The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The sad demise of independent comics company Speakeasy has left a lot of comics creators looking for a new home for their publications. British-based artist Jimmy Bott talked to me last year about an upcoming and very cool-sounding horror tale involving a struggle against vampires in London (it sounded like it had shades of the ultra-cool Channel 4 series Ultraviolet about it and since I loved that show I was pretty intrigued).

The book was due to come from Speakeasy and suddenly all the hard work seemed to be crashing down with the publisher. Luckily Dabel Brothers have picked up Half Dead and the good news is that it will now be coming out in October (scary stuff in time for Halloween, great!). I’ve seen some of the artwork and it looks cracking, with fine clear art and some terrific colouring work (people too often overlook the work the colourists do in comics) and a fine mix of the mundane, everyday (like the London tube) with the supernatural (translucent, flaming skeleton). I like the morally ambigious stance of both sides in the struggle, with it’s shades, as I said, of Ultraviolet and Night Watch too come to think of it, as well as the spectre of less supernatural threats (such as the tube bombings). Always more interesting than simple good versus bad, clear-cut battles, with more room for drama. More details as we get ‘em.