In tomorrow's issue of Toxic magazine the villainous Sick Squid returns in my Team Toxic strip. I've been writing & drawing the strip for seven years now and have enjoyed building up a cast of recurring villains including Butt-Face, Hallie Tosis, Frankendrac, Sand Witch, Techno Troll and more to challenge Team Toxic.
Watch out for a brand new monster I've created that the Team will face in issue 172, but for now, Toxic No.168, with the return of Sick Squid, hits the shops on Wednesday 11th August.
http://www.toxicmag.co.uk/
MindField is the collective name of spoken-word events at the Electric Picnic music and arts festival at Stradbally, Co. Laois, Ireland from the 3rd to 5th September. This year sees a focus on comics included in the programme too, and guests will include Emma Vieceli, Pat Mills, (both pictured above), Steve Bell, and more alongside bands such as Roxy Music and Public Image Limited! Sounds like quite an event.
Here's the full details from MindField organizer John Byrne (no, not the X-Men artist):
"MindField at Electric Picnic has been described by Channel Four’s Jon Snow – one of last year’s undisputed stars – as a cross between Glastonbury and Hay-on-Wye and it’s difficult to better the great man’s take on it.
MindField, presented in association with RTÉ Radio One, is great meeting of minds and voices celebrating the art of conversation, debate and performance with subject matter that ranges from comic books to literature to the politics of the Middle East and all points in between. Essentially, MindField is a three day, seven venue conversation for the nation that will inform, inspire and entertain.
This year, the MindField arena at Electric Picnic has again expanded to seven elegantly decorated tented venues in the midst of parkland trees behind the main stage at Electric Picnic"
And here are the details for our event...
Graphic Content: The Big Comics Chat
Join us in the MindField on (Saturday) September 4th at 5 p.m. for a chaotic and fun-stuffed rocket ride through the inner and outer reaches of the comics and cartooning universes. Our intrepid and esteemed panel will cheerily dissect and debate the “sequential art” scene as it and was: offering thoughts, opinions and recollections on a wide range of topics, including: Classic British comics, Manga, Bande dessinée, Girls’ comics, John Major’s underpants, the Irish small presses, and much, much more. Masked and caped crusaders may also get an occasional mention…
Guests:
Pat Mills is affectionately (and accurately) known as the “godfather of British comics“. A comic industry legend, he was the founder of 2000 AD, Battle and Action. As a writer he has created some of the UK’s most seminal and best-loved comic stories: Sláine, Charley’s War, ABC Warriors, Nemesis the Warlock and many more. Among the other credits on his extensive CV are Marshal Law, Metalzoic, The Punisher 2099, Requiem Vampire Knight and Batman: The Book of Shadows.
Emma Vieceli is a freelance artist and writer based in Cambridge. Artist for 2 of the acclaimed Manga Shakespeare graphic novels (and featured in the award-winning Comic Book Tattoo and Marvel's recent Girl Comics amongst other publications), she is currently working on two graphic novel series: one for Oni Press and one for Penguin Books. She also continues to work on her own independent series, Dragon Heir (printed through Sweatdrop Studios).
Steve Bell is one of most original and respected figures in contemporary cartooning. He has produced illustrations and comic strips for many different magazines, including Social Work Today, Punch, Private Eye, New Society, Radio Times, New Statesman, The Spectator and the Journalist. Since 1981 he has written and drawn the daily If… strip in The Guardian, creating such memorable images as - John Major with his underpants worn outside his trousers, Tony Blair with Margaret Thatcher’s rogue eyeball, and George W Bush as a chimpanzee. He has had twenty seven books published, including a cartoon autobiography of George Bush called Apes of Wrath, an anthology If… Marches On and, most recently, a Tony Blair self-help guide titled My Vision For a New You. His work has been published all over the world and he has won numerous awards.
Philip Barrett has been self-publishing comics since 2001, including writing and drawing 9 issues of his catch-all title 'Matter' and contributing to numerous anthologies. With Liam Geraghty he has produced 'Gazebo' and 'The Littlest Arsonist'. In 2010 the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry published Philip's 'best-of' collection 'The Human in Me'. He is a co-founder of Edition Book Arts which celebrates the craft of the book and self-publishing. Philip helped get the ball rolling on the regular Dublin Comic Jam and is particularly interested in how good comics are at documenting the collision between the worlds of the fantastical and the mundane.
Mel Gibson is a UK based comics scholar, consultant and Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University. She has run training events about comics and graphic novels for libraries, schools and other organisations since 1993. Her published research has addressed such varied topics as girls’ comics, picture books, children's literature, graphic novels and manga.
For more info visit the website at:
http://www.electricpicnic.ie/
Here's the latest intel on Britain's longest running adventure comic Commando from editor Calum Laird. All four issues are out today:
This August it’s 65 years since the war in the Pacific ended. In respect of this Commando will be re-issuing a series of stories originally commissioned by George Low in 1995. Two of those stories appear this week, the second pair in two weeks’ time.
To go with them are four new stories of the war in the Far East — two now and two with the next batch.
Official website: http://www.commandomag.com/
Commando No 4315: Heights Of Fear
Flying vital military supplies between India and China during the Second World War was not a job for the faint-hearted. The planes of the day only just had the power to climb over the mountains of “The Hump” that barred the way — and that was on a good day.
If you crashed, your chances of survival were slim and rescuers were unlikely to find you. But someone found Flying Officer Steve Long and his co-pilot Flight Sergeant Dave Trimble when they baled out. Someone and something…
Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Carlos Pino
Cover Art: Carlos Pino
Commando No 4316: Unlikely Ace
After months enduring the stifling heat and ever-present danger of the Burmese jungle, Flight-Sergeant Joe Griffin and his RAF Regiment platoon now had a to stage a fighting retreat from the advancing Japanese.
All of his lads, right down to cooks and mechanics, were determined to fight. All except one — Lieutenant Peter Clarke, the arrogant pilot of their Stinson L5 reconnaissance aircraft. He wouldn’t even pick up a rifle, let alone fire one.
Story: Ferg Handley
Art: Olivera
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
Commando 4317: OPERATION BREAK-OUT
August, 1945 — Japan was being forced to surrender and after six long years, the Second World War was over. For many thousands it had been a bitter, hard fight on land, on sea and in the air.
For Canadian army doctor Harry Murray, this war had started when the Japs had over-run Hong Kong in 1941. That was grim enough, but then he found himself a prisoner on a small, nameless island where men could die at the whim of the enemy guards. The only hope in the end for Harry and his mates was escape…
Story: Ian Clark
Art: Gordon Livingstone
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
Originally No 2879 from 1995
Commando 4318: THREE ANGRY MEN
August, 1945 — Japan was being forced to surrender and after six long years, the Second World War was over. For many thousands it had been a bitter, hard fight on land, on sea and in the air.
For three battle-hardened NCOs — a British infantryman, a Gurkha and a Sikh — their worst moment had come when a fanatical Japanese regiment wiped out an ambulance train, murdering their wounded relatives and friends.
Despite their differences, the three angry men united to hunt down the killers…and collect a debt of blood!
Story: Ian Clark
Art: Benet
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
Originally No 2880 from 1995
Hardback British comic annuals were traditionally given as Christmas presents to children and the covers of the books often displayed seasonal scenes of snow and festive celebration. Even though the annuals would arrive in the shops in September most kids wouldn't receive them until Christmas Day. Over the years that tradition has weakened, and surprisingly the 2011 Annuals arrived in the shops last week, at the end of July!
With the demise of the Summer Specials some publishers have been experimenting with hardback Summer Annuals instead, so perhaps their rivals felt they'd be missing out if they didn't adjust the publication date of their books? Or perhaps kids and parents just don't bother saving the books until Christmas Day any more? Whatever the reason, W.H. Smith now have the 2011 annuals in stock, presumably for people to buy as birthday presents or for a treat for the summer holidays.
I've just bought two of the titles available so far, so let's take a quick look at the contents. The Beano Annual 2011 kicks off with a lively non-Christmassy cover and inside features 112 pages of full colour strips. There are not one but two board games across the endpapers by Hunt Emerson and Tom Paterson respectively, and Laura Howell provides a Happy Bunny Green frontispiece setting the humour mood to lead off the book. (Detail below.)
Nigel Parkinson has several pages in the book including Dennis and Gnasher, Billy Whizz and Lord Snooty the Third...
Fans of Billy the Cat will be pleased to know that Nigel Dobbyn is back drawing a ten page new story featuring the British superhero. General Jumbo returns too, in an all too-short two pager drawn by Steve Beckett. Good to see some adventure strip material amongst the funnies.
I received my first Beano Book 45 years ago and I'm as proud as punch to finally contribute to the series myself with four pages of Super School in this 2011 edition.
The annual also features work by Tom Paterson, Ken Harrison, Dave Eastbury, Dave Sutherland, Nick Brennan, and Barrie Appleby. Lots of fun for £7.99. (Or buy two annuals, get one half price in Smiths at present.)
The Dandy Annual 2011 will please haters of Dandy Xtreme because, as with last year, the Xtreme aspect of the comic has been ignored. Therefore it's 112 pages of solid comic strips with no photo features or game reviews. Nigel Parkinson provides the covers and a lot of material inside. (And why not? Nigel is one of our best humour artists.) Curiously, although Jamie Smart contributes to the book it's not his distinctive new version of Desperate Dan that's in the strips, with Nigel P handling the art duties instead. (And look! Dan still eats cow pies, despite what the anti-PC lobby may claim.)
Whilst not as tightly packed as last year's exceptional Dandy Annual, the 2011 book still offers a lot of fun. Good to see old Korky the Cat back, with a fun, frantically modern style by Clive McGhie.
McGhie also draws Bananaman for the book, whilst Wayne Thomson is here with Jak and Todd and Agent Dog 2-Zero, zipping along with the pace and style of an animated cartoon.
Other artists include Karl Dixon (on what may be an Ollie Fliptrick reprint), Duncan Scott, and Nick Brennan. So along with Nigel Parkinson, Jamie Smart, and Clive McGhie it's quite a small ensemble of artists this year but the quality of the work is still top of the league.
Like the Beano book, The Dandy Annual 2011 is £7.99. Something that may annoy purists is that this year the books are bigger! The format is now wider and taller, the same dimensions as the weekly comics. Personally I don't mind, as it gives the books more visibility on the shelves and makes them feel better value for money, even though they have less pages than they did years ago.
No sign of the much-anticipated Century 21 Annual in the shops yet, but I did notice the Oor Wullie/Broons hardback, Tinkerbell Annual, Dennis and Gnasher, and several more. The annuals are here. Happy Summermas!
Regular readers of this blog will know I have a fondness for classic pre-code American horror comics and have plugged collections of such stories here in the past, as well as unearthing 1950s press clippings of the unbalanced animosity towards such fare. Now, news comes of another collection of old horror comics in the sensationally titled The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books The Government Didn't Want You To Read.
Published by Harry N. Abrams Inc and written by Jim Trombetta, this 304 page tome promises to present "over 200 covers and complete stories as they were originally seen, scanned from mint copies in the author's extensive collection". Apparently it will reprint stories that have "rarely been seen" rather than the often-reprinted EC Comics.
The book is published in October/November at £19.99 but can be pre-ordered from Amazon at £14.99.
Meanwhile, Marvel have recently published the third hardback volume in their Atlas Era Strange Tales series, reprinting ten remastered issues of pre-code horror from the likes of Stan Lee, Joe Maneely, Jack Katz, Bill Everett, Joe Sinnott and more. These Marvel Masterworks are very expensive (around £45 in UK comic shops) but a few years ago who would have expected these classics to ever see the light of day again, particularly in such a durable format?
For a really horrific image though, take a look at the cover of the latest Golden Age Human Torch book which came out a couple of weeks ago. In his introduction Roy Thomas calls the Alex Schomburg cover the most gruesome of Marvel's World War 2 comics. It's debatable which is the more horrific; the mutilation, the bondage, or the racial stereotyping, but in 1943 this was on the newsstands for children to buy. Today, it's the cover of a £45 book for adult collectors who can judge it as a product of its wartime era.
