The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

(the Addams Family by Charles Addams, (c) TEE/Charles Addams Foundation)

Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news about this. The good news is that there’s news that Tim Burton’s next project may be a stop motion Addams Family movie that takes it’s inspiration from Charles Addams’ original New Yorker cartoons. The bad news – it’s going to (almost inevitably) be a 3D movie. Why, oh why, oh why does Hollywood seem to think that 3D is anything more than a gimmick? Or is that just me?

Anyway, focus on the good – given that Charles Addams’ wonderfully ghoulish family are some of the most wonderfully iconic characters ever and Tim Burton, flawed though he may be, certainly knows his way around stop motion -  this may actually be something near the vision of the original cartoons.

Full announcement and details in Deadline online. But whether it gets made or not, it’s always a good day when you get to put up a couple of the great man’s cartoons:

(the Addams Family by Charles Addams, (c) TEE/Charles Addams Foundation)

News this week that another Comic Con is scheduled for 2010. Shane Chebsey and James Hodgkins are bringing another weekend of comics to Birmingham with the British International Comic Show (BICS) 2010.

The event takes place over the weekend of16th-17th October at the Think Tank, Millenium Point, Birmingham.

Very little going on at the official BICS website yet, but confirmed guests at this stage include: Vertigo’s “The Unwritten” team; Mike Carey, Peter Gross and Yuko Shimizu, Vertigo editor Pornsak Picheshote, Turkish creator Mahmud A Asrar,  Jonathan Ross’ collaborator on the “Turf” comic series Tommy Lee Edwards. And then there are all the UK based comic folks who will be there including Alan Davis, Charlie Adlard, Hunt Emerson, Sean Phillips, Jock and Steve Yeowell to name but a few.

More nearer the time.

Lightweight and easy on the eye? Perfect reimaginings of classic characters done in an all-ages style? That would be Project Rooftop’s All-Ages All-Stars. Two done so far:

(Mike Maihack’s Scarlet Witch – Disney? Are You Paying Attention? Give this man a Saturday morning cartoon.)

(John McNally’s Martian Manhunter)

And if you want a little less cute and a little more silly….. Darren Rawlings has a little March Madness for you where he takes the Incredible Hulk for a little journey destroying everyone in the Marvel Universe….

Okay, hope that made Sunday a little cuter and sillier. (Both via Robot 6)

Over on his blog Steven Bissette, artist on Swamp Thing, Tyrant and publisher of Taboo is currently chronicling the trials and tribulations of the comic industry circa 1986. It’s fascinating stuff from an era when a lot of important things were just beginning to develop across the industry. Bissette’s subtitle to the series of posts summarises it all nicely:

“How Angry Freelancers Made It Possible for A New Mainstream Comics Era (Including Vertigo) to Exist“

It all starts off looking at the moment in 1986 where comic publishers began to get a little twitchy over the content of their increasingly adult books – remember 1986, we’re in Maus, Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen territory, the era of “comics aren’t just for kids” and a real move on the part of major publishers (particularly DC) to embrace a new wave of writers and artists wanting to tell far more serious stories.

So far Bissette’s looked at the infamous Friendly Franks bust, the on-cover ratings that both Marvel and DC threatened to bring in, Words & Pictures magazine, Diamond Comics Distributors, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Miracleman, Jack Kirby, Marv Wolfman, lawsuits galore, and much, much more…..

There’s an awful lot of reading there, together with a lot of original documents from the time from Bissette’s archives. Fascinating stuff. Part 1 is here, the latest is Part 7. But Bissette has more to come.

(Creator’s letter from 1986 and a Frank Miller cartoon of the same vintage)

From Al Davison’s dreamblog:

“This is a dream I had on hearing that my good friend Neil Gaiman was getting engaged to the amazing Amanda Palmer. It’s full title is: ‘Neil Gaiman reading from American Gods, for a tribe of shape changing Arapaho cats, accompanied by Amanda Palmer playing ukulele and singing a duet with a dapper cat in a wheelchair’.“

Over at the Bugpowder weblog Mooncat shares a couple of “how to” pages created by himself and the much missed Steve Whitaker back in the early 90s for the London Cartoon Centre’s Saturday morning Kids’ Class. Although they’re created for children to use, there’s many an prospective artist who could do with these pinned above their drawing desks!

It’s over on Mooncat’s Flickr (with Steve’s centre page here) or available as a pdf to download – and Mooncat would like it to be as widely distributed as possible.

Announced today on the Oni Press website: Scott Pilgrim Book 7; Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour. Released in the US 20th July 2010 – I imagine the UK release will be the same. Expect lots of excited people.

Richmond Clements is one of the busiest men working on the British independent comics scene today. While holding down a full-time job, he manages to (co-) run a successful convention (Hi-Ex! in Inverness), co-edit several small press anthologies and has even, recently, been scripting various comic projects. Matt Badham caught up with him recently to talk about organising Hi-Ex!, finding time to write and why most people that are interested in comics just want to see ‘Hulk Smash!’

(art for the 2010 Hi-Ex! comics con by Colin MacNeil, Dredd (c) Rebellion and Mega City One Justice Department)

Matt: Please tell us a little about yourself and your previous and current involvement in the Brit’ comics scene.

Rich: About five years ago, I was asked to come on board the FutureQuake team as an editor. I’ve been there ever since. (And we’ve added to the stable too. We now publish a horror book, Something Wicked, two 2000AD fanzines, Zarjaz and Dogbreath, and a Manga book called MangaQuake, although we’ve decided to shelve that one after the next issue.)

In addition to that, I’m currently writing two full-length graphic novels for Insomnia and co-organising Hi-Ex!, The Highland International Comic Convention.

I’m sure there’s other stuff too…

Matt: How did your new comic, Turning Tiger from Renegade Arts Entertainment, come about?

Rich: Well, first, I better give you a quick outline of the plot… Sarah Smith is a nine-year-old girl. JEN is a multi-billion dollar war robot. When JEN malfunctions and kidnaps Sarah, the military find themselves in desperate race against time to save the child and to stop her parents going public with the story.

As with a lot of things, it began with a couple of different ideas. I had a couple of particular images that kept popping into my mind featuring a young girl and a giant robot. One of these turns up as a panel in issue two.

The other thing I can’t talk about as it would spoiler the story in an enormous way!

So yeah, I one day realised that these two separate things were not actually separate but parts of the same story.

Suddenly Turning Tiger was born!

(Turning Tiger #1 by Richmond Clements and Alex Moore, published Renegade Arts)

Matt: What have been the benefits of working for small press titles, in terms of writing and networking opportunities, and your life generally?

Rich: In terms of writing, it’s good practise!

What the small press can do is take a script that might not be anywhere near ready, but has perhaps just the spark of a good idea in it and work with the writer for as long as it takes until the script is ready. It also gives a writer or artist the undeniable thrill of seeing something you created in print.

In my life…?

Phew! Will I start with meeting my partner through working on comics and work down from there? I’ve made some incredibly good friends through my involvement in comics. That and it gives me something to do with what little spare time I have!

Networking… I’m not sure how to answer this without coming over as terribly mercenary!

It’s great fun to meet pros and to have become friends with some. And to then have some of these guys agree to do covers for us is a real thrill.

On a personal level: sitting in a bar with an editor at a convention is a damned good way to pitch a story!

Matt: How did you develop your ideas? Do you bang away at a script or plot and write a synopsis first?

Rich: Turning Tiger arrived pretty much fully formed.

Some things, the graphic novel Corvus I’m writing for Insomnia, for example, start off as an idea (superhero story set in Roman Britain) and have to be worked into a plot.

However, Turning Tiger, once I had the original thought, was more or less all there from the off. There have been a few very minor changes made, but that’s all.

Matt: Corvus sounds interesting. Please tell us about that.

Rich: Corvus is set in Roman-occupied Britain in 30AD. The Brits are held in subjugation by the mighty Roman army, helped by their own superhero, Gladius. But the British have a hero too; a 15-year-old girl called Callie, who must become the Corvus, legendary guardian of the people…

It’s basically a rip-roaring adventure, with some awesome action set pieces in there, as well as, I hope, telling a good story. Art is by the brilliant Kevin Levell, who has produced some cracking concept sketches already.

(art by Kev Levell for Richmond Clements’ Corvus, to be published by Insomnia Publications)

Matt: You seem to have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. Are you doing all this stuff on top of a day job?

Rich: Yes, I have a day job too! I’m lucky though, in that I’m a pretty fast writer once I get started.

Also, I drive a lot in my day job and get a lot of time to edit in my head, so by the time I get to putting it on paper a script or story can be more or less fully mapped out.

Matt: It seems in one way that British comics are going through a bit of a golden age, with a thriving small press scene, lots of stuff happening online and lots of indie companies springing up. On the other hand, there seem to be few opportunities to actually make money from comics in this country.

Please give us your perspective on the pros and cons of being a fledgling comics writer working right here, right now and also as a con’ organiser, who perhaps gets a bit of an overview of the scene that way.

Rich: The small press scene is indeed thriving.

In truth it’s always been that way, but it’s just that the ‘top end’ of the market, if you want to call it that, has all but disappeared, so now folks are starting to notice the small and mid-sized press more.

You’re right though, there are a, to put it mildly, limited number of ’slots’ in the industry where a writer or artist can expect to make a full-time wage.

Frankly, though, if you’re mental enough to get into comics as a way of making your fortune then you deserve everything you (don’t) get! I think there’s too many people who look at writers like Grant Morrison or Alan Moore and assume that everyone in the industry can make that kind of money. Which is of course stupid. Every author doesn’t make Rowling or King money. Every musician is not going to reach the earning level of U2 or Springsteen. You have to accept that the chances are you will not make your fortune writing or drawing comics unless you are very, very lucky.

On the convention organising front, we were delighted and surprised by the interest shown by the general public. Our first Hi-Ex! was all but snowed off, with only half the guests being able to make it because of the weather, yet we saw hundreds of members of the general public turn up, many of them in family groups, to join in. There is a massive market out there of ‘ordinary’ people who are interested in the medium. The industry needs to focus on bringing them in and not on keeping an ever-diminishing number of hardcore fans and continuity whores happy. Most people want to open a comic and simply want to see Batman thwart the Joker or Hulk Smash. They don’t care if Cyclops did such-and-such in a comic written 25 years ago. They just want entertainment.

Matt: What next for you, in terms of your writing?

Rich: Next up will be finishing off writing both Pinkerton and Corvus. There will be, if everything goes to plan, a collected edition of Turning Tiger available in print sometime in April, and after that I’ll start writing the sequel.

In between this I’d love to finish the children’s book I’m writing, and we’ll have new issues of all the FutureQuake books to get out, including an ABC Warriors special, which, if it all works the way we’ve planned it, will be very special indeed.

Matt: Please give the latest Hi-Ex! a pimp. Tell us about the guests and events…

Rich: Hi-Ex 2010 is on the 27th and 28th of March at Eden Court in Inverness. We’ve got an enormous number of guests with something for everyone. We’ve got a children’s corner with some fantastic artists there.

Kev F Sutherland is bringing his socks, the Beano guys are going to be doing their stuff and as always, we’ll have a brilliant charity auction (and if you’re not coming, you can still bid! Check out our website for details on the lots!).

This year we’re also running a games room, where the public can try their hands at things like the Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and Doctor Who RPGS.

And as if that’s not enough, the one and only Cam Kennedy is coming!

(publisher Ron Grossett with artist Cam Kennedy at the first Hi-Ex convention, pic by Joe)

Matt: And in terms of Zarjaz, you guys seem to have been very good at getting pros to contribute/let you work on their characters. Tell us about working with the likes of Pat Mills and Kek-W…

Rich: Yup, getting to work with these guys is a great bonus! Pat’s been very helpful and generous- not only by allowing us to use the characters, but in offering us pointers and advice on them.

Kek-W has given us an awesome Rosie O’Rion story that I guarantee will make you want her back in the prog! We’ve also been very fortunate with everyone from Simon Coleby to Rufus Dayglo doing covers for us! You can’t imagine the thrill of seeing a specially drawn Kingdom cover by Richard Elson arriving in your inbox.

And we’ve got a couple of very cool cover artists lined up for the next few issues of Zarjaz and Dogbreath…

FPI would like to thank both Matt and Richmond for taking the time to answer our questions. The third Hi-Ex comics con takes place in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands next weekend (27th and 28th of March) and Joe should be heading up so look out for more on the con in due course.

We know that animation creates the illusion of movement through a rapid sequence of still images (as indeed does traditional celluloid film, including live action) and that comics creators have long used various devices and tricks to imply action and motion from a still frame to the reader’s eye. The excellent New Scientist has an interesting article on how artist’s can ‘trick’ the brain into perceiving motion from a static image; they have examples drawn from 18th and 19th century Japanese artists, but there’s much here that would be familiar to 20th and 21st century comics artists and readers too.

Kyoto University’s Naoyuki Osaka scanned the brains of volunteers while exposing them to the work of Hokusai Katsushika (above), showing them Hokusai-san’s art with examples implying motion (on the left), little to no motion (in the centre batch) and static objects (right). In the results the university team found that only the images on the left (the ones which implied motion) activated a region of the brain known as the extrastriate visual cortex – the same area which lights up on scans when subjects are shown photographs which depict real-world motion. Interestingly even single images could imply movement to the brain, even without any extra devices such as ’speed lines’ and facial expressions were also found to imply a sort of movement.

It won’t be a surprise to cartoonists, comics creators and readers, of course, that you can successfully imply movement and actions from a seemingly frozen image (and indeed a whole, flowing narrative from just a few static panels with the imagination filling in the gaps between frames) but it’s amazing to learn that the actual areas of the brain which deal with motion comprehension are activated by these pictures too. To coin an old Vulcan phrase, ‘fascinating’. (via Exclamation Comics’ twitter)

This is a fab wee animation by Tomas Nilsson doing a cool re-interpretation of the tale of Little Red Riding Hood (link via Alex Ingram’s Twitter):

Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

It’s Thursday and bounding towards us like a Mad March Hare comes Alex ‘floppy ears’ Fitch with a basket of radio and podcast goodness for us; as ever for more details and links to podcasts of previous shows check the Panel Borders site.

Strip!: The DFC Library, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

From May 2008 – March 2009, Children’s book publisher David Fickling launched a bold experiment in creating a new kids comic – The DFC – for the British market, which on a weekly basis featured new stories in a variety of genres from some of Britain’s best up and coming comics creators, not to mention a lead strip written by Philip Pullman. Unfortunately the comic folded after 43 issues, but now a year on, the first three volumes of The DFC Library have been released, reprinting collections of material in European Graphic Album format.

Alex Fitch talks to Kate Brown, the award winning creator of Spider Moon (see here for Kate’s recent talk-through of some of her sketches and finished pages from the book), Dave Shelton, the creator of Good Dog, Bad Dog and Ben Haggarty, the writer of MeZolith, who with artist Adam Brockbank has created a book that one critic has already called “the most important British graphic novel of the last twenty years”.

Clear Spot: Alternative Press at Angoulême part two, tonight at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards at the Alternative Press site

The second of the Alt. Press radio shows on their trip to Angoulême is an hour long and features interviews, music and stories from Angoulême International Comics Festival, the largest comics festival in the world (outside Japan!), including Stripburger from Slovenia, Chilli con Carne from Portugal and Robert Crumb!

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Yetis, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night!

Continuing children’s book month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to two creators of atypical titles for kids, which are being published by Walker Books. John Dunning is the writer of Salem Brownstone: All along the watchtowers, a Graphic Album in the European format which combines his script in the style of American horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe with Nikhil Singh’s elegant artwork, reminiscent of Victorian illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley. Salem Brownstone was originally serialised in the small press anthology Sturgeon White Moss and Alex talks to John about the process of creating this unusual title.

Alex Milway is the author of The Mousehunter trilogy of pirate novels for young adults and in his new series of books – The Mythical 9th Division – which tell the tales of a trio of crimefighting Yetis who work for the British government, he is pioneering a new kind of storytelling in which every chapter of the books segues from sequential art into more traditional text. The two Alexs talk about the first of the Yeti books – Operation Robot Storm – which is being released in June and how comics can be used as another device to get kids into reading.

Michael Moran is in all excited and understandably so -- his Blockbuster Buzz spot on The Times Online is going to be hosting Jonathan Ross interviewing Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn live via video link next Tuesday (23rd) at 4pm (UK time). Michael is also taking questions from folks via the comments section on the Blockbuster Buzz article and will try to get some of them over to Jonathan in time for the interview. Mark it in your diaries now!

The great Steve Bell bang on the money as usual with his cartoon in today’s Guardian on the child abuse by clergy and subsequent cover-ups by the church in Ireland (thanks to Chris Williams’ Twitter for the link):

(by and (c) Steve Bell, published by the Guardian)

For its 2010 edition, the annual Sismics alternative comics and graphic art festival in Sierre, Switzerland, seems to have hit the jackpot.  In the past, the festival focused on the less-than-mainstream, quite often quite obscure, self-published comic, but this year they’re playing in a major league.  Legendary French comics cooperative L’association will be celebrating its 20th anniversary at the festival.  At the Caves Tavelli, a special exibition will be organised featuring original work from the archives, for which all of  L’Association’s artists past and present have been invited.  Alongside these classic pages, the cartoonists will also provide a new, original page, reflecting on L’Association and their own older work.

The purpose of the whole event, however, is not a pompous celebration of past accomplishments, but a friendly and spontaneous get-together. I would like to see the art by Menu, Trondheim, David B and all the other greats hanging side by side.  L’association started off as a manifesto publisher, an act of rebellion against what was perceived as an impenetrable and sclerotic traditional comics industry in France.  As the fame of the cooperative grew, and some of the participants found themselves even with a mainstream following (Trondheim and David B, to name but two, but also Satrapi, who would conquer the world with Persépolis), the group fell apart, and those who remained continued to publish small-scale, beautiful comics for a public-in-the-know.

(poster for this year’s Sismics festival, art by Ben)

As yet, not a lot has been made public about the rest of the programme, but this will doubtlessly change soon as we’re halfway to April already.  In any case, this year’s poster and promotional material was designed by Swiss illustrator Ben, best known for his regular contributions to the daily Le Matin. Sismics this year runs from the 2nd to the 6th of June.

Wim Lockefeer lives in Belgium and sees a possible trip to Switzerland as not only a chance to see a great comics festival but to bootleg Toblerones across the border; you can read more of his comics musings on The Ephemerist blog

Not One For Knocking On is the name of a forthcoming comic art exhibition which Oli East is going to be curating at the Rogue Artists studios gallery and project space in Manchester this November. Its all drawn from self-published creators and the artists to be featured include Blaisse Larmee, Malcy Duff, Warren Craghead and Craig Atkinson.

(Poets of our Time by and (c) Craig Atkinson)