KILLING JOKES

When Batman: The Killing Joke came out in 1988, it was unusual for a prestige format DC comic in that it had distribution right away in venues other than comic stores.

I remember seeing it on sale in Virgin Records (alongside newly released Duran Duran live video "Working for the Skin Trade").

My first thought was "Oh, that Batman comic has the name of the band".

This has always been part of the comic for me, and I presume for most people who know of the band. 

I listen to them every so often, and this time around I got to thinking that many years and decades have gone by now, and maybe some comic readers don't know of the band?

They're bloody good, and have recorded some great songs!

THAT COMIC SMELL: Read Me Forever!

The new episode is online now.

From the website:

"On today’s episode we covers those pages/comics in which we constantly come back to. The ones we set aside even though we have a huge reading pile to get through. The ones that we jumps to when thinking about comics. The show offs. The utter loves. The ones that are FOREVER!
We also go into quite a large list this time of comics that we have got a hold of, bought or have been reading recently.
This and all the usual comics chat on…
That Comic Smell!

Get us on…
Soundcloud: tinyurl.com/y8vzeh3c
Spotify: tinyurl.com/y2qtu2cs
YouTube: tinyurl.com/yajnxcno
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/hwbqxab
Podbean: tinyurl.com/yxvecykj
and most places you find podcasts.

Star Trek DC (Mike Barr, Tom Sutton, Ricardo Villagra)
This Was 2020 (Peter Conrad)
Batman: Strange Apparitions (Steve Englehart, Marshal Rogers, Len Wein, Walt Simonson)
Bubbles Fanzine #9 (Brian Baynes)
Please Don't Step on my Jnco Jeans (Noah Van Sciver)
King-Cat Classix (John Porcellino)
Tarzan (Burne Hogarth)
King Kirby: Jack Kirby y el mundo del cómic (José Joaquín Rodríguez)
Bone (Jeff Smith)
Watchmen (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons)
Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (Al Williamson, Archie Goodwin)
The Incredible Hulk (Stan Lee, Jack Kirby)
Spider-man/Venom (Todd McFarlane)
Transformers: Stargazing (Simon Furman, Jeff Anderson, Stephen Baskerville)
Hellblazer: Original Sins (Jamie Delano, John Ridgway)
Thor: Blood Oath (Scott Kolins, Michael Avon Oeming)
X-MAN (Steve Skroce, Terry Kavanagh)
Battle Angel Alita (Yukito Kishiro)
Fued (Mike Barron, Mark Nelson)
The Hulk vs Doc Samson: Marvel Annual (John Byrne
Dragonball Z vol.2 (Akira Toriyama)
One Piece Vol.1 (Eiichiro Oda)
Excalibur (Chris Claremont, Alan Davis)
V for Vendetta (Alan Moore, David Lloyd)
Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
Blacksad (Juan Díaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido)
The Death of Superman (Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern & various)
Follow Me In (Katriona Chapman)
CYDO (John Tucker)"

THAT COMIC SMELL: The Top Three Creators of All Time

The latest episode is online now.

This was a livestream video as part of the online SparkCon held over the weekend by Aaron Rackley and Fair Spark Books.

Have a watch on YouTube here.

THAT COMIC SMELL: Books about Comics

The new episode is now online.

From the web:

“Get some culture! READ A F*****G BOOK”
Tis the season to be jolly! Hello and welcome to our second Christmas present to you all and the gang is back together. Something a little different this time as well. We are discussing books that are about comics. Bloody Books! Don’t worry though. This hasn’t become some after school book club get together. The folks still get their comics on and in full swing adoration. There’s Alan Moore, Tim Pilcher, Marvel, Tom Spurgeon, Pat Mills, Penguin books, Will Eisner, you name it! There are soooo many books and we had a ton of fun. We hope you do too. Grab a mulled wine, some mince pies and hell of a lot of Christmas cheer.

This and all the usual comics chat on the only comics podcast to make a list, check it twice…

That Comic Smell!

Follow us on Twitter & Instagram @thatcomicsmell
Get us on…
Soundcloud: tinyurl.com/y8vzeh3c
Spotify: tinyurl.com/y2qtu2cs
YouTube: tinyurl.com/yajnxcno
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/hwbqxab
Podbean: tinyurl.com/yxvecykj
and most places you find podcasts.

Don’t forget to Like, Share, Subscribe, Rate & Review.

Thanks again for listening and supporting the podcast

Graphic Borders: Latino comic books past, present and future (Frederick Luis Aldama, Christopher Gonzalez)
Words for Pictures: The Art and Business of writing comics and graphic novels (Brian Michael Bendis)
Eisner/Miller (Interview Conducted by Charles Brownstein)
Will Eisner's Shop Talk (Will Eisner)
Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books (Jean-Paul Galbilliet)
How Comics Work (Dave Gibbons, Tim Pilcher)
The International Book of comics (Denis Gifford)
1001 Comics you must read before you Die (Paul Gravett, ed.)
The New Comics (Gary Groth, Robert Flore, eds.)
Marvel Museum: The Story of the Comics (Ned Hartley)
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (Sean Howe)
Understanding Comics (Scott McCloud)
The Supergirl: Fashion Feminism, Fantasty and the History of Comic Book Heroines (Mike Madrid)
Looking for Calvin and Hobbes (Nevin Martell)
Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave! (Pat Mills)
From Hell Companion (Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell)
Super Gods (Grant Morrison)
Art out of time: Unknown comic visionaries, 1900-1969 (Dan Nadel, ed.)
The Penguin book of Comics (George Perry, Alan Alridge)
Stan Lee: The Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Jordan Raphael, Tom Spurgeon)
Tales to Astonish (Ronin Ro)
Adult Comics: An Introduction (Roger Sabin)
Comic Book Hero (Barrie Tomlinson)
McSweeneys 13: The Comics issue (Chris Ware, ed.)
The Caped Crusade: Batman and the rise of Nerd Culture (Glen Weldon)
Peter Bagge Conversations (Kent Worcester)

COMICS FOR THE APOCALYPSE

I was the guest on Samuel George London's Comics for the Apocalypse podcast lately.

A great idea for a podcast; a kind of Desert Island Discs for comics.

Have a listen here.

SPOILERS!
Here are the comics I talked about:
The Cute Manifesto - James Kochalka; Eagle - Ian Kennedy; From Hell - Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell; Hate - Peter Bagge; The Incredible Hulk Pocketbook - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko; Perry Bible Fellowship - Nick Gurewitch; Rosalie Lightning - Tom Hart; Star Wars Weekly #15 - Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin.

THAT COMIC SMELL 52: 90s comics

The latest episode is online now.
From the web:

“Get ready to see some serious shit”
Well, well. We hit the 90s. What folks term as the absolute dregs of comics. The decade that killed comics, but is it that simple? Of course not. We wouldn’t have almost 2 hours worth of chat if that was the case. We go to show you that the 90s was filled with absolute gems and that, that nostalgia hit is going to come at you thick and fast.
So strap yourself in and get ready. There is going to be some blasts from the past hurtling their way towards you.
This and all the usual comics (and snacks) chat on the only comics podcast to come live from the Liefeld space ship…
That Comic Smell!
Follow us on Twitter & Instagram @thatcomicsmell
Get us on…

Soundcloud: tinyurl.com/y8vzeh3c
Spotify: tinyurl.com/y2qtu2cs
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/hwbqxab
Podbean: tinyurl.com/yxvecykj

and most places you find podcasts.

Don’t forget to Like, Share, Subscribe, Rate & Review.
Thanks again for listening and supporting the podcast

300 (Frank Miller, Lynn Varley)
Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo)
Aliens: Hive (Jerry Prosser, Kelley Jones)
Amazing Spider-man #388 (David Michelinie, Mark Bagley)
Batman (Doug Moench, Kelley Jones)
Batman Adventures (Various)
Battle Angel Alita (Yukito Kishiro)
Bone (Jeff Smith)
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs: Time in Overdrive (Mark Schultz)
Captain America (Mark Gruenwald, Rik Levins)
Concrete (Paul Chadwick)
Daredevil: Guardian Devil (Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada)
Deadpool (Fabian Nicieza, Mark Waid, Joe Madureira, Lee Weeks)
Death Of Superman (Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson)
Dragon Lives (Peter Quinones, Ron Lim)
Fleener (Mary Fleener)
Frank: Real Pa (Jim Woodring)
From Hell (Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell)
Give Me Liberty (Frank Miller Dave Gibbons)
Hate (Peter Bagge)
Hellblazer (Garth Ennis, William Simpson)
Hellboy (Mike Mignola)
Hulk #474 (Joe Casey, Javier Pulido)
Hulk: Future Imperfect (Peter David, George Pérez)
Infinity Gauntlet (Jim Starlin, George Pérez, Ron Lim)
Kingdom Come (Alex Ross, Mark Waid)
Long Halloween (Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale)
Madman (Mike Allred, Laura Allred)
Manga Mania (Magazine)
Marvels (Alex Ross, Kurt Busiek)
The Mask (John Arcudi, Doug Mahnke)
Sin City (Frank Miller)
Spider-man 2099 (Peter David, Rick Leonardi)
Spider-man (Todd Macfarlane)
Spider-man: Carnage & Venom (David Mechelinie, Mark Bagley)
Star Wars: Dark Empire (Cam Kennedy, Tom Veitch)
X-Force (Rob Liefeld)
X-Men (Jim Lee, Chris Claremont)
X-men Unlimited (John Francis Moore, Paul Smith)
Yeah! (Gilbert Hernandez, Peter Bagge)"

THAT COMIC SMELL #50 - Creator Conversation With... David Robertson

The latest podcast is online now.

From the web:

“My next guest has starred in such things as…”
This is a new stage in evolution for TCSPod. A new type of episode in which Tom sits down with creators and asks them questions to find out a little more about the creators themselves. A bit more than just their amazing work. We all love comic creators but let’s be honest, we are all rather nosey and would love to find out about them. This is the prime opportunity.
The first guest keeps it all familiar by being our very own, Fred Egg Comics himself, David Robertson. Come take a journey through some of David’s other hobbies, his music tastes, thoughts on ghosts and so much more.
This and all the usual comics chat on the only comics podcast to totally not rip off Richard Herring’s emergency questions. Not in the slightest…
That Comic Smell!
Get us on…
Soundcloud: tinyurl.com/y8vzeh3c
Spotify: tinyurl.com/y2qtu2cs 
YouTube: tinyurl.com/yajnxcno
iTunes: tinyurl.com/hwbqxab 
Podbean: tinyurl.com/yxvecykj 
and most places you find podcasts."

THAT COMIC SMELL 31: Happy 80th, Supes!

The new episode of That Comic Smell is now online. A discussion on Superman!

Have a listen at iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube.

From the web:
"*Cue the John Williams Superman Intro Music*
Is it a bird? Is it a Plane? No! It’s that smelly podcast.
Welcome folks to That Comic Smell Podcast. Yes, this time we are talking Superman and all because this year the big boy in blue and red turned 80! Can you believe it? Doesn’t look a day over 25.
We discuss our first experiences with him, the movies and all things Supes.
This and all the usual comics chat on the only comics podcast that can leap tall buildings in a single bound and run faster than a speeding bullet!
That Comic Smell!
Here are some of the titles mentioned:
Superman Pocketbook No14
Supermobile Issue of Superman
Superman Annual 1980 (Various)
Action Comics: Millennium Edition (Various)
Superman III Adaption (Cary Bates, Sal Amendola, Ben Oda)
Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Pérez)
Superman War of the Worlds (Roy Thomas, Michael Lark)
The Man of Steel (John Byrne, Dick Giordano)
Action Comics Annual 1987: Cry Vampire (John Byrne, Arthur Adams, Dick Giordano)
Red Son (Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, Killan Plunkett, Andrew Robinson, Walden Wong)
All-star Superman (Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jamie Grant)
Superman vs Muhammad Ali (Dennis O'Neil, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Terry Austin)
The Death of Superman (Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern, Jerry Ordway, Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice)
World Without Superman ( Louise Simonson, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Karl Kesel, Roger Stern Walter Simonson, Tom Grummett, Jon Bogdanove )
Superman: Transformed (Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Ron Frenz, Ron Lim, Karl Kesel)
Superman: Peace on Earth (Paul Dini, Alex Ross)"

THAT COMIC SMELL GUEST POST: Tom Stewart

For a few weeks, I'm running a series of guest posts from my friends over at That Comic Smell podcast. The pieces are any length, style, whatever. The only brief I gave was to write something about comics. First up is Tom Stewart.

Dear comics,

I think it’s about high time you and me sat down for a little chat. Don’t worry I won’t take up too much of your time. Before you ask, yes I have been fine. No I haven’t had time to read any of your vast back catalogues as of recent. I’m still trying to plough my way through “The Stand” which is taking approximately 100 years. I’m sure you will still be there when I finish up though.

Enough about me, let’s talk about you. Haven’t you been a busy lot recently? Not only have all of your medium been taken and adapted into various films and TV Shows (Some good. Some utter shit) but your vast array of genres, subject matter and styles are getting bigger and bigger by the day. No your bum doesn’t look big on that shelf, although some of your works do come in all shapes and sizes. I’m just getting a bit shocked at how far you have come over the years. The snowball that is comics (you) shows no signs of stopping either. With the sheer enormity of comic conventions cropping up these days, also the size that some of them have become is crazy!! It almost seems like you’re a respected art form. Yet... are you?

As far as I am aware, whenever I mention you to people I still get “oh, that thing about superheroes. Isn’t that a bit kiddy” I honestly thought that with the popularity of the superheroes these days that, that kind of thing wouldn’t matter. It’s funny as well seeing as how the folks that come away with such phrases are usually the first people to sprout things like “Have you seen the new Avengers?” or “Spoder-min looks AWESOME doesn’t it?” and that’s the problem isn’t it? People only take you seriously when it suits them. They don’t see you as this platform for artists and writers to get down some of the most gutting punching and heart wrenching philosophical/political ideologies on paper in an understandable manner by accompanying it with diagrams and detailed references. To show how really fucked up the world can be or similarly how their world can be. To show the most romantic feelings ever conveyed or the most evil even one person can commit. The power to tell someone’s entire life and have it beautifully rendered also. To have 2 worlds colliding in perfect synchronicity on paper. Writing and pictures. I’ve got to say, you do one hell of a good job. These folks don’t understand you the way we do. By “We” I of course mean your fans. Now stop blushing, you know you have a massive fan base out there. I mean hell, there is an entire industry of incredible writers and artists that have worked with you over the years, there’s no need to modest. Stand proud. You have worked with some of the best. Alan Moore, Frank Quitely, Moebius, Frank Miller, Robert Crumb, Derf Backderf, Scott Snyder, Jack “The King” Kirby, Stan “The Man” Lee, Bill Finger, Steve Ditko, Mike Allred, to name but a few. These folks have been eager to work with you too. You have a lot to be proud of. So why do you reckon the stigma still?

Maybe it’s that when you put pictures with words people think that it lacks intelligence. Maybe that you lack imagination, even though I can’t think of anything more imaginative than the majority of the stories to come out of your being. Who knows?

All I know is, those folks are missing out.

It’s so good catching up with you. I know you don’t get a lot of time due to the aforementioned rate in which you are growing. Yet, the more you grow, the more I feel we all have time to catch up with you.

I best let you get off though. You’ve got more minds to mould and melt. I’m sure we will sit down and have another one of these catch up’s soon. There are lots more we need to discuss in the future.

Take care.

Tom

You can listen to That Comic Smell at Youtube, Soundcloud and iTunes.

MOORE FOUR

It’s been a good year so far regarding Alan Moore related work. Here are books and comics I’ve read concerning and/or written by Moore.

First up, I was lucky enough to be given Lance Parkin’s biography Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore. It’s quite in depth and there’s loads I hadn’t seen before, including a school photo and good insight into Moore’s affiliation with and empathy for 1970s art labs. Parkin is an admirer of Moore, which came across in his previous Essential Guide, and here too. Parkin treads a delicate line between admiration and criticism though. There are many memorable passages here, because Moore seems such an uncompromising figure. For example, his continued defiantly naïve perspective on what the relationship between publisher and artist  should be, signing less than perfect deals on his ABC characters, and up to his current Top Shelf contract, which also relies on trusting that the company is made up of (by his definition) decent people.

Another good read was Eddie Campbell’s From Hell Companion. I bought this book last year, read a bit and then was inspired to finish it after the Parkin biography. It presents excerpts from the script interspersed with commentary from Campbell. There is some terrific writing from Moore here. To paraphrase Campbell, the text that usually only the artist would read. What is very striking almost right from the beginning is Campbell’s confidence in what he is doing. He is in no way slavish to Moore’s script. When Moore writes of and in his own script, “None of this rambling junk is sacred”, Campbell takes that on board. Throughout we see Campbell do different layouts than suggested by Moore, who famously gives detailed instruction to artists and says that if something “would work better another way then just go ahead and do it”. This book contains the best evidence I’ve seen of the artist doing something else. Perhaps it’s because Campbell is such a strong authorial voice in his own right, with all his autobiographical and Bacchus comics behind him. Campbell’s a great writer too, with a hilarious family table story concerning “Annie and Eddy”. This book was terrific, and gives an insight into the two talented men who made From Hell. 

The collected BoJeffries Saga has finally appeared. This started back in the 1980s as instalments in Warrior. The art by Steve Parkhouse is very good. His style is perfect for this story; it’s homely, caricaturesque, and slightly skewed and bizarre. Over thirty plus years the BoJeffries stories have been published under various houses, and Parkhouse’s convention of signing with a year attached is slightly distracting, but easily ignored. For example the first chapter is Parkhouse, 85, the second Parkhouse 82, etc. Parkhouse’s introduction is a bit sad, with his statement that “at some point in my career I had forgotten what it was like to have fun with drawing”, which is a shame for him. But certainly in these stories, possibly inspired by the fact that “the end result has always made me laugh”, his artwork is lively and full of fun.

Finally I’ve read the latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen spin off Nemo: Roses of Berlin. Boy, It’s a delight to see these come around periodically. The fantastic cityscapes and mention of Rotwang clued me in to the fact that we are in Metropolis land here. Very exciting to see the False Maria robot as I love that movie so much (and yes, it’s the 1980s edit that I like, with the Giorgio Moroder soundtrack featuring Jon Anderson, Adam Ant, etc). I won’t comment on the ending, but suffice to say, one should not mess with Captain Nemo. A very enjoyable comic, but can we get Kevin O’Neill cloned? Because I miss Marshal Law. 

I’m now looking forward to the third Nemo comic, the fourth League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the sequel to Neonomicon. And I still haven’t read Fashion Beast yet!

PS. Check out Moore’s interesting history of comics from the “Occupy Comics” series. Well worth a read.

DUMP #2 GUEST ARTIST INTERVIEW: STEPHEN BOYD

Beginning today is a series of mini-interviews with the guest  artists who are featured in Dump #2. First up is Stephen Boyd…

DR: Have you always been interested in comics?

SB: Yes.....and no. I grew up with Oor Wullie, The Broons (in Scotland it's kind of mandatory to read these as a kid and it's ok not to grow out of them), The Beano all those DC Thomson staples. Then I discovered Starblazer comics and would pick them up if the cover grabbed me, which was often because I love sci-fi.

I used to occasionally pick up The Eagle and I bought 2000AD religiously. In my teens I really enjoyed stuff like Crisis, Strip and Toxic (while they lasted). I read The Sandman, Alan Moore and Akira as a student and then I got bored of comics. I'd look at what was made available to me in deepest darkest Dundee, but it all seemed a bit silly. Except for Maus, which blew me away, but as far as I was aware that was a one of a kind blip, so my interest in comics dried up for a few years. And then someone introduced me to Jaques Tardi's 'It was the war of the trenches' when it was released by Fantagraphics and that opened up a whole new world of comics that I'd been missing for all these years. I’ve been pretty much catching up since.

DR: You’re welcome. What had been your experience in making comics yourself before your contribution to Dump?

SB: It's actually been quite limited. I drew comics when I was a kid, silly little stick figures acting out jokes, but what 6-10 year old didn't? This carried on into my teens, mostly Viz knock offs and 2000AD inspired nonsense. I'd always liked drawing and did art at higher level but found the teachers at my school downright unhelpful, particularly if you wanted to follow a more graphic or comic bookish path. I left school with 2 highers, English and Art and always said I was only ever qualified to write and draw my own comics yet never got round to doing it. I still kept a hand in at the drawing, just as a hobby, while I pursued other interests, but the nearest I got to anything comics related was trying to learn to draw in the manga style. And that was it till my mid 30s. The relationship I was in at the time broke up and I found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands so I drew to stop my brain thinking. That drawing became the beginnings of a few comics that I never got round to finishing but had potential if I possessed anything amounting to an attention span. Of course, you and I worked together in the real world at this point and you saw much of the work I was doing, and did best at encouraging me to continue working on it. I intend to finish them off someday in the future or maybe start something else but I'm so busy just now with my nurse training. I still draw and my style has taken on a quicker, more sketch like immediacy, partly because I need to work in a hurry because life's so damned busy, partly so I can finish a piece before my attention span drifts off again and partly because I'm unashamedly trying to draw like Eddie Campbell.

DR: How’s the music going?

SB: Slowly, but well. I'm slowly putting another EP together but who knows when it'll be ready. Again its finding the time to record at the moment. I get a lot of false starts the way I make music. I write as I record so I never have that much of a notion of a finished piece at the beginning. I prefer it that way, much more exciting and organic. I like the chance to experiment while creating and it's hard to do that with too many pre-conceived ideas before starting. The more you prepare beforehand the less honest it gets I feel. You might have found that with your story 'Everything' I'm guessing. 

 

Anyhoo, I'm a big fan of the ethos of Sister Corita Kent, a nun who taught art and made posters in LA during the 1940s and all the way through to the 60s. She wrote these 10 rules for her schools art department to promote creativity  and includes gems such as 'Rule 4 - Consider everything as an experiment' and 'Rule 6 - Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail. There's only make'. I like that idea. Sure it may result in creating something self-indulgent, but to a degree the very act of creating and putting it out there for others to see or hear is self-indulgent and I have no problem with that. My only problem just now is not following Rule 7 enough ‘The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things’.

DR: I suggest your next recording session should be done live with a bass player and drummer.

SB: I’m game for that. It’s one of the things you miss not being in an actual ‘band’, that spontaneity of jamming, the one time, never to be repeated performance. I listen to a band like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and think one person couldn’t possibly create that, music like that can only be made by a collective of musicians with a long enough runway but then you hear Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells knowing that it’s all the work of one bloke with a lot of time and dedication spent on his craft. There’s more than one way to do these things and I’d like to try them all out and see the end product of each of the different processes, for better or worse. As the good sister said, ‘Nothing is a mistake’.

DR: OK, let’s record our next jam then.

Unlike the other stories in Dump where I gave the artists a script, kind of, more exactly a page layout with dialogue, doodles and stage directions, I wrote Dream of Being You on top of your existing page of art. How was it seeing the finished page? Imagine I’m not me and answer truthfully.

SB: It would be an understatement to say that I was really pleased with it. It was the first time I'd ever seen anything of mine in print and I showed it to everyone I knew saying how I was technically a published comic book artist. Process wise, it was an odd way of doing the strip but I'd definitely do it again. I remember getting the e-mail to draw a page and thinking I'd love to but I just don't have the time. I had a collection of single page efforts and offered you your pick of those. Originally it was going to go in unchanged but then you asked if you could rewrite over it Marvel style (which I reckon you had planned to do all along) which I had no problem with. My story was OK but nothing special and certainly not something I was emotionally invested in. I much prefer what you did with it.

DR: I guess I have to answer your gentle accusation. When I took your page I was originally going to run it as it was. As I got closer to publication though, it did start to niggle at me that I had written everything in the comic except your page. It felt like your story was an oddity in there. It occurred to me that I could write on it, if you were OK with it. So no, I hadn’t planned it all along. 

Anyway, just to confirm: Can we expect to see more comics from you in the future?

SB: Sorry about the cheeky wee quip, I have absolutely no doubt in your intentions and to be fair I would have felt the same niggle for exactly the same reasons. I get very like that with music hence my short lifespan in most of the bands I've been a part of. And as I said, your story was far better.

Now, to answer your question. I'd like to think there would be more comics out there with my grubby paw prints on them in some way in the future but who knows. I did consider starting a blog that was just single strips or instalments of stories, like you did with Berserkotron, and perhaps that will still come to something, perhaps not. What I can say is that there will definitely be another E.P. release by The quietest page before any future comics related work.

You can have a listen to Stephen’s music at http://thequietestpage.bandcamp.com/ and https://soundcloud.com/itsred

WILD SPACE

I’ve been looking forward to this book for months. It’s a collection of odds and ends.

Back in the 70s and 80s Marvel UK reprinted Marvel US comics. They generally did so in black and white on a weekly basis instead of monthly, and hence used up more of the material than was being produced.  For Spider-Man and the Hulk and the other heroes, there was a ten year backlog of comics, and so this wasn’t going to cause a problem any time soon. For Star Wars though, there was a problem, and so Carmine Infantino got to work pencilling, with two inkers alternating to get the stuff produced more quickly. The result was that uniquely, Star Wars Weekly was printing the stories before they were appearing in the US comics. The Marvel US comics are the reprints.

By the time The Empire Strikes Back movie was released in 1980, there were a good few stories that were just dropped from the Marvel US schedule. I didn’t realise the extent , and was surprised that so many are therefore seen as obscure.

Also from Marvel UK are a series of original comics produced in the UK by creators such as Alan Davis, Alan Moore, Steve Moore, John Stokes, etc. Some of these were already reprinted in the 1990s by Dark Horse in colour, and are presented as such here. With these stories, original covers like this one by Alan Davis aren’t included in the book.

A cheeky thing to note is that although Dark Horse are not hiding altogether that these are Marvel Comics, they have gone to the trouble of whiting out “Stan Lee Presents…” from the start of every chapter and replacing it with “Lucasfilm Presents…”

Of note too are Blackthorne’s 3D comics, published between the 1986 cancellation of Marvel Star Wars and the 1991 Dark Horse series starting up. All three are here, starting with the “Tenth anniversary” #1. The 3D effects have been done away with, and it’s nice to look at these for the first time in 25 years without straining my eyes. I do miss the effect Blackthorne created for the camouflage net on these pages though.

A lot of nice curiosities here, nice to have the Pizzazz magazine stories by Howard Chaykin and Tony Dezuniga, and Gary Erskine’s art is good clean fun too.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART: MOORE/O'NEILL


The new edition of The International Journal of Comic Art is out now. It has an article by myself in it. A report on a talk given by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, discussing their careers and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

More details can be found here.

ALAN MOORE ON LIBRARIES

THE TENTH CIRCLE


Flicking through Judi Picoult's The Tenth Circle I saw these comics pages:



Well, that's a surprise. Not what I would have expected. A character in this book is a comic book artist, and there are examples of his work throughout.



The art is by Dustin Weaver, who has drawn Star Wars and X-Men comics. He seems to have been inspired by the 2003 Hulk movie in this work. Especially the panel in the middle of the page with the guy looking in the mirror, which is very like Eric Bana in the trailer.

It would seem that Picoult has done some research into comics fandom, referencing Wizard magazine and Lying in the Gutters. She has some knowledge, and so comes up with some hilarious scenarios, my favourite being Alan Moore, Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman all hanging out together at a deli.

You maybe know all this anyway! The book was a bestseller in 2006.

COMIC HEROES 4

About a year ago I was in a newsagents and spied a magazine sealed in a cardboard packet called Comic...something or other. I couldn’t make it out at first. I was definitely intrigued though, of course. When I looked more closely, I saw it was called SFX Presents Comic Heroes. Hmm. On the front were three movie heroes – the 2002 Spider-Man, 2008 Iron Man and another one I can’t remember. SFX is a glossy sci-fi magazine that also brings out other specials, along the lines of SFX Presents Vampires and things of that nature. So it seemed that this was their superhero movies one. I didn’t want to buy that, and certainly not for £8 without being able to look over the thing.

Months later I saw another Comic Heroes. This one had a picture of a recent incarnation of Captain America (possibly by Bryan Hitch), who is soon to be in his own movie. Cap is currently alive again after being dead, or missing, or not called Captain America any more, or no longer wearing the suit, or someone else is Captain America, or something.

By the time I saw a third edition, it had Alan Moore on front being interviewed. The taglines were (paraphrasing) "I don’t like the movies they make of my comics" and "I’m giving up comics". Moore is always an interesting interview subject, but neither idea/headline is particulary new. Again I wasn't going to buy this without seeing more.

When I was at a comics event in Edinburgh last Summer, someone mentioned Comic Heroes. Did I buy it? No. The Eddie Campbell comic inside was great.

Pardon?

I spent the next couple of weeks trying to find issue three to no avail. The Eddie Campbell bit was in a preview comic inside the sealed pack called “Sidekick” (groan).

It seemed the comic was not solely about superhero movies with a smattering of comics related material. It is a bona fide comics magazine on sale in regular newsagents. Bravo.

So I picked up the latest last week. The packet has an image from the forthcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, and the cover itself features the Nautilis from that series. Nice preview pages too and a Kevin O’Neill interview. Paul Gravett is involved, with an article on Moebius. Dandy editor Craig Graham talks about the recent revamp. Dez Skinn writes about Doctor Who comics. Lew Stringer writes about British superheroes. Warren Ellis, Walt Simonson and others feature. The bias is definitely on US superhero comics, with some other genres covered. Nothing is particularly in-depth, but it’s all good fun.

It’s funny how the packaging gave me the wrong idea. Maybe they really should stop sealing it shut.

I’ll be picking it up from now on. I might even subscribe.