London SP Expo 2011

14/03/2011 by admin.

The UK Web & Mini-comix Thing is gone, but the London SP Expo is here to replace it! It’s run by the same people who started the Bristol SP Expo, which is a few years old and now runs over two days.

Anyway, the first one was held yesterday and I went to sell my comics. I didn’t get issue 4 of the Red, White & Blue finished in time. Even though my new year’s resolution was to take it bi-monthly, and the cover still actually says “Jan-Feb 2011″ it’s still not done! I’d like to blame a cold I had late last month, but really I was just too lazy. I did have one new production, in the shape of issue 1 of The Trident. I finished this last year and it’s an unofficial continuation of the Sexton Blake Library and Boys’ Friend Library, ie one long text story. The first is about Sexton Blake in World War 1, I sold an amazing two copies! XD

But before setting out to the convention I had to make a “colours nailed to the mast” T-shirt to wear. Using rubbish print-yourself iron-on transfers, it didn’t go well. But then again it only had to last a day.

 

First print a mirror image… (my dad inevitably had to point out that it was “wrong” in case I “hadn’t noticed”)

 

Get yer amazing Tesco value t-shirt, and a mum with an iron

One not-burned-down house later… The E was the corner I peeled the paper off first, and some of the red went with it. Also the far corner wasn’t stuck down.

 I’d been intending to stay up for “as long as it took” to finish issue 4, but it had got to 9 at night and I’d still not finished the (20,500 words so far!) Sexton Blake story, and not even started on the 5 pages of Tigers of Punjab (the three of issue 4’s short Speedway story took all of January). Anything produced that quickly wasn’t going to be any good, so I decided to not produce it at all and leave issue 4 out. The Sexton Blake story could do with some big tweaks too, if it’d printed it as-is it would have been very rambling and bland. So instead I packed what I had, printed the strips for issue 4 that did get finished, and went to sleep at a decent time.

Stuff packed. I have some display stands this year!

The finished material in a display book. I need to take my printer’s colour management in hand… things that are supposed to be darkish grey are almost-black purple! It will be sorted out for when the actual comics are printed.

As it NOT traditional for my comic convention trips, the transportation ran perfectly smoothly. Nobody had dropped a match at a station or anything. (Actually the fire that closed Cambridge station last year really was huge and could be seen over most of the city, plus a tall former mill was in danger of collapsing onto the station. But at the time I didn’t know that XD).

Had to use the “London Overground”, I didn’t even know there was such a thing. I just thought it was a funny nickname for the parts of the Underground that aren’t actually underground (which is a surprising amount of it, actually). But the Overground is actually a seperate train with it’s own lines.

Packed with convention-goers, as you can see.

Is that some blue I see?

After arriving at New Cross station, apparently near Millwall stadium (they weren’t at home, I doubt supporters of a club with a reputation for hooliganism and long-haired comic con goers would mix!) I predictably got lost. At least the Thing was on a straight road from it’s station, even I can’t get lost on a straight road XD. I found the venue pretty much at 10 o clock when the event was opening to the public, though for the first hour it was pretty much just the exhibitors, still. Several wandering around and chatting to people they knew.

What I could see. Opposite me were several DFC contributors. To my shame I never got that comic, but will certianly be getting The Pheonix, it’s “replacement”. Even if I hope to have emigrated by then I still will!

I just took lots of pictures… all of the architecture!

Wanna see a huge organ?

 All ceilings should look like this

Balconies

The top, sadly the windows are obscured by this horrible modern lighting rig. They ought to use ornate chandeliers. I’d love to be in this room alone when it’s raining heavily.

I also set up my table. The new stands make it look a lot better, but I really need an A5 one for The Trident (and, when it’s done, The Dragonfly). Also I’d hoped to have the A6 sized penny comics in a seperate box all jumbled up (the different stories will be different colours), but I’d only got one finished (-_- and that was a reprint) so into the stand they went as well.

I later made a seperate notice pointing out the price of the penny dreadfuls which got a bit more attention XD

After that I took a quick run around the hall to look for the stuff I wanted to buy especially, but as I was in a hurry I actually didn’t see any of them. I did see  Yuri Kore but she didn’t have any new books out. But if you haven’t got the two she had released then buy ‘em! One of them won a competition organised by the Japanese embassy!

How do they work?

At 11 I phoned up my girlfriend, who is Japanese. I’d not had any contact with her since the earthquake but she said she was fine, just that she had to walk home from work which took 10 hours O_O. I also found a yen in my change bucket and gave it to some anime fans behind me. From about 11 on people actually started arriving and browsing. Though I didn’t make any sales til gone 12 I did give out a few hastily-made (they always are) free flyers.

There was also no less than three film crews wandering about at one point! Well this is in a university, I suppose the media studies students wanted to get their “interviewing” badge. “for some strange reason” they didn’t interview me. Oh well, I only would have said that a story paper that ended in the mid-1920’s was the best comic ever.

“You’re sure that’s not a Tribble”?

As the day went on I handed out a few more free flyers, though oddly enough still had a few left. People won’t take shoddily-produced rubbish with silly puns in it even if it is free! No less than three people who came to see me had actually heard of Sexton Blake! The story paper revolution gains momentum, comrades! Around 1 I went off for food and then a longer wander around the hall. I found all the stuff on my shopping list, including (finally) some issues of Futurequake, Omnivistascope (both near-professional quality publications inspired by 2000AD’s heyday) and some Starscape productions, including the Starscape Storypaper! It’s A6 sized but what can ya do. It’ll while away some time at work. “For some strange reason” the guy at the Starscape stall thought I’d be older. Well I do mainly collect comics from before World War 2.

I also got the first two issues of Non-repro (a seperate post about this will be made eventually!). This came about when somebody posted on the forums of Sweatdrop Studios (a seperate post about them will be made eventually!) saying “Why isn’t there a regular UK manga anthology?”. The people who came to produce Non-repro said “Why isn’t there a regular UK manga anthology?” and made it!

Aand I also got “The Comix Reader” - 24 tabloid-sized pages on newsprint for a pound! There’s all sorts in it and some is not for children. Encouragingly it says “Issue 1″ so unlike the similarly-formatted Gothic there will hopefully be many more!

I got heaps of other stuff too, and ought to blog about some of it eventually. I want to treat all British comics the same, whether they be million-sellers or photocopied pamphlets!

Free advertising! Where’s me discount?

Buys

Eventually the day came to a close. I’d spent a good 50-odd quid all in coins and sold about 10 comics, so my case was considerably heavier on the way out! One of the rules of this con, unlike the Thing, was that we had to help put away the tables and chairs too. I was half expecting a load of whinging and moaning and sudden development of bad backs, but actually everybody was making themselves useful and actually doing it. Then again contrary to expectations the majority of people at the con seemed to be working class, when you’d think a bunch of “creative types” would be airy fairy and middle class. Oh well, comics were always too good to be wasted on the likes of them!

 

My real name is tarquin wetherby but I used my cleaner’s name to blend in.

Then it was time for the journey home, which was similarly uneventful. I’d used cheap Tesco deodorant which didn’t last the distance, luckily the trains weren’t crowded and stereotypes about comic con goers remained unproven to the public at large XD. Wierdly when I arrived at Ely station it was soaked and smelled like heavy rain, but the train had not passed through any rain, and my dad said our village hadn’t had any either. Very narrow band!

Posted in Tozo, Starscape, Futurequake, Omnivistascope, Non Repro, small press, Conventions, RWB, Trident, 2010's, Yuri Kore, 2000's | 1 Comment »

BICS bits

22/10/2010 by admin.

A few years ago i went to the Bristol comic convention two years on the trot. On both occasions i only decided to go the day before and thus was extremely tired and spend hundreds of pounds on train tickets and last-minute hotel bookings. Mind you the first year i went the hotel i got was actually closer to the convention than the official hotel.

Anyway, i decided to revive that tradition by deciding to go to the Birmingham International Comic Show less than 24 hours before the doors opened! Though i sensibly left out the hotel booking and just went for the Saturday… Birmingham doesn’t take the whole day to get to, after all. I also wore a black armband in tribute to Jose Maria Jorge.

In another tradition of me going to comic events i took NO pictures whilst there, so instead i’ll take a look at some of the comics i bought.

Selected bits and pieces. I actually left out another one i bought there that i have been slowly collecting for a few years called Vampire Freestyle. It’s good so read it.

 Realms

 

Fantastic cover, whoever designed this knew what they were doing.

A strange one this, a group who were selling some superhero type comic were giving it away for free. It dates from 1998, when self publishing was still just about in the photocopying and mail-order era, and when internet-capable computers were still not quite within the reach of everyone. To reinforce this fact it actually has no email address or website on it. The authors have actually put in a postal address to send comments and feedback to!

Oh, i suppose that isn’t “strange” after all, if they didn’t have a computer! Right, then, what about the stories - those are strange!

My normal camera, itself from 2002, has given up the ghost at last so i have to use a more modern but far inferior one. The blurriness really doesn’t bring out the quality of this artwork.

The stories are very eerie horror tales, most of them have almost no dialogue and bizarre endings. The artwork is fantastic - very dark with acres and acres of hatching rather than solid black areas. It’s also very big and bold, this is an A4 sized comic yet has at most about 4 panels to a page.

Comics Forum

A cover that would not disgrace a traditional British adventure annual!

The Comics Creators Guild is a sort of trade union of comic creators large and small (though mainly small!). They produce this book yearly. It’s not a half tabloid sized hardback like “proper” annuals, but you can’t have everything. It’s a real mashing together of disparate styles and genres within. Some familiar small press names like Space Babe 113 pop up regularly. These books are always worth buying!

 Alison’s Room

Wooooo

I recently joined the forums of Sweatdrop Studios, a Cambridge-based comic creating group that i had somehow not had any contact with all these years (and who i ought to do an article about!). I bumped an old thread saying i was going to BICS and was anybody going - i got a reply from Yuri Kore. So i went to talk to her and bought this!

It’s an eerie horror story about a girl who believes that a monster lives in her wardrobe, and that if she doesn’t play with her dolls it will come out and get her. Her father is also dead and people blame her mother for the death. Various other characters pile on the pressure, scheming and backstabbing - all the while the monster in the wardrobe grows stronger and stronger. You can tell this won’t end well!

Fantastic artwork once again. Also the book is tightly bound so i used the very professional journalistic device of “my hand holding the page open”. Come to think of it why didn’t i scan this? It’s not like it’s going to be damaged by being put in the scanner unlike the 100 year old bound volumes i’m normally delving in to.

London Calling

 

A familiar look? If not, why not!

A new comic with art by Keith Page - who also works for Commando and recently completed The Iron Moon, a story about the British Space Empire of 1897! I actually went to BICS to get The Iron Moon (and some sushi), but the printers hadn’t come through in time (and i had a devil of a time finding the sushi restaurant too). Instead i got this, published by Time Bomb Comics who state that they specialise in “one shot” books.

The story in this is actually a little confusing, as it uses a character called Charlotte Corday who first appeared in a webcomic that i haven’t read. So searching that out first is recommended. The story revolves around Charlotte going on a secret mission in London, whilst trying to maintain psychic contact with her superiors in France. Also her enemies are vampires. And the police are after her with some odd listening equipment. And another police deparment want to fight the vampires… phew.

The story is also framed by a section set in a flooded modern London with Charlotte “making up” the story with her children. The actual story appears to be set in the late 1940’s - which means lots of lovely cars!

Oh and did i mention her commander is a skeleton?

The back of the book says it’s for “all ages”, though really i think a “12″ rating would be better. Mind you there’s no end of cultural references in it that will fly over the head of anybody not between the ages of about 40 and 60. Or else people like me who just live in an idealised version of the past.

Anyway, here’s the first page of that webcomic i haven’t read yet: http://dennisthedonkey.blogspot.com/2009/10/story-begins.html

Poot!

The image uploader has decided not to work for the picture of Poot… hurrah. Anyway it was one of the multitude of Viz ripoffs of the late 1980’s that died out within a few months (except for one called Smut that somehow lasted up until 2007, though i have no idea how, not even Borders stocked every issue… and it wasn’t funny). However now Poot is back!

Compared to Viz, Poot is more… silly. That might seem a bit strange since Viz has a bit of a silly reputation itself… but Viz also does some pretty vicious satire (like The Modern Parents) that i couldn’t see appearing in Poot. Mind you they do ridicule Macs and iGadgets a lot… which is a good thing.

I had a bit of a chat with them, but if i may i’ll hand over to Kevf off the Comics UK forum:

Another very positive stand was Poot! comic. I was pretty sure I’d not seen Poot! since I was was working for the comics that shared a shelf with it in the early 90s (the Viz-alike titles Gas, Brain Damage, Zit, UT, remember them?). And I was right. The guys had run Poot as kids, folded it when the bubble burst in 1991, got proper jobs as accountants and the like and, last year, revived the comic for fun. And now, after a dozen issues, they have a distribution deal with Seymour, they’ve been accepted by WH Smith’s travel outlets, and are currently selling 16,000 copies a month. On newsstands. I don’t know about you, but I find that one of the most heartening stories in comics I’ve heard this year. An independent publisher is selling a comics magazine, printed on paper, in good old fashioned newsagents, and people are buying it.

Their starting point was simply looking at the shelves, seeing that Viz was the only funny comic there, identifying a hole in the market, and filling it. They’re not making a fortune, but they are paying their contributors, breaking even, and enjoying themselves creating and publishing comic strips. If others could replicate this success I’d be delighted, and I get the feeling it’s possible.

Of course Titan ought to be trying to replicate that success by publishing Roy of the Rovers Volume 1.

I bought the latest issue, and also the “pilot issue”, which has much of the content of issue 1 (of the new version, not the one from the 80’s!) but a few different strips and layouts… might be worth a few bob one day!

Crikey!

Ten pounds worth… but ‘worth’ a lot more!

Excitement abounded on Comics UK when it was revealed that a new magazine about British comics was to be released. Many people, including me, took out subscriptions… but were a little disappointed by the presence of several mistakes and also waffle-filled articles in the early issues. I allowed my subscription to lapse and largely forgot about the magazine (despite joining it’s forum and talking about Doctor Who on there, ahem). Until it was suddenly announced that issue 16 would be the final one!

Anyway, as a penance i bought several issues from the Crikey stall, and they certainly show a lot of improvement over the early ones! There’s also a nice article about Spaceship Away in one, and several ones that focus on some slightly more obscure comics that had my ebay bid finger itching.

I still feel like i ought to do more, mind you. Like start my own magazine about comics! Mind you it’d probably just regurgitate posts from this blog, come out once every decade, and only be available on one day of the year.

In all, a decent convention. Next up (maybe) is the London MCM Expo, the last weekend in October. This time i’ll try and remember to take some photos!

Posted in Yuri Kore, CCG, BICS, Conventions, small press, Time Bomb Comics, Crikey, 1990's, 2010's, Poot, Keith Page, 2000's | 1 Comment »

Farewell, Jose Maria Jorge

15/10/2010 by admin.

Last week saw the sad death of one of my favourite comic artists, Jose Maria Jorge. Hailing from Argentina, he worked for DC Thomson’s Commando comic, which is incidentally the last-surviving title in the Boys’ Own genre that is properly published in newsagents.

He specialised in flying stories (though occasionally did submarine stories too - and in “Fire over England” in the “True Brit” reprint book did both!). In 42 years he drew 163 issues. The final one of which was “Divided Aces”, Commando 4329, which appeared in September as part of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. He also had the honour of drawing issue 4000 - quite possibly the highest number any comic has ever reached!

He could turn his hand to flying stories of any era with equal skill. I’ll let the artwork speak for itself here, fans of classic warbirds might want to hang around!

 

Starting off in World War 1 with Albatross fighters against “gunbus” pusher biplanes. This is from the story “Ace Versus Ace”, number 4091

 

Into World War 2 now, with the story “Let Me Fly!”, number 4181. This story begins and ends with the air force but spends most of it’s time on the ground, with Germans fighting Russians. The uniforms and weapons no less authentically depicted. 

 

Not bad at drawing explosions, either.

Coming to the end of World War 2 in “Operation Extinction”, number 4144. Early jets could be bad enough to ‘just’ fly, let alone be shot at in! And just look at the attention to detail in that cockpit.

 

And now it’s Sabres and Migs over Korea in “Iron Cross Yank”, Number 4104. Look at all the panels and rivets on the top of that Sabre! I bet a 1950’s American ground crew could find their way around this illustration!

Jose Maria also drew what is one of my favourite Commando stories of all time - “Aces Wild”, which is featured in the book “The Dirty Dozen” that can still be found knocking around in some book shops.  His artwork is good enough in the small Commando’s but really comes alive in those big books. In a just world we would, of course, have a big book dedicated to his Commando work as well as his paintings (mostly of classic motor racing) with lots of large-scale pictures. But i suspect instead the comics world at large will be left not knowing what a shining light it has lost just because he never drew Spider Man.

Posted in 2010's, DC Thomson, Jose Maria Jorge, 2000's, Commando | 3 Comments »

Proper British adventure comics are still around, if you know where to look - Part 2.

28/09/2010 by admin.

Yes, Doctor Who is all well and good, you may say. But he’s still a licensed character, albiet a brilliant one that lends himself to pretty much any story in any medium. How about a proper British comics character? How about somebody who is the very embodiment of the stiff upper lip Boys’ Own adventurer… how about Dan Dare?

Now, i know what you are thinking. Here is a character who has been cynically “updated” by men in suits who are only thinking of the money more times than you’ve had hot dinners.  Each time getting more and more remote from the brilliance of the original version - a version started by a man in a dog collar and drawn by one of the greatest comic artists of his own or any era. Who was incidentally pouring his heart and soul into every panel (well, the ones he did!) as if each one was a miniature masterpiece destined for a gallery wall.

Well fear not, for THIS Dan Dare is exactly like the original! Created as a labour of love by a small group of determined fans with a vision. This is…

Spaceship Away issues 1-7

I had been aware of Spaceship Away for ages. I even had a look through a few issues at the Bristol convention in either 2005 or 6 (but couldn’t attract the attention of any of the overworked people behind the table to ask the price!). However it took me until 2010 to finally order the first 7 issues. They were well worth it!

Aaand here they are. For some reason my memory remembered them as being “US Comic” sized.  Actually they are A4 sized. 

The first issue is actually a bit sparse. It is basically the first pages of the story that started the whole thing (called The Pheonix Mission)  and one long article about how the story was funded, drawn and gotten to press. This story is amazing in itself and deserving of some real recognition. And i don’t mean some afterthought “oh, yeah, and the best small press award goes to Spaceship Away, right, where’s the bar?” award either! The story took so long to get to press that it had actually been initially intended to be printed in New Eagle… a comic that ended in 1994! Issue 1 of Spaceship Away finally emerged in 2003. Sadly the artist who began the tale, Keith Watson, did not live to see it reach print.

Article. Later on columns were added!

They rounded up assorted artists who had worked in Frank Hampson’s studio during the days of the Eagle, and got members of the Eagle Society to “commission” artwork from the artists on a page by page basis to get the story paid for. The result looks amazing… and because it’s printed using modern techniques direct from the boards (modern DD reprint books mostly have to make do with scans of the old Eagles) looks it’s absolute best!

Oh yeah, they make the strip look as if it’s on the covers of the 1950’s Eagle too!

That was issue 1, one story (well also there’s the one-page strip Dan Bear on the back… which also has incredible artwork and it’s own interesting and cute story) and one article. However expansions and improvements were rapid. Lets jump up to the newest issue i have, number 7.

Not quite “strip on the cover”, but it’ll do!

We now have six regular comic strips, as well as one-off funny strips. There is still articles but, with the story of Spaceship Away told, they are now either about Dans’ World, the history of the Eagle or the science behind the stories. Sadly i found several of these articles pretty dull or ‘fluffy’. But never mind them, we’re here for the comics!

Rocket Pilot - Britain leads the way to the moon in 1970!

The Pheonix Mission has now given way to it’s much-longer (at the time of writing it’s still going!) sequel Green Nemesis. This tale features the villains of the saga, the Treens - and their leader The Mekon! It’s crammed with all the stuff that made the original Dan Dare so great - resourcefulness, never-say-die attitudes and a stern sense of duty. Qualities any former officers would no doubt have recognised in their son’s Eagle only five years after the war.

 We also have Rocket Pilot - originally a webcomic, this tells the story of Sir Hubert Guest, the commanding officer of Spacefleet in the first Eagle onwards.  In this story he has not yet attained this high position and travels on the first trips to the moon (in 1970) and mars (in 1988). It even briefly jumps back to his schooldays, when he looked up in awe at the RAF’s new rocket interceptors, based on German designs and developed by captured scientists.

Crafty photo use, it’s like the 21st century (as Gerry Anderson imagined it) never ended!

At the far end of the scale we have Project Pluto. Set in the 2020’s, this has Dan himself as the commander of Spacefleet. However he is not content to sit around in an office and pops back and forth between the moon and space stations. Mind you with the advanced space drives of the time that’s probably easier and safer. However in the background shady politicians are trying to manipulate a war between Earth and Saturn(’s moons - even when Dan ‘originally’ went there they knew the planet wasn’t solid).

Airbrushes! It’s like Frank Bellamy… which is probably the idea

Ahh but did i not say yesterday that proper comics need some text stories too? Well here’s one! It’s set just before the Eagle story Project Nimbus which, i believe, was the first full story Frank Bellamy worked on, after Frank Hampson was unceremoniously given the boot. The story attempts to explain the various changes to costumes and spaceships seen when the artists changed. Apparently the government were angry at Spacefleet for wasting money, so they changed all their uniforms to look as if they were doing something! Looks like in the future (which is now the past) some things haven’t changed.

 In addition to the ongoing Dan Bear and humour strips, issue 7 introduces something new - a non Dan Dare comic strip! This is Journey Into Space, based on a famous radio serial. This strip was actually originally produced in Express Weekly, a “high-minded” adventure comic with expensive printing that was actually started to directly rival Eagle. To predict that the flagship strips of both would one day appear in the same comic would be like, i don’t know, predicting that Sonic the Hedgehog would one day appear in Nintendo games! Utter madness.

Can Sonic run as fast as this, though?

 Later issues of Spaceship Away introduced even more non-DD stories including a CGI one called Space Girls, some more classic sci-fi characters in the shape of Hal Starr and Nick Hazzard, and also Garth, from the long-running Daily Mirror strip. However i don’t own these later issues - yet!

Posted in Frank Hampson, Frank Bellamy, Express Weekly, Eagle, Dan Dare, Spaceship Away, 2000's | 1 Comment »

Proper British adventure comics are still around, if you know where to look - Part 1.

27/09/2010 by admin.

Well that title isn’t going to format well, is it?

Anyway, as the title implies, i have set myself up as the comic hanging judge, deciding what is worthy and what is not. So what do i consider a “proper” British adventure comic, then?

- Comes out weekly

- Printed on newsprint, or thin paper

- Black and white.

However those criteria are nonexistent today (though Commando comes closest!), so unfortunately must be ignored. Oh well, i don’t consider a car to be “proper” unless it’s rear wheel drive and has loads of chrome on it, but my own one has neither. Needs must in these dark, tasteless times. On with criteria we can fill…

- Original characters, or else characters that are not imported from some flavour-of-the-month American film, Japanese cartoon etc.

- Suitable for all ages

- Combined comic strips and illustrated text stories.

Now we’re getting somewhere! Titles that live up to these criteria can be had if, as the title says, you know where to look. Which brings us on to:

The Doctor Who Storybook 2007

Remember “proper” annuals are dated a year ahead, so this came between the 2006 and 2007 series!

I had read a few times that these “storybooks” were better than the “official annuals”. Though not having seen any of the contemporary official annuals i can’t comment. I have however seen a scan of one of the 1970’s annuals (on a Doctor Who DVD! I wasn’t Warezing) and it was terrible. Mindlessley dull text stories, nonsensical psychadelic comic strips and about 75% of the book being general articles about space exploration. Mind you people were still going to the moon in the early 70’s.

Anyway, i came across this book in Mind for 20p, so i had to have it, and i’m glad i found out what I’ve been missing! There are several text stories, some “straight” but others presented in the form of diaries, ordinary people telling the story of what happened to them, and even an instant message conversation. They are also profusely illustrated.

Most of the illustrations are fantastic…

For my money the first story (”Cuckoo-spit”, told as a diary written by a boy in the 70’s) and the last one (”Corner of your eye”, told as an IM conversation) are the best ones. Though one in the middle, narrated by the storyteller in an ancient European village, is pretty good too.

And some aren’t.

 There’s also one long comic strip in the middle of the book which is also good. It’s set in “Venezia” but it’s not clear if this is Venice or an alien planet that looks like Venice! The inhabitants aren’t much of a clue, as everybody knows a good third of the intelligent life forms in the universe of Doctor Who look exactly like us!

Also i’ve seen uglier bouncers on this planet.

About the only problem with this book is that it’s way too short! A single issue of the 1900’s Union Jack probably has the same word count and that came out every week. This comes out once a year… or should i say came out, as by the look of an Amazon search there isn’t one for 2011 (yet?). A lot of publishers are cutting back (ahem, Roy of the Rovers season 1), it will be a shame if this is a permanent casualty. Still that gives me another 3 to track down… and they are certainly worth more than just 20p!

The room has two light switches. The room has two light switches. The room has two light switches…

In an attempt to update this blog a bit more often (i now have three ‘big’ articles i want to do but haven’t got around to!) i’ll post another part of this mini-series soon.

Posted in Doctor Who, 2000's | 1 Comment »

RIP Peter O Donnell

07/05/2010 by admin.

This week saw the death of Peter O Donnell, creator of one of the finest newspaper adventure strips ever - Modesty Blaise, at the age of 90.

Typical Modesty action. The pair often avoided deadly violence except where necessary.

The Modesty Blaise comic strip ran in the London Evening Standard from 1963 until 2000. She and her sidekick Willie Garvin were former expert criminals who ran a large organisation known only as “The Network”, however before the stories begin she dismantles this and comes to live in London (where Willie was born) where she “goes legit” and helps to bring down crime syndicates or uncover enemy spies. Sometimes working for the government but other times falling into adventure by accident or in order to help out innocent people caught up in trying circumstances.

One of the more bizarre and flamboyant villains - a man who attempts to recreate the “glory days” of Viking raids!

The back-story of Modesty was never revealed in any great detail, only that her origin is largely unknown and that she grew up in a brutal refugee camp which gave her an iron drive and determination to survive and succeed - first turned to crime and later to serving the forces of good. Her and Willie were, in the grand tradition of proper adventure stories, not lovers but merely worked together.

Alongside the comic strips a series of novels was produced with longer stories. These tales were often more violent than the comics (at least with regards to fatalities) and could ’show’, by not showing, more sexual material. The first story is so far the only one i have read, but it’s a cracker - featuring a remote island stronghold and a madman with a private army.

In addition, there was two Modesty Blaise films produced - the first appeared in the 1960’s and was of similar “quality” to the recent Sexton Blake radio serial and the 1960’s Casino Royale “Bond” film. And thus can be ignored. The second was made in 2003 and was a much more serious attempt - based on her early life before The Network. I haven’t seen either but believe the latter one to be set in the modern day - reviews i have seen of it suggest it was largely a missed opportunity. If there was any justice in the world there would, of course, be a big budget adaption with vast sets, a mad villain and it would, of course, be set in the 1960’s.

Happily, Modesty Blaise stories are pretty easy to obtain. The novels are in print and Titan books are reprinting the newspaper strips in large and lavish (if a little ’scratchy looking’) volumes with additional story information and interviews. If you haven’t got any already start today, and get a look at the trunk of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s family tree!

Posted in Titan, Modesty Blaise, Peter O Donnell, 1960's, 2000's | 1 Comment »

Good news from Classics Illustrated!

31/01/2010 by admin.

Well, i’ve been meaning to make this post after my “christmas” post reviewing the 1914 Christmas issue of The Union Jack. But as that post is taking time to get written (or started) and as we’re nearing the end of the month i suppose i’d better make this one.Basically every issue of Classics Illustrated carries a small preview of the next issue on the back cover, and the preview of next month’s issue, Macbeth, looks as if they are either using the original colouring, or else thier “modern recolouring” is going to be done a lot more skilfully than it has been:





When Classics Illustrated’s re-publication was first announced there was no small amount of controversy (well, OK, a few annoyed posters on Comics UK) that the artwork was going to be re-coloured in a “new, modern way”. This meant horrible bright primary colours that destroyed some of the finer line-work and made a lot of the art look needlessley cartoonish. Just take this scene from Jane Eyre, it’s supposed to be her discovery of burned-out ruins on a bleak moorside, but looks like something from a western!

Posted in 2010's, Classics Illustrated, 2000's | 1 Comment »

A grand post to-day, chums!

06/09/2009 by admin.

Yet another long Hiatus ends with some special content (a complete story, no less!) and some important news!

Scramble

I recently bought several issues of “Boys Magazine” from 1933 on Ebay  (not an entirely consecutive run, but they’d make a nicely sized book if i could perhaps find any of the intervening issues for sale anywhere…). The seller kindly chucked in two issues of a late 40’s story-paper called Scramble. Well actually he sent three but two were copies of issue 15. Still the cover of this particular issue immediatley caught my eye - a very Sexon Blake lookalike detective coupled with the name Rex Hardinge!

Rex Hardinge was born in 1904, in India, and later made expeditions in Africa. He came to England in 1929 to become a full-time writer for story-papers. And as the editor of “Sexton Blake Wins” puts it, he could “Hammer out fiction by the yard“. His contribution to that particular book (originally published in Detective Weekly issue 20) “The Man I Killed” is very memorable.

Over the years, many ‘imitators’ of Sexton Blake appeared, from virtually direct copies (Colwyn Dane, Victor Drago) to ones more significantly altered (Nelson Lee*), none of them reached the stellar status of Blake, though. Martin Speed, as seen here, is clearly another - joined by Sam Spry, the boyish cockney assistant, and removed from Blake by Susie Spry, sam’s sister. It would be another 9 years before Sexton Blake was joined by a female assistant “full time”.

Scramble itself appeared in 1947 and vanished in 1951, running for 57 issues, according to the Magazine Data File. This site also lists it as “weekly / monthly / irregular”. Paper shortages would still have been acute after the war, so it’s not hard to beleive. This particular issue, for instance, is listed as monthly but is a mere 16 pages long - the length of a weekly halfpenny paper in the 1890’s. For that, though, all the stories appear to be complete (or at least if they are serials there’s no recap sections i could see), and all the illustrations are in “colour”. If the format stayed the same up until this paper’s end, though, it is easy to see how it would have been blown to the winds by publications such as Eagle (launched 1950).

*-admittedly not the best example as Nelson Lee also began in the 1890’s, before Blake became hugely sucessful. However Lee eventually moved into a school and became a teacher, before then his adventures had been similar to Blake ones. It was perhaps felt a way of differentiating them was needed in case readers thought one was a copy of the other?

Important News!

Two new books about comics have been published: Football’s Comic Book Heroes and When the Comics Went to War. The football title recieved an enthusisatic response on the Comics UK forums, so i went searching for it, instead i found the war book, despite reading that it wasn’t supposed to be out until October! (psst - the image of the cover may give a clue about where i bought it, and maybe even a special offer!)

All i can say about the book is it’s incredible - profusely illustrated, lots of descriptions of the STORIES, and not just statistics, dates, real-life stuff unrelated to comics and other boring non-comic guff. It even contains “the perfect war comic” at the back of the book with some reprinted stories to read.

Another thing it does - and something the “Comics Britannia” TV show shamefully didn’t - is acknowledge and celebrate the text-only story-papers alongside the later picture-strip comics. Indeed half the book is about story papers! All the names are there - Boys’ Own, Union Jack (the first one from the 1880’s), Halfpenny Marvel, Pluck and The Boys’ Friend. Later the DC Thomson “Big Five” get thier dues.

It also avoids the predictable PC “what were they filling kids head’s with?” rants entirely - an admirable attitude that must be encouraged.

I urge everybody to go and buy this book and it’s football companion, we have to let the publishers know we want this stuff! One of the authors popped into Comics UK and said that in the initial stages 7 books were planned, and that discussions about number 3 are “ongoing”. What will we see? A sci-fi one is a given. Perhaps one dedicated to Cricket and “field” sports, An Athletics one, A motor-racing one, A police/detective/private eye one, A historical one… if they live up to the high standard of When the Comics Went to War they will be most welcome.

References:

Blakiana - Rex Hardinge

Magazine Data File

Comics UK forums - Football’s Comic Heroes

Posted in Martin Speed, Rex Hardinge, Swan Publishing, 1940's, 2000's | 1 Comment »

A new post at last!

31/07/2009 by admin.

Well, it’s been a while since this site got updated eh? But university is finished and job-finding is not going very well (according to probably third-hand information from my mum, one job i applied for at a nearby laboratory got several thousand applicants -_-). I was also working on a videogame but now that is finished i intend to give some attention to comics and story-papers once again. Though primarily my own! It’s well over a year since the last issue of The Red, White & Blue was finished.

To begin with, here’s a scan of a cool page from last week’s issue of 2000AD (prog 1645). If you ask me it perfectly sums up the quirkiness of British comics…

(2000ad copyright 2009 Rebellion inc).

And now, the logo’s of my own two comic projects. Here is the re-designed logo for my main comic, The Red, White & Blue, which is a mixture of picture-strips and text stories.

Very grand, eh? The pictures depict numerous British (or at least half British for some of them) discoveries, inventions or works that have had a large impact on the world. They include Antibiotics, the Lee-Enfield rifle, an A4 class steam locomotive, Association Football, Cricket, SS Great Britain, Boolean algebra (at the heart of almost every computer), DNA, Newton’s Phiosiphae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a Spitfire, a Newcomen steam engine, Lawn Tennis, a Mini (far from the first front engine front wheel drive car, but one that gave rise to the imitators that in turn gave rise to almost every car on the roads today), Concorde and of course Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Phew! Left out due to space constraints were Magna Carta, a speech baloon representing the English language, a map of the empire, some representation of Shakespeare, a King James bible (for it’s language, not it’s effects on it’s readers!), Collosus, Television (the invention of this is disputed), a Telephone (and this), an Iron cannon and The Magnet … because Shakespeare was forgotten for a long time then rediscovered and hailed as a genius, in the same way Charles Hamilton will one day be.

The logo of The Trident, this will be an A5 sized all-text story paper. With the occasional full-page illustration, depending on the length of the story the number of these will vary. The first story is going to be an epic Sexton Blake tale set in 1916 which will see him caught up in the mire of the Western Front (i’m aiming for a balance between the jingoistic “let’s get ‘em!” of the contemporary story papers and the sombre reflections of Charley’s War), he then travels to a castle in Germany where secret weapons are being tested. After a lot of cloak and dagger (literally, in one scene!) action, during which the “German Blake”, Herr Milzinger, will be introduced to the world, Blake and Tinker escape back to England. Here they find Herr Milzinger has preceded them and a final showdown occurs in the cosy confines of Baker Street.

I hope that issue 3 of the Red, White & Blue, and issues 1 and 2 of The Trident, will both be ready for sale at the UK Webcomix Thing 2010, which is to be held at the Great Hall, Mile End Road, London on the 27th of March. As i tend to be highly lazy with regards to buying envelopes and stamps &c, it’s unlikely i’ll ever be setting up an online shop for my comics - so this event will probably the the only chance to buy them! But watch this space.

Posted in Trident, Me!, Felney Productions, RWB, Judge Dredd, 2000ad, 2000's, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Sexton Blake news - Good, Bad and Amazing

10/01/2009 by admin.

It’s been an interesting time on the blakiana front in the past month or so. Starting with the website of that name at www.sextonblake.co.uk, a greatly-expanded and improved new version is reportedly on the way very soon. Part of that new version is already online, an interactive and user-created site located at http://sextonblake.ning.com/ which will eventually be integrated with the main site. Parts of it already link “in one direction”.

In even better news, some of Sexton Blake’s finest adventures are returning to print in a new anthology! Apparently priced at £2.99 (i can’t beleive that, they must mean £12.99) the book will contain 7 vintage stories from the Union Jack, primarly from the 1910’s, but also one from the 20’s, the undisputed height of the detective’s golden age, and a trio from the 1900’s. According to Amazon, the stories are…

The Slave Market - From 1907, Sir Richard Losely and Lobangu are both under the powers of a ruthless slaver called The White Death in Africa, and Sexton Blake has to ride to the rescue

A Football Mystery - Sexton Blake and the beautiful game! a team made up of dastardly foreign types is cheating it’s way to the top. Sexton Blake has to discover thier secret and then take to the field himself, where he puts in a performance that could teach a certain Roy Race a thing or two.

The Man From Scotland Yard - The introduction of George Marsden Plummer, a brilliant detective in the official police who uses his knowledge of thier methods to turn to a life of crime. The police, in turn, call upon the best detective in the world to catch him…

The Law of the Sea - Sexton Blake is sailing on a huge, four-funneled transatlantic steamer deemed to be “unsinkable”. You can probably guess the rest, and won’t need telling that this is from 1912.

The Brotherhood of the Yellow Beetle - Prince Wu Ling, a chinese criminal with aims of world domination, appears in this story.

A Case of Arson - Deception, theft, insurance fraud and other vices intertwine in this story. Sexton Blake has a lot of unraveling to do! Also features Dirk Dolland, who would later play a part in the epic Criminal’s Confederation series.

The Black Eagle - A man who has been wrongly imprisoned on an isolated island is free - and out for murderous revenge!

And now, in not-so-good Blake news, comes the announcement of a new radio series. Perhaps inevtiably it is going to be an “oh so hilarious” (read: predictable* and insulting) parody rather than actually good. As if it couldn’t get any worse it’s produced by a company with the ‘raaandom’ (you can just see them now, can’t you?) name of “Perfectly Normal Productions”. Jesus christ… Just look at the description from the press release:

SEXTON BLAKE! A name that spells thrilling adventure for fans across the world,many of whom are still alive.

SEXTON BLAKE! A name that spells certain doom for villainy, no matter how fiendish or dandied.

SEXTON BLAKE! A name that spells mild, lingering confusion for country vicars advertising for a general officer.

A baffling crime — a hapless victim — the cry goes up, “Call SEXTON BLAKE! also some kind of medical representative.”

Now, exactly thirty-eight years, four months and eleven days after his final broadcast,the world’s mightiest and most popular detective returns to the air in the all-new THE ADVENTURES OF SEXTON BLAKE. Accompanied in his breakneck hurtle to justice by doughty (not doughy) assistant Tinker, Sexton Blake battles diabolical masterminds — beautiful jewel thieves — mechanical Stalins — in locations as exotic as a portable Congo — a second, secret London Underground — an uphill avalanche. Encountering peril at every turn, only Blake can save the day and solve the case by outwitting his enemies in the head and outpunching them in the jaw.

Yeah, Jesus christ…

* - Top three predictions!

3 - Sexton Blake hilariously works out that some people in the distance are not British. When his companions ask how he can tell he hilariously points out that they aren’t wearing hats.

2 - Some “savages” are encountered who hilariously turn out to be more intelligent than anybody else.

1 - A couple of gentlemen who call each other “chum” and “old chap” hilariously turn out to be gay.

Posted in cynical re-makes, Sexton Blake, 2000's | 1 Comment »