I’ve posted on here a number of times about enjoying the mixed-media graphic novel The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore, an online comic which uses the multimedia abilities of the web to incorporate archive footage, live action, music and photography along with comics panels as it depicts Jonas Moore (Bond actor Colin Salmon and his svelte voice), a sentient programme in a vast online gaming system which keeps the populace of a world where the British Empire never fell quite and subdued, plugged into endless virtual worlds. I liked the ‘home-made’ approach Howard Webster was taking which had echoes of the old punk-era ethos of ‘do it yourself’, much of it being put together on a laptop in a coffee shop, I liked the way instead of simply putting traditional comics frames on a screen it decided to exploit the different media available online and I loved the fact that the site invited readers to interact with it, to download clips and art, remix them and create their own story segments or even music videos.

As well as being an interesting approach I thought it was also a canny move by someone pretty media savvy, generating a lot of interest and subsequent hits on the site as it developed. Now it looks like it has paid off with MGM taking note and stepping in to option Jonas Moore with an eye to developing it as a full TV series. The studio is now looking to develop the concept with other programme makers in the UK and US, believing that the story would be an “exciting one for worldwide audiences.” I know, I know, optioned is a long way from an actual commissioned full series, but given the high profile and popularity of both science fiction and comics-based works right now I’d imagine this is the sort of property MGM would want to try and move on fairly quickly and, given how digital technology has made realistic effects more affordable it needn’t be a budget-buster to make (especially given how much Howard and co have managed on a beg, borrow or steal approach already). Early days so far, so no word on dates, script writers or cast, but I would imagine they’d want to secure Colin for the lead role in the TV version too, surely? Anyway, big congratulations to all at Factory Publishing; more as we hear it.

Tom Cruise and Sam Raimi are currently developing Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ DC series Sleeper for a movie and potentially even a film franchise. Cruise is involved in developing the film with Raimi but he may also star in it as well. Sleeper saw Criminal creators Brubaker and Phillips abandon their hard-edged drama for slapstick in this loving comics adaptation of the 1970s Woody Allen comedy film. Oh, okay, it didn;t really - actually it was about special operative Holden Carver, an agent who is impervious to pain after being attached to an alien device, sent in undercover as a sleeper agent into the villainous organisation lead by Tao from WildC.A.T.s, where, as well as masquerading as a villain his life is further complicated by falling for another of Tao’s operatives while trying to work out what side of the fence he really should be on. (via Hollywood Reporter)

The continuing fall-out from the Danish Muhammad cartoons has rumbled on and on around the world in a variety of ways, from the predictable (outraged flag burners, threats to cartoonists) to the unexpected (a fair old ding dong in Canada over human rights laws and freedom of expression). But now its had a more unusual consequence - Danish stand-up comic Omar Marzouk has written and will appear in a new sitcom entitled The Terror Cell for Danish TV. The show, which Omar says owes a lot of inspiration to anarchic 80s Brit cult comedy The Young Ones, features a group of dedicated but utterly inept would-be terrorists and an elderly neighbour who is convinced the Second World War is still going and doesn’t shop the boys because she assumes they are fighting Nazis. The programme has received European funding as part of a drive for public service broadcasting dealing with social issues and Omar, who has actually performed stand-up in Tel-Aviv, says the while its main aim is to entertain its also about using laughter to defuse the tension between Muslim communities and other Danes in the wake of recent events, which isn’t a bad thing to do. Unfortunately some people on all sides of the divide appear to have had a sense of humour bypass operation, I think, but good luck with it. (source: the New York Times)

Antonio Altarriba’s Pink Lotus, an unauthorised Tintin story which sees the boy detective now in his 30s, undergoing a midlife crisis and including scenes of graphic sex, has, unsurprisingly, been withdrawn by the Spanish publisher Edicions de Ponent after the Hergé estate brought its legal muscle to bear. Its understandable that a publisher would protect its copyrighted character, especially one popular with younger readers, from being reworked without permission, particularly with very adult themes. But on the other hand, given so many of us - including writers - have grown up with these characters I can understand the compulsion to explore different, more adult interpretations of them. Still, given how swifty Hergé’s estate is to protect their interests in his work I can’t help but wonder what made Edicions de Ponent think they wouldn’t face an immediate legal challenge over Pink Lotus?

(cover to Tintín y el Loto Rosa/the Pink Lotus, published by Edicions de Ponent)

Elsewhere in the Guardian Jean Hannah Edelstein uses the news as a starting point to briefly discuss the thorny issue of sexuality in children’s literature and also opening her mind to more adult graphic storytelling after a visit to a Belgian BD shop. Although I’d take issue with her closing comments about adult comics being “typically pornographic” and “devoted to far more lurid and scurrilous tales.” While there are certainly plenty of works that could fit that bill - Manara, anyone, or is he erotica and not pornography? - the entire medium of comics for mature readers isn’t “typically pornographic”. Perhaps those were just the books Jean found herself drawn to in Brussels or perhaps such comments just sound sexier in a column.

The Times’ Michael Moran reports in his regular Blockbuster Buzz column on a recent Q&A with Dave Gibbons he attended at the BFI. Dave was there principally to talk about his forthcoming book Watching the Watchmen, which is due this autumn in both a regular hardcover and a Previews exclusive edition, but of course the discussion also turned to the film version, with Dave confirming he had seen a nearly 3-hour very rough cut of the film which he described as “very sexy, very violent.” Michael also comments that there was a special treat for those assembled when a ten minute ’super trailer’ from the film, complete with an orchestral score, was shown, which he described thus: “On the big screen the action is a colossal adrenalin rush and level of attention to detail is breathtaking.” Its all a huge tease to get us all excited for something not due for months and months of course. And its working.

CBR reports on an ongoing legal tussle between Fox and Warner Brothers over the film adaptation of the Watchmen, with Fox citing various production deals going back to the 90s and old contracts with producers who had obtained certain rights such as distribution which have, so the argument goes, reverted to Fox. A judge has refused Warner’s move to have a legal challenge by Fox dismissed; obviously the legal back and forth will continue and things could change over coming months, but if not Warner’s could potentially see a situation where rivals Fox are entitled to a slice of the profits from Watchmen. Only one thing can be sure in a case like this - the high-price Hollywood lawyers will be the ultimate winners, raking it in from both sides.

Boing Boing has a link to this lovely bit of quilt making (there’s something I never thought I’d be mentioned on here!) by a group of Terry Pratchett fans. The Ankh Morpork Knitter’s Guild have been working on the Pratchett Afghan quilt, or Pratchgan as it has been dubbed, for some time - the finished version was given to Terry at the weekend while he was at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. What a brilliant piece of work, I’d be delighted to curl up all toasty under that this winter (and given the promised domestic fuel bill hikes it might be very practical too!). I wonder if we could persuade them to do a Transmetropolitan one for Warren Ellis next? More details on the Ramblings of a Yarn Junkie blog and plenty more pics on the Pratchgan Flickr stream.

Elsewhere on the BBC site Terry talks about living day to day with Alzheimer’s and how it affects his life and his writing: “I type badly - if it wasn’t for my loss of typing ability, I might doubt the fact that I have Alzheimer’s. It’s now hunt and peck, and there will be a moment sometimes when the letter A just totally vanishes and I don’t quite know what happens. It’s as if the keyboard closes up and the letter A is not there anymore. Then I’ll blink a few times and then the letter A comes back.”

Despite this the fantastically popular author remains fairly upbeat in the face of this awful affliction and comments that his family have noticed a big difference in him due to medication - simple, everyday matters like doing the buttons up on a shirt that most of us would take for granted had become difficult, now he’s doing it again. However, Terry also spoke out (again on the BBC, which has a clip of him from Panorama) on the issue of medication, criticising the NHS’s decision to limit the use of Aricet, which he referred to as an insult to sufferers, pointing out his literary success meant he had the means to be able to pay for his own doses when the Health Service would not, but most people were not going to be in that position: “Alzheimer’s scares people and at four o’clock in the morning it scares me, and Aricept is well worth having for the relief that it brings.” You can find out more information via the Alzheimer’s Research Trust site (where you can also find out how to make a donation if you wish) and the grass-roots, fan-based Match It For Pratchett is still taking donations from readers to try and raise a sum equivalent to the donation Terry himself made to Alzheimer’s research.

Our hero may have crashed to Earth - metaphorically and literally - but although he’s down, Sam isn’t out:

(click the pic to visit full-size version and the complete archive of Darryl’s previous Super-Sam and John-of-the-night strips. Art ©2008 Darryl Cunningham; if you want permission to reproduce any part of it you should ask him)

Laika

by Nick Abadzis

First Second

Nick Abadzis has been working away for many years as a cartoonist yet has never really had that high a profile. I first met his work in Deadline magazine with the excellent Hugo Tate, which quickly evolved from a crude, almost stick like illustration style single page strip into something far deeper, far more involved and a far richer comic altogether which eventually resulted in the epic (and sadly unavailable in collected form right now) Hugo Tate in America. This showcased the major talent that would surely anyday be recognised some time soon.

But that was many years ago now and since then there’s been very little Abadzis to go around. But finally, back in 2007 came the announcement of Laika. A major new project from Abadzis at last. But a strange choice of subject perhaps? A major new graphic novel about a dog? How much mileage can one get from a dog, even one as famous as the first dog in space? Luckily, thanks to Abadzis’ talent and obvious love of his subject, the answer to that one is easy. Laika is an incredibly good read, and far, far more than a dog’s tale. It’s a tale of science, of achievement, of bravery, of loss, sacrifice and above all of hope and love. Abadzis has seamlessly blended fiction and fact all through the tale to produce something that rings so true that you can feel it becoming the official version of events in your head. With Laika, Abadzis does what only the best fictions manage and rewrites reality to create something genuinely mythic.

The book tells three main stories; Korolev, scientist, engineer, architect of Russia’s space program. Yelana, the lab tech responsible for looking after Laika. And Laika, little Laika, so desperate to please, so wanting to do well, a perfect Russian cosmonaut taking step after step uneeringly to her death. Each character is written with depth and feeling, lending a real emotional core to a time in history where the world suddenly altered forever. We see the triumph against a climate of fear and suspicion for the scientists, we see Yelana’s bond with Laika develop to become so strong that we feel her intense pain and grief in the end. And more than anything we see the incredible life and journey of little Laika. Abadzis perfectly captures what we all assume to be the prevailing spirit of the age, both on a worldwide scale and in the intense personal and professional lives of all involved, both human and canine.

(Good dog Laika. Just part of the training she went through. Art from Laika (c) Nick Abadzis. Published 1st Second)

And the art? It’s equal to the scale of the writing and the story. Abadzis has come an awful long way from his earliest strips of stick figure simplicity. Panel after panel, page after page of incredible storytelling that captures every nuance, every moment. Whether it’s the cold work of the engineers, the love of the lab tech for her charge or the details of Laika’s short, tragic and quite unbelievable life, Abadzis’ art manages to tell it all simply, effectively and memorably.

The pacing throughout the book slowly builds and builds from the planning and testing stages through to the final tragic launch. It’s done perfectly both in atory and artwork.

(Abadzis’ artwork from Laika, showing just how much emotional impact his art conveys when simply illustrating one small dog. (c) Nick Abadzis. Published 1st Second.)

Abadzis ends the book with a famous quote from Oleg Georgivitch Gazenko (The man responsible for Laika’s training and selection):

“The more time passes the more I’m sorry about it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog”

And that’s the terrible truth with Laika. It was a one way journey, necessitated through Khrushchev’s desire to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution with another propaganda victory to match that of Sputnik I. Yet Sputnik II’s little dog gave her life for little scientific advancement and a hollow propaganda victory that soon fell apart as the world questioned why she was sent up to die.

Laika’s a really excellent book that manages to tell us so much about this amazing time in our past and should act as a clarion call to us today that we owe it to ourselves to look up once more in wonder and ask ourselves why we’re not walking amongst the stars once more. As I wrote this review the news of NASA’s plan to return to the stars was being questioned purely on monetary grounds. But what is never mentioned is the absolute necessity of exploration as a means to discover more about us as a species, to give us dreams and aspirations. We should take to the stars with awe and wonder.We owe it to so many brave souls and we owe it to one small Russian dog.

Nick Abadzis has a website. He recently won a 2008 Eisner Award for Laika as best publication for teens. Congratulations obviously. He’s also the creator of the excellent Trial Of The Sober Dog, which is being serialised in The Times in the UK, but he’s posting it on his blog - episode 1 is here.

Richard Bruton read Laika and then sat outside gazing up for a while. It’s something we should all do more often.

Birmingham’s Sunday Mercury newspaper has picked up on the recently published Him & Her’s Smuggling Vacation, the comedy tale of two hopeless accidental drug smugglers and the nefarious gang of criminals hot on their tails:

You may recall that I reviewed it a while back and  thought it was a really good book indeed, funny, well told and with great artwork. They didn’t quite see it that way, prefering to do their best to start a nice little “Ban This Filth” style campaign.

There’s an online version of the story at the Mercury website and Jas Wilson has scanned a readable version of the print story in at his blog.

As could have been expected the local MP; Khalid Mahmood is shocked. (In fact, I seem to recall from my time living in Birmingham that Mr Mahmood was regularly shocked about anything in the headlines and frequently popped up in the press and the TV news to say so).

“I’m absolutely appalled,” he said. “I don’t want to stop former criminals writing about their experiences. But to actually put information into a book like this which will only increase the criminal knowledge of inmates is highly dangerous.Prison authorities should have stopped this from getting into the wrong hands.We don’t want our prisons turning into universities of crime.”

One hesitates to question Mr Mahmood’s knowledge of prison regimes, but aren’t prisons universities of crime already? How many studies have shown that young petty criminals are better served by non-custodial sentences as they tend to come out of prison far more educated in the ways of the criminal than they were before they were incarcerated. Does he honestly believe that this book gives them any more information than they could find out from any long serving drug dealer or common crim?

And isn’t the idea of banning books just because they happen to have details of criminality a rather unworkable and stupid idea? Where exactly does Mr Mahmood want to stop? Maybe Shakespeare next? After all, the Bard’s work has illegal and immoral details everywhere from the guide to poisoning in Hamlet to how to plot a King’s murder in Macbeth.

I thought we were meant to be educating prisoners to attempt to stop them being criminals? Isn’t reading part of this? Again, haven’t studies shown that any reading is better than none?

I’d like to think the major problems of society could be stopped by doing something as simple as preventing a few convicted criminals reading a comic book like Mr Mahmood seems to be trying to convince us, but I think the situation may just be a little more complicated than that and picking on a comic book seems to me to be just a convenient way to make a deliberately hysterical Sunday paper exclusive.

Paul Gravett reports from the Edinburgh International Book Festival where he was making an appearance himself last week and like me he seems to be fairly happy with the world’s biggest literary festival getting into comics and graphic novels, finds some time to take a brief look around the rest of Festival-time Edinburgh and also bumps into Edinburgh-based bestselling crime novelist Ian Rankin, who has a crime graphic novel for DC next year and a Hellblazer tale on the way and who will, Paul reveals, be a guest this winter at Comica.

BBC Radio 7 is airing Ben Aaronovitch’s adaptation of Terry Nation’s cult science fiction favourite Blake’s 7, with the first episode, in which Blake is en route to prison planet Cygnus Alpha after a trumped-up court case, airing yesterday with an hour-long episode, the first of three parts. The story has been updated a little - instead of a rigged show trial as a traitor the evil Federation has framed our hero as a child abuser, not something I recall from the original series. Of course, as most of us know, on the one-way trip to the prison planet they encounter a mysterious derelict, a vast starship of unknown design which Blake is press-ganged into investigating (nostalgic sigh - the original series’ effects may have been less believable than the Olympics opening ceremony but even so, wasn’t the Liberator a brilliant spaceship design?). There’s no direct link but if you go to BBC 7’s Listen Again feature and pick out Sunday you’ll see it at the 6pm slot where it should be available to listen to again for the next six days or so. The final part should air on the Bank Holiday weekend when according to the announcer there will be something of a Blake’s 7 celebration.

(The artist flanked by self portraits. Not just incredibly talented, but also a bit of a hottie. It’s really not fair.)

I have loved paul Pope’s work from the moment I saw it and everything he does, as far as I’m concerned, is certainly worth buying. He was responsible for one of the most wonderful comics I’ve read in many years: THB.

Sadly out of print and never collected THB was a hugely ambitious project from a young writer and artist, but it soon became obvious to those of us reading it that Pope was one of the most talented and original creators we’d seen in many years. I tried to summarise it recently as I was writing this and the best I could come up with was Jules Verne writing retro sci-fi with today’s technological awareness whilst on speed and acid.

Pope started releasing THB in 1994 through his own Horse Press label. And even this wasn’t his first published work; at the tender age of 22 he already had Sin Titulo and Ballad of Doctor Richardson under his belt. But THB is practically his signature work and was the point where I first saw his art in it’s wonderfully frenetic and stunning glory.

(THB & H.R. Watson. From THB (c) Paul Pope)

To give you an idea of the book I fell in love with;

THB is set on Mars at some point in the future. And what a future it is; a massive retro sci-fi world of strange machines/meks and even stranger personalities. The THB of the title is the bodyguard for the series’ heroine; one H R Watson, schoolgirl daughter of the most famous mek-industrialist. But THB is no ordinary 6 foot tall black clad semi-literate bodyguard. He’s either a small ball of rubberised material on HR’s person or, when activated, is a 7ft tall purple super bodyguard prototype. (THB is named by HR after the chemical structure he’s made of: Tri-Hydro-Bioxygenate).

THB and HR’s adventures carried on through various iterations of the THB comic over the next few years. It all gets ridiculously complicated very quickly, but luckily people care enough to make bibliographies.

(THB issues 1-5, published Oct 1994- Mar 1995. (c) Paul Pope)

What started off as a fairly normal 5 issues of nice fat comic wonder in 94/95 quickly began to get a little strange. We had reprints of the first issues with extra stuff put in and other stuff left out and worryingly we had a year of nothing at all, which was strange since Pope had been so prolific initially. But it seems Pope had simply gone away and let himself get bogged down with more ideas and plans than he could ever realistically see to fruition.

Instead of coming back in 1996 with the THB conclusion, he came back with a different THB story in a large format (think Guardian sized) comic; THB Parade. In addition to THB strips we started to see the other parts of Pope’s artistic nature come to the fore; obsessions with flair, hype, design, style, advertising and much, much more.

After that we were still no nearer getting the ending to THB we so desired, instead we had what seemed to be Pope’s annual comics appearance; P-City (1997), THB Circus (1998), Escapo (1999), THB: Mars Mightiest Mek (1999). All very good in and of themselves, but we really, really wanted to read the end of THB.

(Just a few of the books Pope did while we all waited and waited for the conclusion to THB. From left: THB Parade 1996, P-City Parade 1997 & THB Circus 1998.)

Finally in 2000, plans for THB 6 were announced. But even then, it wasn’t simple anymore. For starters, it wasn’t the end of the series. It also came out not as one comic but 4; THB 61, 6b, 6c, 6d. Each one a THB issue in itself, each with at least 76 pages in. And after that? Nothing. Finally in 2003 we had Giant THB 1 v.2. But even then, the thing hadn’t finished. And sadly, to this day, the whole thing remains unfinished, unavailable and uncollected. Although quite how he plans to ever collect it altogether is a mystery. Primarily because of the number of different formats and sizes, but also because of the huge amount of extra material in each comic, all of it a small part of what made THB a wonderful and original reading experience.

(THB issue 6. All 4 of them)

Which bring us to the one real criticism you could easily level at him, and something he admits himself. He seems to have some difficulty coming up with stories with a well defined beginning, middle and end. And in THB he seems to have taken that to a higher level, producing something with a sort of beginning, several middles and no real end yet.

But even though he’s never given us the ending we wanted on THB it doesn’t mean he’s been goofing off and he certainly hasn’t given up on comics. And although his later work has never had the same visceral excitement of seeing something new and original leap from the page for me, he has been giving us consistently wonderful stories.

His comeback book in 2001 was Heavy Liquid, a sci fi tale that was hugely disappointing at the time of it’s release. It just felt too close to THB for me. Too many of the situations, the style, the characters seemed to be directly lifted from THB and dropped into Heavy Liquid. Almost as if Pope figured it was a new start and the audience for this DC Vertigo book wouldn’t be aware of his earlier work.

What doesn’t help the book either is that Pope’s art, usually a constant delight is overwhelmed somewhat by the production process of the book. His fine lines and frantic brushwork is muted and constrained by the garish colour palette. But coming back to it, without the anticipation I had the first time round I’m pleasantly surprised by how well it’s held up. Yes, the production still grates but Pope the artist is obviously working hard here at becoming Pope the artist writer. The story holds up fairly well. It lacks the naiveté and wonderfully free flowing joy of life we saw in THB but it has it’s own style and is an entertaining read. It’s being re-released later in 2008 as a deluxe recoloured hardcover.

(Preliminary cover art to the re-released Heavy Liquid hardcover, due out from DC in September)

Pope’s latest major comics work was a really interesting foray into playing with the big characters of American superhero comics; Batman Year 100. This is Pope looking at an “Orwellian future Batman”. There were grumblings at the time that someone quite so left field shouldn’t be doing major Batman stories but as Pope himself points out:

“I cut my teeth with self-publishing but I also spent five years working for Japan’s largest manga publisher, learning my craft. There’s no reason a guy with an idiosyncratic style shouldn’t do Batman. There seems to be two mutually exclusive models for a cartoonist to follow, either you’re R. Crumb or you’re in the comics mainstream where you only care about the Fantastic Four”

And frankly after finally getting around to reading it in one huge, late night, rush I can only agree, it’s one of the best Batman stories I’ve ever read, right up there with killing Joke, Mad love, Dark Knight & Year One. With Batman Year 100 Pope does what every single great Batman writer has done before him; ignored all of the convoluted continuity tied to the character and simply decided to use the pure essence, the myth that is The Batman.

Back to Pope again for his summary of the book:

“The premise of my story is that if the original Batman issue, Detective Comics #27, came out in 1939, flash forward ahead 100 years to 2039. It’s far enough ahead to have a new global playing field. Nuclear war and the terrorist with a suitcase bomb have created a crisis for the superhero notion. How do you fight crime in a back alley with this huge international problem? I consider myself a science fiction writer, and I’ve always wanted to do a future Batman.”

The story itself is absolutely marvellous, a fantastical future Batman tale that owes a huge debt to Frank Miller’s work on Dark Knight (for concepts) and Year One (atmosphere and stylistic influence). But the pacing, the dynamic work on the book is a mix of Pope’s mash-up of Manga, European and US influences. It’s superhero meets pure Sci-Fi filtered through European and Japanese stylings. The story is breathlessly fast at times, it rattles along, plot points falling from the page. The art is a beautifully, stylish, scratchy mix of European expressionism and Manga action sequences. Possibly the best idea you can get about how good the book is would be to browse a copy in a shop and read the first 19 pages and just enjoy the beautifully paced sequence of Batman on the run. It’s a stunning start to a truly great book.

(Batman on the run from Batman: Year 100. Incredible action sequence to start a great book. Art by Paul Pope)

Pope’s artwork throughout his career is wondrously fluid, full of easy, vibrant strokes and packed with movement. You can just tell from the page he draws very fast, but not in a rushed, sloppy behind deadlines type of fast. This is a frenetic, too much to say and not enough time kind of fast. It makes his artwork some of the most frantic I’ve seen, almost bursting off the page with energy and ideas.

It’s obviously hugely influenced by Manga, but in a subtle way; no cutesy stylings, big eyes and obvious Manga trappings here, but the influence is obvious nonetheless. It’s in the pacing, the composition and the styling of his work. He studied in Japan, had work published by Kodansha and obviously has a huge love of all things Japanese, both comics and lifestyle. His characters and settings often have that ultra modern, yet retro futurist look of Tokyo about them, where hip young things wander neon doused streets with a few grand worth of cutting edge tech hanging from their clothes.

But his artwork is even more intriguing than just being Manga influenced. Because if Pope takes his pacing and composition from Manga he also takes a lot of his style and art cues from classical European cartoonists and greats of American comics. Indeed, he lists Herge, Jack Kirby, Hugo Pratt, Daniel Torres, Jack Kirby and Alex Toth as influences. And somewhere in his work you can see touches of greatness from each one of those true greats of comic art. But Pope isn’t a copyist. He takes his influences, learns from them and moves his artwork on. His look is stylised and frenetic, but always beautifully composed and flows across a page as good storytelling always will. He’s succeeded in taking aspects from all his many influences, absorbing them and producing something quite unique and fascinating.

(Some of Pope’s early artwork on THB. Inky, scratchy, frenetic and beautiful to me. (c) Paul Pope)

His work is always intriguing, always interesting and frequently quite brilliant. It sits comfortably between all three main comics cultures, taking the action adventure base of American comics and the more fluid philosophical aspects of the best European comics.

And this hasn’t gone unnoticed: In the American press, Paul Pope has been called “an explosion” and “the great white hope”. In France, he’s been called “the Jim Morrison of comics” and “comics petit prince”.

In some ways, his recognition has only succeeded in taking him away from comics. Most noticeably in the recent Diesel campaign where Pope created quite stunning window displays for the New York store and advertising images for Diesel’s spring 2007 range. He’s also designing artwork concepts for DKNY clothes as well now.

(Paul Pope’s Diesel New York marketing display windows and a silkcreen from the store. Just part of the huge advertising campaign he designed. And one of his DKNY T-shirts)

Of course, as mentioned before whilst talking of THB, the one huge problem with Pope is that he’s a pure conceptual artist. So full of ideas that it sometimes seems his work is all about the idea, all about the style, the feel, the rush of getting the thing down and it sometimes seems the slower, more crafted things like consistent storytelling take a definite back seat. Not all the time of course. His shorter works – Ballad of Doctor Richardson, Sin Titulo & Escapo all have very satisfying stories to compliment the artistic vision. But sometimes, in his longer form work, there are moments when you begin to question Pope’s skills as a writer. The style, the art, the sheer rush of ideas seem to flow a little too freely from Pope’s brush and there’s sometimes a feeling that he would really benefit from slowing down a little and working a little harder on the writing side of things. But the writing is there. Just read some of his essays in the large form THB mags, or go and visit the blog. He shows an ability to write entertaining, thoughtful and concise work. Perhaps all he really needs is a damn good editor to push him a little more in the right direction?

As for his current and forthcoming work his mammoth PulpHope artbook and career retrospective has recently been published. He’s then going to be releasing a 2 volume set of Battling Boy, an all ages series from First Second in 2008 (maybe 2009?) and incredibly, miraculously we also received the news recently that so many of us had been waiting over a decade for. First Second have recently announced plans to release Total THB in 2009 as a 4 volume 1200 page plus deluxe full colour set and an oversized deluxe black and white trade paperback version containing the entire THB story – including, finally, the ending to the series.

It just goes to prove that sometimes great things do come to those who wait. And I’ll be waiting in the line to pick up my copy. In the meantime there’s always Pope’s blog and extensive Flickr pages for news and images.

(One last piece of gorgeous Paul pope artwork from THB before we go.)

I’ll leave the final words to Pope himself, talking as only he can, and frankly, only Paul Pope could really get away with this comparison, but he can and he will because he’s just the complete package:

“I’ve always called THB my Dune. THB is the American Akira. It’s big and shimmering and strange and new, and hopefully it will reach a wide audience of readers who really love comics.”

Richard Bruton

I don’t normally just paste in details of events but Cliodhna Lyons has summed up the information for the next Dublin 24-hours Comic Day and also Irish Free Comics Day perfectly so I’m not going to bother paraphrasing it:

“On the weekend of October 18th/19th We’re going a bit comic mad in Ireland.  We’ll be having Irish Free Comic day that will cover pretty much every comic shop in Ireland [Dublin, Cork, Galway, Belfast, Waterford, Kilkenny] and there will be two 24 hour comics event taking place on the island.

Irish Free Comic day does just what is says on the tin.  It gathers Irish comics together and gives them out free at select venues [mainly comic shops in Ireland]   For more information about submitting your comics or contributing to several anthologies being put together please email organiser Rob Curly at robsubcityATgmailDOTcom putting Irish free comics day in the subject.  I’m afraid we are limiting inclusion to Irish Artists as the purpose of the event is to promote the Irish comic scene.

We’ll be putting together 24 hour comics day in Dublin for year 3.  We are expanding to include a reading section which will have a focus on Irish comics but will also include mini comics/self published comics from around the world.

(from last year’s Dublin 24 Hour Comics Day, 2mm Bridge by Ronan Kenndy)

Everyone is welcome to take part in drawing a 24 hour comic and for those coming from outside Dublin who need accommodation please email me and I’ll see if we can sort you out.  Ryanair, love them or hate them, offer a number of flights to Dublin from various UK and European locations.  The event starts at noon Saturday October 18th and finishes at noon Sunday October 19th.  The event website is www.irish24hourcomics.com

We’ve also decided to have a table selling mini comics.  Unlike Irish Free Comic day which is limited to Irish cartoonists, the small press table is open to everyone.  If you can’t make Dublin that weekend but want to send work to sell on the table, email me at cliodhnaATztoicalDOTcom and we can see about sorting something.  I’ll be at the Leeds con a couple of weeks later and can return unsold comics at that if it suits people or else post them back.  There is no charge for selling work at 24 hour comics day.

Belfast is also having a 24 hour event that might suit some people better then Dublin.  I don’t have much information but you can keep an eye on their site www.myspace.com/catalyst_arts or emailing the organizer Fionnuala Doran at fionnualadoranATgooglemailDOTcom”

I missed spotting this earlier, but D’Israeli blogged about a recent personal artistic milestone for him - drawing a pair of naked breasts and someone peeing, the first time he’s done so in a mainstream comic (for part 2 of Vort in 2000 AD). Which leads him on to think about the appearance of giant purple willies in an Ian Edginton story and also why it is that although 2000 AD has grown up along with its readership (it was aimed at kids when I was a kid, its now mostly read by, well, people my age) and has been content to push what is permissable in terms of violence it seems rather shy about doing so in relations to matters sexual. its worth having a read if, like me, you missed it when first posted on Matt’s blog and because A) its funny, B) it shows naughtiness, which I always enjoy encouraging and C) he makes a good point about the differing attitudes to sex and violence in the media. And obviously its not restricted only to 2000 AD or comics in general - I remember enjoying the horror movie Dog Soldiers and being surprised it was only a 15 certificate, despite Sean Pertwee’s character having his guts ripped out by a werewolf and concluded that if the single female character had taken her top off it would probably have been an 18 since obviously its mentally healthier to see werewolves eating people than naked boobies. Censorship is a strange thing.

(naughty nipplework from D’Israeli in Vort 2, (c) Rebellion. If this image ‘corrupts and depraves’ you - in the words of the Obscene Publications Act - then chances are you seriously need some corruption and depravity in your life)

“Of course, I drew naked folks and all sorts of nastiness in Lazarus Churchyard, waaayy back in 1991, but a) Warren made me do it and b) doing this stuff in 2000AD feels like a bigger deal, because I can’t help but think of it as the comic I read as a child. In fact, I’ve always referred to the IPC/Fleetway/Egmont/Rebellion (pick an era) hands-off editing style as “scanning for tits and willies” (since you’d often get no feedback at all unless there was something objectionable to be changed). It usually was “tits and willies” too, since while 2000AD has pushed the boundaries in a number of ways over the years, like all mainstream British comics it tends to be happier dealing with violence than sex. Before the introduction of female judges in the early 80’s, even significant female characters were next to unknown in British action (aka “Boy’s”) comics; Professor Jocelyn Peabody from Dan Dare is the only one I can think of. Alan Moore really broke through with The Ballad of Halo Jones in 1986 (especially book 3, a war story with a predominantly female cast that even fits in an elliptical reference to menstruation). John Smith, too, has to be credited with introducing sexually liberated female characters (Tyranny Rex and Pussyfoot Five) along with allusions to all kinds of sexual themes.”