Babble review

Writer: Lee Robson
Artist: Bryan Coyle
Letterer: Eddie Deighton

I read this in Pdf form, a medium I do not like reading in. I am reviewing it as such and at times I may compare the experience to reading a paper product.

Firstly, I had never heard of this book before reading it. So I flicked through the pages of the Pdf to get a feel of what I would have thought flicking through the pages of a graphic novel in a comic book store. I saw a female lead character and what seemed to be zombies, though they didn’t look very dead. I didn’t get any feel for the comic, I didn’t connect with it.

When I started reading on my PC I found the experience quite uncomfortable and in the end chose to transfer the Pdf to my Kindle Ap on my Android phone. Reading it on my phone was much more comfortable even with the much smaller screen. I’ve only just started reading books in this medium.

So I started from page 1 again. Soon I found I was engrossed, despite the oddness of reading a comic on a hand held device.

Carrie Hartnoll, the main character, is a British woman who has left her old life behind after being offered a research job in an Ivy League College in USA by her ex-boyfriend Professor Alan Curtis. Alan was clearly her lecturer at University.

Carrie is first seen alone on a hillside at night, a man attacks her and at first sight as I said earlier I took this to be a zombie but I soon realised I was wrong. This man, among many others, had a speech bubble but it was blank.

We learn that the research Carrie is involved in is experiencing problems. The original head researcher has committed suicide and destroyed most of the research. Alan needs Carrie to find missing information before funding is cut. the other main characters are Si, a research assistant and Vanessa, Alan’s wife.

The characters are believable. Carrie is rather naive and over trusting. Si is gay and apparently the late Professor Cartwright was homophobic. Alan is slightly predictable, but that isn’t necessarily a flaw of the writer, more it is a flaw of the character itself – which is fine, just as naivety is an acceptable flaw for our heroine.

The story is part in the present and part in flash back. The flashbacks are in order and eventually catch up with the present. So we learn more of the ‘why’ in flashback while the present is mostly action. Flashback and present are clearly distinguished using the traditional way, different colours and shading. The past uses black, white and blue. The present is mostly in yellow, browns and black. Time lapse within the flashback is also shown by characters being in different clothing from panel to panel.

The panel count and layout varies from page to page and mostly are of regular shape, only in the first chapter are angled panels used, each time in scenes of violence. At times there are insets and panel bleeding. The artist did a good job at leaving room for lettering but at times the word count was a little heavy, the letter however did a fine job of coping with this.

There are plenty of unexpected turns of events in the story, indeed my own assumptions were proven wrong in more ways than the lack of zombies in the story. Though I would say in a way this is actually a twist on a zombie story.

A very good story, well illustrated and very well lettered. Given my dislike of reading on electronic media and the fact I ended up engrossed I think this book succeeded in what it was supposed to do, it entertained me and made me wonder what happened after the final panel. Well worth a read.

Review by Steve Hargett.

Sugar Glider and Sugar Glider Stories #2 review

We reviewed the first issue of Sugar Glider here.
Issue 2 has been on the review pile for a while and it has taken us far too long to get to it. But boy was it worth the wait.
The first issue of Sugar Glider, as well as the spin-off title Sugar Glider Tales was fantastic in setting up the world and characters, and in this issue we pick up where that has left off.
Thee is a new mysterious figure roaming the streets of Newcastle – the, frankly rather loony, Don Quixote. I’m being a bit too simplistic here. There is an awful lot going on, and the characters as much more rounded and real than my describing Quixote as a loony makes them seem, but I feel that to tell you too much about him would lessen the impact.
All I will say is this: Sugar Glider is one of the best Small Press titles, no, strike that. It's one of the best comics I have ever read, and I have read a lot of them.
It doesn’t just standing up against other Small Press titles, it easily holds it’s own against any superhero title you would care to name. Yes, That’s what I said.
If you read comics, you really should be reading this.


Sugar Glider Stories #2

See the previous Sugar Glider Stories review here.
Much like the previous SGS, this is a series of short stories, some no more than a page or so in length, but each adds something to the overall narrative of the book and the world of Sugar Glider.
Reading this, I was impressed by not only how complex it is, but the degree of effortlessness that seems to be present in the writing. This book dances back and forth in time, filling in spaces from Sugar Glider #2 and ending up just where that one begins, as well as letting us see what’s going on in the background of the events in the main comic.
Like I say – it is complex, but handled with deceptively consummate ease. What could so easily have been a disjointed mess reads very smoothly.
As with the last collection, the art is a mixed back, ranging from pages that would sit easily in a professional comic to art that is decidedly amateur.
Now – I thought long and hard about the word I would use to describe the art before going for amateur. And I mean that word in a very good way. The art may not be to any sort of professional standard, but it never once comes across as bad.
The strips are clearly drawn, with the action easy to follow and characters are distinct and can be recognised easily, even when drawn by artists with polar opposite styles.
If you’re reading Sugar Glider, and if you’re a comic fan you should be, then you should be reading this too.

Avengers - new trailer!

I'm sure you've all seen this already, but still - wow!

The latest from Commando!

The latest releases from Commando have just been announced.

Commando No 4463 — The Improbable Mission

Second-Lieutenant Clement Cleveley of the Army Educational corps was a real boffin. A research student before the war, his mathematical speciality was probability theory…which didn’t really fit with anything in service life.

   As it turned out, that wasn’t quite the case which was how, instead of peacefully working at a classroom blackboard, Clement ended up charging around the desert dodging bullets with a bunch of crack SAS men.

Script: Alan Hebden

Art: Manuel Benet

Cover: Manuel Benet

Commando 4464 — Night And Fog

In Occupied Europe during the Second World War, dawn raids and midnight arrests became regular occurrences. They were feared by all the occupied peoples but soon they began to lose their ability to invoke terror.

   That’s when an evil Nazi scientist decided that it wasn’t enough just to arrest people. He wanted to make them disappear into the…

Night and Fog

Script: Alan Hebden

Art: Morahin

Cover: Janek Matysiak (Not Ian Kennedy as it says in the credits grenade!)

Commando 4465 — Terror Zone

It started as a routine training patrol to test five top Aussie recruits — until their radio packed in and their NCO was killed in an accident.

   Then the dense New Guinea jungle became a terror zone as a bullet flew from out of the shadows. Someone — or something — was trying to kill them…but there wasn’t supposed to be an enemy for thousands of miles!

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

Commando fans have always held Carlos Pino’s artwork in high regard, and rightly so. Here he brings the clammy jungle and a band of dishevelled Japanese to life in a few strokes of the pen and brush.

   He’s giving form to a story by another long-serving Commando regular, Mike Knowles, whose plots have entertained for long enough to earn him a long-service medal and a well-deserved retirement.

   Phil Gascoine did a limited number of Commando covers, but every one was a little gem — even when he had to show an all but invisible figure in the background.

Terror Zone, originally Commando No 2673 (June 1993)

Script: Mike Knowles

Art: Carlos Pino

Cover: Phil Gascoine

Go and get them!

Strip Magazine issue 1

We really should have mentioned this before,.

 but with things like power cuts and storms, we've been unable to get to the blog for a while. 

There is a brand new British anthology comic on the shelves!

It is called, as I am sure you all know, Strip Magazine, and we can tell you that it is well worth your time seeking out.

The variety of strips in there is great – there’s everything from contemporary war stories to ancient tales of daring do, by way of futuristic super spies and  everything inbetween.

But I suppose the ‘big’ news about this book, and I suspect the thing that will cause most dads of a certain age to pick it up for their children is the return of the classic Action strip Hookjaw.

This isn’t a new strip, but a reprint of the original series, which has been recoloured by Gary Caldwell and had a brand spanking new lettering job from Jim Campbell. Hookjaw certainly holds up well against the new strips, helped in no small part by the sheer lunacy of the premise!

I tried the book out on my two boys, and they both liked it. The stand out strips for them were the aforementioned Hookjaw and war series Black Ops Extreme. Because there is nothing young boys like more than explosions and giant man eating sharks.

Strip Magazine is available at your local comic shop. If they don’t have it then ask them to get it in for you, because this is a cracking new book and deserving of your support!

  

Leeds Thought Bubble

Team Hi-Ex! headed off to the Leeds Thought Bubble sequential arts festival again this year. It was well worth the two days travelling each way to catch up with friends, Hi-Ex! guests and exhibitors past and future as well as our own comics projects collaborators. Rich does a few comics that were on sale there, Vicky had drawn a strip appearing in a comic called Something Wicked ( by FutureQuake publications ) and we both had worked on strips for a book being launched ' Tales of the Fallen ' part of Barry Nugent's Unseen Shadows trans media project.

We'd volunteered to help the organisers as its important to us that we support other comic events across the UK. After all, we are all trying to do the same thing in promoting comics, bringing fans and creators together and introducing a new generation, a new audience to the massive variety and potential of comics. We had brilliant fun - all the running about without the responsibility! There is a great atmosphere there and masses of people came for the weekend convention which was a cumilation of a weeks events, workshops, talks, conference, competition, film screenings and happenings. We were on guest liaison detail and queue wrangling with the loads of other brilliant friendly and professional volunteers in our coveted red Thought Bubble t-shirts.

Manga cosplayers were out in force, some great costumes, and some...brave ...costumes given the rather cold Leeds fog, brrrr!

2000AD themed canvases were getting painted by a selection of artists throughout the weekend.

Friday night there was a pre con reception, which was a great chance to get together and meet collaborators old and new. Above is Sarah McIntyre and Gillian Rogerson. They have a fabby new book out 'You can't scare a princess' and Sarah's children activity area was pirate themed this year.

Sarah was kind enough to take and send us a rare exclusive photograph of team Hi-Ex! together captured in the wild.

Saturday night at the after show party we got grumpy that the music was too loud to allow conversation, but just prior to leaving thought we might as well join in, so discoed the night away with the young folks. It was great fun! Comics people throwing shapes, a very surreal sight to behold!

blurry pic across one of the two halls.

There was a panel to launch our anthology book ' Tales of the Fallen'- Rich hosted it, on the right, Barry Nugent in the middle with the hat on is the editor/ original creator/ boss , to his left writer Cy Dethan ( who Vicky coloured ' Slaughtermans Creed' for last year)

Left writer Dan Thomson who wrote the story ' Band of Butchers' that  Vicky coloured, Martin Conoghan ( whom she has drawn a strip with for in the book 'Spirit of Hope'), and writer Peter Pogers. Also there were artists Steve Penfold and Rob Carey .

The 'women in comics' panel. It was a rather positive up beat discussion, perhaps the days of male dominance can slowly start to be behind us? Although there are still plenty of publications which are boys only cliques... we'll work on it !  Some of speakers on this panel were brilliantly inspiring! 

The canvas artwork progresses.

The hall clearing away was exhausting! Thought Bubble is massive compared to Hi-Ex!, but manages to maintain that family and friendly vibe. Then we were done- a billion chairs stacked, tables folded, boxes lugged, stressed exhibitors packed up, rubbish cleared! 

Hurrah for the Red Army of helpers, with the lovely Lisa organiser (in denim).Thanks to all for making it so much fun.

Its given us a great boost to start prepping for Hi-Ex! Loads of new guests want to come along, and lots of fantastic people to run comics workshops... but of course a lot depends, as ever on whether we can get funding. watch this space !

The Dandy and The Beano go digital!

The UK’s best loved comics, The Dandy & The Beano, have announced the introduction of a digital subscription service for both titles through Apple’s Newsstand.  First published in 1937 and 1938 respectively, the two national comic institutions join another one of our comic legends, Commando, in the App store. The apps deliver digital, enhanced versions of the comics, enabling fans to read their favourite strips and characters on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. 

Demonstrating the enduring  popularity of the comic brands is the fact that Apple are already promoting the free Beano app on the front page of iTunes and it is already sitting in the Top 10 downloads – only hours after the apps’ release!

Even though our comics are for children of all ages… the move into digital publishing underlines DC Thomson’s commitment to children’s literacy, ensuring that our famous comics can be read by kids as widely as possible on all kinds of formats. Teachers, parents and educational experts all acknowledge the role comics have in providing the bridge between picture books and chapter books and with the increasing use of apps by children, we hope even more of them can now access our weekly, original and not-to-mention hilarious content.

Mike Stirling, Editor-in-chief of The Beano said: “This is app-solutely fantastic! We’re all very app-y! Sorry, that’s app-alling! The great thing about the new app on Newsstand is that it guarantees our fans can enjoy The Beano 24-7.  I used to read The Beano snuggled up under the covers with a torch at night – nowadays, I’ll just cuddle up to my iPhone!”

Editor-in-chief of The Dandy, Craig Graham added:  “We’re incredibly excited about being available as a digital download. Now people can have the unique School of Mock that is The Dandy at their fingertips, wherever they are and whatever they’re doing.”

The Beano and Dandy apps are free to download via iTunes and also come with free issues of the comics so that users can see they great content they’ll get in advance, along with simple instructions of how to subscribe or download. Payment is via the user’s iTunes account. Digital copies are enhanced with interactive advertising, video and links to the existing Beano & Dandy websites – www.beano.com & www.dandy.com

DC Thomson have developed these apps in association with Yudu Media – www.yudu.com – and are planning to bring a range of existing titles to Apple’s Newsstand in the coming months.

Dundee Comic Day

Dundee Comics day is organised by Dr Chris Murray ( and team ) who runs the Mlitt in comics at Dundee University. Its a fantastic event, great friendly atmosphere, great guests and interesting talks.

Paul Gravett gave a shortened version of a fascinating talk about the history of comics and '1001 Comic Books you must read before you die' a brand new gorgeous book that he has edited. There is an incredible variety of comics out there internationally much much more than people popularly think, some really inspiring and beautiful work. 

Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering talk about the re-release of their and acclaimed historically accurate Burke and Hare Graphic novel, explaining how they built up the information and story.

Monty Nero the fantastic artist and writer talks about his current work on a brilliant comic called 'Death Sentence'

John Wagner had spent the day touring Dundee with friend and journalist Mike Donachie, they'd found the house with the shed that it had all started in with Pat Mills, where they used to sit and write! John talked about the need for wannabe writers to get themselves recognised in the massive pile of unsolicited submissions. How strong characters were the key to good storytelling. He also talked about the pros and cons of writing partnerships and took lots of questions about the Dredd film, why Button Man hasn't been filmed yet and about the aging Dredd issue.

Robbie Morrison - Comics taught him how to tell stories. He'd read of how a spider bite gave super spider powers, nuclear exposure turns you big and green and soon realised that reality isn't like that. He wanted to tell stories that reflected more reality, the human and emotional content. Dante was conceived to create a different type of character for 2000ad, 11 books and 16 years later we are drawing to the story's conclusion that Robbie always knew would happen, he didn't want a character to go on and on past the point where the writer no longer remembered or cared about the story. He feels guilty about how much Dante has suffered, and warned of more suffering to come. 

Colin McNeil ( a regular Hi-Ex guest ) started his talk by explaining how uncomfortable as an artist he is at talking in public and how much better he'd be with a blackboard showing things visually. However his passion for subjects he cares for is always apparent. He talked about the influence of boys war comics on him as a child, this was the generation that didn't talk about the war, these stories showed him what had happened to the previous generation and members of his family. He dislikes the word 'hero' as it is generally a propoganda term. Colin feels he is not really a comic artist but an artist who just happens to draw comics. His main early comic art influences are Carlos Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy and Mike MacMahon. He also enthused about how as a small child he'd had the opportunity to see Rembrandt's Night Watch painting close up behind the ropes and how the colours and brush work had stayed with him. 

The Commando editorial and writer team explained what makes a good solid story ( characters and the interaction between characters ) and discussed why Commando is still going after 50 years. There has been some great artists work on it over the years. It was however pointed out that only 2% of the readership is female.

Cam Kennedy ( another Hi-Ex guest ) was a very entertaining speaker, regaling us with tales of his early years drawing in France and subsequent move to Orkney. He talked about the Scottishness and humour in the comics he's worked on. Cam also loved drawing machines, spaceships and tanks, coming from generations of engineers. While the Star Wars comics were a fan favorite, Cam was never a fan, he got sick of "drawing a big rug and a dust bin", though he pitched the Bobba Fett series which was witter by Wagner as he enjoyed that character. He also told the audience the famous Kenny Who? story.

Frank Quitely ( another previous Hi-Ex guest )- gave a personal and inspiring talk about his work and the influences on him. He never made any distinction as a young person between comic art, album art, poster art and fine art, he was surrounded by books and art books and drew from all of them. He'd always doodled sequential breakdowns of motion like football or fight scenes without realising how it connected to comics. He explained that for him, when we hear a story it is in moving pictures in our heads, the artists job is to select the correct freeze frame to put the story on paper. His first published work was of course on Scottish 'scatological slapstick' comic Electric Soup, where Frank satirised the much loved Broons with 'the Greens' . This is when he first adopted his pseudonym, which had "seemed really clever when 19 or 20", and had also been to hide what he was doing from parents etc. He'd worked for years in comics before an editor at DC questioned his storytelling layouts, what had previously been intuitive them became an obsession as the drawing took second place to the storytelling and he learnt everything he could from Scott McLeod and many others. While convalescing recently from back problems which stopped his working he has dreamed up some wonderful sounding personal projects.

Basically all these folks are brilliant, and many of them will be coming along to Hi-Ex 2012. Many thanks to the Dundee comic day team for organising this great event and having us along.

New 2000 AD character replicas

Now, this is press release to fill the hearts of the Hi-Ex! Team with joy:

Award-winning British comic 2000 AD^® is delighted to announce Planet Replicas has been granted a licence to produce replica props taken straight from the worlds of 2000 AD’s most famous characters — including Judge Dredd.

Soon fans of Dredd, Judge Anderson, Strontium Dog, Sláine, Rogue Trooper, ABC Warriors, Zombo and the likes of Shakara and Kingdom will be able to see their heroes brought to thrill-powered life with officially licensed products.

Initial items include keyrings and full-size replica judge badges, with judge helmets and replica weaponry following soon after. Future products include complete replica judge outfits – ideal for dispensing justice to CosPlay perps! – detailed character masks, as well as further 1:1 and smaller-scale character/prop replicas.

As you may know, we're massive 2000AD fans. Every British comic fan should really be reading it, never mind those books with men in brightly coloured costumes punching each other and coming back from the dead every few months- 2000AD is where it is at, baby! And the idea of a Gene the Hackman action figure is almost too much!

New from Commando

The latest releases from Eagle Award nominated comic Commando have been announced.

There is also some good news concerning the recently launched iPhone and iPad app. Editor Calum Laird said, "The app has been updated and improved thanks to the feedback we’ve received from the first to adopt it. It now works better than ever and we have doubled the numbers of digi-subscribers in the last month. Don’t worry, though, there’s still plenty of room for more...check the details on www.commandocomics.com. There must be something in the air because our paper subscription numbers have gone up 30% this year. More details of the offers we have for that service can be found at www.commandocomics.com"

Among the latest releases, which include the titles Fire and War, Dressed to Kill and International Squadron is Deserter. We signal this one out because it is the debut Commando title from 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine writer Matt Badham.

New from Commando this month

Commando 4367

PIRATE BREED

 “Hey, Bluey!”

   — The length and breadth of the China Seas that’s all he was called — Bluey. Gold-smuggling, gun-running, he was a tough guy who took all kinds of chances in his fast old converted MTB to make a quick dollar.

   When the Australian Navy had a tough job to do and needed a guy who knew the China Seas backwards, had smuggling contacts on nearly every island, could handle a gun and take a chance in a thousand — did they look among their own officers? Did they blazes!

   “Hey, Bluey!”

Story: Spence

Inside Art: Cecil Rigby

Cover: Lopez Espi

Originally No 234 from 1966

Commando 4368

MIGHTY MIKE

Mighty Mike Mansell, top fighter ace, was the guy chosen as test pilot for the fastest aircraft produced for the RAF. The plane was so top secret that it didn’t even have a name as Mike put it through its paces over the remote north of Scotland.

   Yet, despite all the security, the Nazis believed they could get their hands on the plane…and no wonder they were confident. Flying for the Luftwaffe was Mike’s identical twin brother…

Story: Cyril Walker

Inside Art: Cam Kennedy

Cover: Ken Barr

Originally No 417 from 1970, re-issued as No 1355 in 1979

Commando 4369

Swastika Squadron

A bunch of RAF men fighting in planes with swastikas? Traitors, surely, flying German kites?

   Well, no. they were a group of Blenheim crews for whom a ferry flight turned into a fight for survival in planes carrying the sign of the crooked cross.

Story: Norman Adams

Inside Art: Keith Page

Cover: Keith Page

Commando 4370

MONGREL CREW

They were a mongrel crew all right. Half-a-dozen men lumped together in a Mitchell bomber for the wrong reason — a propaganda stunt. Though each had a score to settle with the enemy, they were not really expected to fight.

   But, when push came to shove, the mongrels would show they had a bite to match any pedigree hound.

Story: Mac Macdonald

Inside Art: Carlos Pino

Cover: Carlos Pino

The big story to go with these issues is not the cracking art and tales from some legends of Commando’s past, but the official release of our apps and digital subscription which will secure the Commando’s future. 

Fallen Heroes review

You may have heard of this already. Originally a novel by Barry Nugent of Geek Syndicate fame, this is an all new comic adaptation by Burke and Hare author Martin Conaghan.

The comic itself has had a slightly convoluted history that we won’t go into here- but if you want to know, keep checking the blog, as we’ll be running interviews with both Barry and Martin over the weekend. </ commercial break>

But onto the comic. First off- lovely cover, and I appreciated the short text intro in the inside, too.
The strip itself starts with a bang- dropping the reader into the middle of an incredibly strange situation with no explanation at all of what’s happening to this characters. If you’re wondering- this is a Good Thing. Both the character and the book itself are instantly interesting as the reader asks the obvious question: what the hell is going on?

We’re then introduced to another character, and this one could not be more different- the high-octane Mission:Impossible style action that fills the rest of the book is great fun. Conaghan writes the characters well and with minimal dialogue.
I’m also a sucker for silent comics- to me (if I may get pretentious for a moment) they are the purest form of the medium, so I was delighted by the many silent passages in this issue.

While the writing it tight, the art is variable. True, it never drops below what I would consider to be a professional standard, but there are a few panels where I felt the artist, Steve Penfold, didn’t quite get where he was reaching for- but the fact that he reached at all is commendation enough. And I have to say that conveying action scenes in a dynamic and kinetic way is a very difficult thing, but Penfold manages to do so here with no trouble at all. And the art being in that slightly loose style I adore helps things along too.

All in all, this is a very good first issue, and I cannot imagine anyone reading this and not wanting to pick up the next one.

So, y’know, read it!


You can buy Fallen Heroes at any branch of Waterstones. It's also available on Amazon in both paperback and on the kindle and it's also available on the apple ibooks store

Commando comes to the ipad!

Commando, the iconic action and adventure comic published by D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd., starts its 50^th anniversary year in 2011 with a bang, courtesy of a brand new website, http://www.commandocomics.com, officially launched today. The much-loved comic, which has now surpassed 4300 stories since its inception in July 1961, has launched a full-scale assault on the digital world, including a new website, digital subscriptions service using iPhone & iPad apps, a first from DC Thomson’s stable of publications. The new service ensures that Commando adventures, famed for their accuracy and authenticity, are now available in digital form as well as print.

The new website, created by DC Thomson’s Digital team in partnership with Edinburgh-based digital agency, Storm ID, has a range of new features which ensures that Commando is well positioned for the digital future.  Users can explore the stories, including new issues, using the free interactive viewer as well as obtain information on the military hardware featured throughout. There’s also the chance to enjoy various story features and the reminiscences of both the current editorial team and contributors from throughout Commando’s 50 years. Visitors will also have the ability to purchase a digital subscription directly from the website or buy a print subscription for delivery. Also, for the first time, users can get their hands on some famous Commando cover posters (in A1 size format) exclusively through Commandocomics.com, for the introductory price of £19.99.

Commando Editor, Calum Laird, said: “Being the first DC Thomson title to offer a downloadable digital comic via a web-based subscription service is quite a responsibility but one we are delighted to take on. Commando is a unique product in the UK marketplace and now, it can be made available worldwide at the click of a mouse, or the tap of a screen for iPhone and iPad. These devices are almost tailor-made for the unique presentation of Commando. Backing up the subscription service with a fully-loaded website giving access to our timeless story archive will be welcomed with open arms by Commando fans.”

The iPad and iPhone apps are free to download through the Apple iTunes App Store and a digital subscription is priced at £4.99 per month, compared to a £99 annual print subscription. For those not sure there are 4 free issues to download prior to making a purchase so you can be sure! The new website, digital subscriptions and iPhone/iPad apps will be backed by digital marketing campaign, featuring paid-search, Facebook and online display advertising.

There’s much more to come from Britain’s only war/action adventure comic in its Golden Jubilee year with a full programme planned. Favourite characters are due to make returns alongside new heroes specially created for the anniversary year along with delving deep into Commando's past to dust off classic stories like “Walk or Die” that haven't seen the light of day for many years.  Commando is one war veteran that isn’t done fighting yet.

Alan Moore: Storyteller preview

portrait by Danny North

Gary Spencer Millage, writer of the wonderful Strangehaven has just completed work on his next book, Alan Moore: Storyteller.
Gary writes about it on his blog, which you can find HERE.
The book will be published in the UK in May by Ilex Press.

Alan's parents wedding: 1952

We've been lucky enough to see a preview of some of the book, and if what we have seen is anything to go by, you are in for a treat. It is full of fascinating snippets- everything from early family photographs to some of his first published cartoon work to thumbnails for the world changing graphic novel From Hell.
All this is accompanied by in depth interviews with the Man Himself and information about his many landmark series.

This illustration of Elvis Costello was Moore's first professional sale

We'll keep you up to date with any new info about this wonderful looking book, and bring you a full review nearer the time.

And by the way, in searching for a picture of Mr Moore for the top of this page, we found this wonder, which it too good not to share: