Auction to help Comic Artist- Appeal

In 2009, Alexandra Trotsenko, a Russian artist living in Ireland, had her fingers cut off. This happened during the course of a vicious knife attack in her own home. The attacker has since been jailed for 16 years, but without expensive surgery, Alexandra will not draw again.

Many artists in the Irish community have come together to donate our work to a special charity auction, hoping to pay for the prosthesis which may help Alexandra resume her career. Hi-Ex will be sending some artwork over, the details of how you can help are on the website of Adams Auction house in Blackrock , the Auction will be on November 27th 2011.

Please support this great cause and donate to Alexandra or bid at the auction if you can. Contact Adams Auction house for details of the auction or If you have something you’d like to donate, contact Bryan Greene or Martina Noonan on 01 2885146/7/8. Alternatively, you can make a donation to:

BANK OF IRELAND LIVELINE ACCOUNT (Montrose branch)
ACCOUNT NO. 70546818
SORT CODE 90 13 51

( Thanks to celine kiernan for the information )

Doctor Who Blackout review

It is interesting to compare and contrast Who adventures that are set roughly in the same historical time and place.

Blackout takes place in New York in the 1960s and while this is a good half a century later (an eye blink for a Timelord), I could not help but comparing it to the television adventure Daleks in Manhattan.

As with that tale, this has the Doctor teaming up with a down on his luck black fellow as his ‘companion of the hour’ as it where, while his permanent companions are off doing their own thing.

But this is really where the similarities end. Were Daleks in Manhattan was a confused mishmash (albeit one with some very strong elements, but elements that were outweighed by illogic), this is an exercise in tight, economic storytelling.

It opens with a great pre-credits scene in which Stuart Milligan as narrator delivers a perfectly timed exchange. After that we’re into the usual Who fare of frantic chases and sinister aliens with questionable motives.

These motives, while plausible, do result in couple of minor problems I had with the story. One concerns a character and their place in what is happening – this is something that would be a massive spoiler, so I can’t go into it here. The other is the Message. Now, it is not in any way a bad Message, in fact it is one I agree with wholeheartedly. It’s just that it is delivered in a slightly heavy handed way that makes the listener think ‘Yes! I get it!

Apart from that, this is a great way to spend an hour and a bit. Milligan, who played Nixon in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ is a very good narrator, his Matt Smith in particular is excellent.

This is also a very visual story, and I can’t help wondering if it was first pitched as a television adventure, only to be knocked back because of the colossal effects budget it would require, before finding a home at AudoGo?

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.

Ghostly Terror and Vampire Horror reviews!

You can blame us being away at the Dundee Comics Day for this and a few other reviews not appearing during the Halloween weekend. Let’s just pretend that we did it anyway, eh?

So, these two short story audiobooks released by AudioGo are themed around the subjects, as you can see, of ghosts and vampires.

First up the ghost collection, Ghostly Terror.

This is the shorter of the two collections, featuring three stories.

it opens with ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’ by M.R. James, read by Andrew Sachs. I had not heard or read this one before, but it is a very good story, as you would expect from an author like James. He constructs a great sense of creeping dread, which is aided considerably by the sound design and Sachs’s reading.

The final story is one I was more familiar with - W. F. Harvey’s 'The Beast With Five Fingers', which if you have never read or heard before is well worth your time.

But best of the lot is the middle story, 'The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and read by Laurel Lefkow.

To my shame I had never heard of either the story or author previous to this. The story is a masterpiece and a perfect example of portraying paranoia and mental breakdown. Truly unsettling.

The second collection is called Vampire Horror.

It begins with a story that is not only very good, but very important. It is The Vampyre by John Polidori. This is a long story, so make sure you’re on a long journey when you start listening (I’m assuming here that you also listen in the car!).

It is very good because it has an interesting structure and a creepy atmosphere. It is important because it bears some resemblance to a later, more well known book about pursuing a vampire across Europe, only this was written 78 years before that one.

My favourite story in the collection was the next one: Wailing Well by M.R. James. This is in turn a pitch black comedy and genuine horror by way of a pretty brutal morality tale.

The collection is rounded of with two more tales: the sinister ‘For The Blood is the Life’ by Marion Crawford and another M. R. James effort, ‘An Episode of Cathedral History’, which is as far from the other James story in this set as is possible to be. It’s dark and disturbing and, like the James story on the Ghosts collection, it feels like something a young Clive Barker would have written.

So – you’re a horror fan? Buy these.

No Man's World The Ironclad Prophecy review

I hadn’t read the first book in this series, Black Hand Gang. But after just a few pages of this one, I was beginning to regret that fact.

This was not, as you might be assuming, because I had no clue what was happening here, but actually because this was such a brilliant premise that I immediately wanted to know more about it.

Briefly, this is about a group of British soldiers who have been transported from their ‘home’ on the Somme to an alien world.

Yes, you did read that right.

And yes, you’re correct. This should not work, as it is a concept so high that it is in danger of running out of air. Nevertheless, work it does.

The book begins with the sizeable cast picking up the pieces of what I assume are the events of the first book. Author Pat Kelleher mentions past events throughout this volume, but in such a clever way that they don’t feel forced and, more importantly, don’t make the reader feel that they have been told so much that they don’t need to read the previous volume.

The book is split into two distinct plot strands, as we follow the Zulu-like battles around the British trenches as they fight a horde of aliens while dealing with other, perhaps more sinister, events.

The second tale is of the crew of the Ivanhoe – a tank that also made the journey. This is for me the more entertaining of the two strands. Kelleher has assembled a great cast of characters, with Atkins, the down to Earth corporal charged with bringing the tank crew back and Mathers, the Lieutenant in charge of the tank being particularly interesting, although Kelleher manages to give pretty much everyone enough to do at some point during the book.

There is action aplenty here, with some very well described fight scenes, although I did not feel any urgency over the soldiers running out of ammo, even though this is something that is mentioned regularly.

If you have a peek at the cover, there is a scene depicted there that is one of the highlights of the novel. To tell you why would be cruel as it would ruin it totally, but you can just trust me on this one…

As this is the second book in a series, you should not expect everything to be sewn up nicely at the end. It is true the plot arcs for this book are brought together and resolved well, but as you would expect, there are cliff-hangers and unanswered questions aplenty there too.

I’m already looking forward to the third book in the series, but in the meantime I can comfort myself with the knowledge that I have the first one to tide myself over until Abaddon release it..

FREE CO-OP MODE AVAILABLE FOR WARHAMMER 40,000: SPACE MARINE

So, a while ago we reviewed the game Space Marine.
In that review, one of the very few negatives was the lack of online modes. Well, we'll take full credit for THQ announcing that there is a brand new, and free, co-op mode available for online play!

Details from their press release:

Space Marine's Exterminatus mode pits an elite squad of four Space Marines against hordes of alien enemies in a score based fight to the death. Players can choose the Tactical Marine, Devastator or Assault Marine as well as utilizing any weapons and perks available to those classes.
Each of Exterminatus Mode's scenarios, ‘Assault on Hab Center Andreas' and ‘Escape From Kalkys Facility,' feature global leader boards challenging players to better their scores by completing dynamic challenges as well as utilizing score modifiers which increase game difficulty in exchange for additional points.
Experience earned while playing this mode counts towards the game's multiplayer ranks, allowing players to earn progression in both Co-Op and multiplayer.
Jim Huntley, Vice President of Global Brand Management commented,
"We are delighted to be able to reward the loyal fans of Space Marine with a new free mode to extend and enhance their game play experience. Exterminatus will provide a rewarding new challenge to players old and new."
Space Marine's Exterminatus mode is available to download for free on the Playstation^®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. The Xbox^®360 version will be available for free soon.

XIII Vol 8: Thirteen to One review

The previous volume of XIII from Cinebook, Night of August Third, rounded of that particular story arc for our now not so amnesiac (but not yet fully memoried up) agent XIII.

At the beginning of this volume things have moved on somewhat, with agent Jones off doing her own thing (again!) and XIII receiving both an invitation one really cannot refuse and an interesting job offer…

And so, as is the way with this series, intrigue and double-cross are not far behind as XIII delves deeper into his past, perhaps putting more pieces together while an old foe is on his tail.

This volume, while having some great action set pieces (XIII’s infiltration of an enemy island is a particular highlight), there do seem to be a lot of talking heads senses in here which slow the pace somewhat, especially in the first third of the book.

Having said that, Hamme’s skill at dripfeeding the reader with titbits of information at a pace that could almost be described as torture. And the art by William Vance is, as usual, all but perfect.

This volume seems to be setting us up for some highly explosive shenanigans in the future with the aforementioned old foe and the new one XIII makes during the course of this tale.

Ah yes… that final scene. It had me laughing and almost punching the air. XIII is the sort of maverick spy hero that American writers only dream of creating.