strip in Radio Times. Even more significantly, 1957 also saw the BBC commission Pugwash as a new tv series; short cartoon films with Gordon Murray (later to create Camberwick Green, Trumpton, and Chigley) as producer.

Ryan created the artwork for the five minute cartoons using a very basic but mesmerising technique. Cardboard cutouts of the characters were laid on painted backgrounds and their arms and mouths moved with levers. This was filmed in "real time" like a puppet series, rather than traditional (and more expensive) animation. Peter Hawkins provided the voices.

The Captain Pugwash series was a hit with young viewers and totalled 86 cartoons in all, the last produced in 1975. John Ryan continued producing the Pugwash books too, totalling 21 by 1991.



The often-repeated sour urban myths that the cartoons featured characters called Seaman Staines and Master Bates were unfounded and Ryan successfully sued the newspapers that printed the suggestions in 1991. The comedian Richard Digance claimed he made the names up and had a 25 year injunction against him performing material about them. This expired in 2008. John Ryan also appeared as a guest at a UKCAC (UK Comic Art Convention) event in the 1990s and during the talk he strongly denied the salacious myths about his characters. This was clearly something that had, quite understandably, offended him.

John Ryan's other memorable character was Harris Tweed, Extra Special Agent, which also appeared in Eagle in 1950, replacing Captain Pugwash, with a full page devoted to his adventures. This pompous British agent who got his man by accident rather than design, was the sort of comedy-adventure hero who perhaps later inspired such characters as Eagle-Eye and The Cloak.

Ryan's work in television continued in the 1970s when he devised Sir Prancelot and Mary, Mungo and Midge. The rights to Captain Pugwash were bought by HIT Entertainment in 1997 and a brand new Captain Pugwash cartoon series was created, this time more sophisticated, but somehow lacking in the original charm.

With his work in comics, books, and tv, John Ryan was a "multimedia" pioneer before the term was invented. The distinctive style and gentle comedy of his creations entertained millions of children and, with the Captain Pugwash books still in print, will no doubt continue to do so.

Breaking News: Mick Anglo sells MARVELMAN to Marvel Comics

Just announced at the San Diego Comic Con: Marvel Comics have acquired the rights to 1950s British comics character Marvelman!

Marvelman was created by Mick Anglo in the 1950s as a replacement for the British reprints of the American Captain Marvel comics, when Captain Marvel was forced out of existence by DC Comics over its alleged similarity to Superman. Marvelman was revived in the early 1980s by Alan Moore and Garry Leach (followed by Alan Davis) for Dez Skinn's Warrior comic. When the character was reprinted in the USA by Eclipse Comics, more litigation (this time by Marvel, over the name) saw the superhero rechristened Miracleman. Bizarrely, then Miracleman itself later became subject to copyright wrangles by various people who had been involved with it.

However, apparently Mick Anglo still owned the rights to "Marvelman" and within the last hour, Joe Quesada, Editor In Chief of Marvel Comics, announced that Marvel have now bought the rights from Mick and will be publishing the character in the future. Whatever that form will take, whether it be reprints of the Warrior & Eclipse material or brand new comics, or (my guess) both, remains to be seen.

More news on the acquisition on the Comic Book Resources website:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22206

and

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=video&show_id=130283

Update: Judging by the banner on the Marvel Comics home page (below) it looks as though Marvelman merchandise is already on the cards in the form of a T-shirt. Expect more to follow....


The new illustration of Marvelman on the left of the banner is by Joe Quesada.
Marvel Comics website: http://marvel.com/