Archive | July, 2007

Double helix

31. July 2007

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Not comics, but this simple illustration was done by Odile Crick, wife of Francis Crick, one of the co-discovers of the structure of DNA. Odile passed away earlier this month and I thought it was worth posting this simple, little picture she drew here – it isn’t a piece of 50s Pop Art, it isn’t [...]

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Tom’s Comic Con thoughts

31. July 2007

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Tom Spurgeon has posted an excellent commentary on the weekend’s Comic Con, going through several related topics and ticking off a variety of areas he liked and disliked about them, what worked well adn what needs to be re-thought, from the Eisners to dealing with the large crowds to actually buying comics (yes, people do [...]

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Studying graphic novels

31. July 2007

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One of my friends from our SF book group (thanks, Suzy) pointed me in the direction of the University of Edinburgh’s lifelong learning site, which now offers a course entitled “Cultural Politics and the Graphic Novel.” From the course’s introduction: “From Maus, the biography of a Holocaust survivor, to Persepolis, the story of an Iranian [...]

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Tripod to Titanic – Propaganda delves into the steampunk realms of D’Israeli and Edgington

31. July 2007

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This is Propaganda, I’m Richard Bruton and this is what I’ve been reading lately: Scarlet Traces Written by Ian Edginton Art by D’Israeli This is a fantastic yet simple book; beautifully written, delightfully drawn, full of intelligently realised little touches and with a story that means it’s very difficult to put down. Scarlet Traces is [...]

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Watchmen movie site

31. July 2007

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Warner Brothers has an official movie site up for the Watchmen movie, proclaiming a launch date of “03.06.09″ (I’d assume that is in the US date-style and actually means the 6th of March 2009). Unsurprisingly there isn’t much on the site at this point, except a brief synopsis and a cast list which is just [...]

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Super legality

31. July 2007

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Industry News has a post about a set of legal documents from the late 1930s through to the mid 40s which pertain to the legal battle Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster fought with their publisher National Periodical Publications over payments and creators rights. It might be hard to think on these then-young creators [...]

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The Guardian weighs in on superhero sexism

31. July 2007

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Ned Beauman in the Guardian’s book blog has a look at the large amount of discussion recently among comics fans regarding the way female characters are portrayed. Interestingly Ned doesn’t seem to be just picking up the topic as a bit of filler for a column, he admits right at the start that he likes [...]

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Cory’s Comic-Con Flickr pics

31. July 2007

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Top SF scribe Cory Doctorow has posted up several pages of pics from the San Diego Comic Con on his Flickr stream, from cosplayers to some very neat close-ups of modified action figures like the one below. (link via Boing Boing)

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London International Animation Festival

31. July 2007

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Animation lovers and fellow members of the Church of the Seventh Day Cartoonists who are based in and around London can rejoice at the news of six whole days of animation coming their way in August. From the 21st to the 26th of August there will be some 200 short films from around 28 different [...]

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JCG at PP with MDP

31. July 2007

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The quite excellent Marianne De Pierres, author of the Parrish Plessis novels (which I love) and the recent Dark Space (highly recommended, brief review here) tells me that her Parrish’s Patch forums will be host to the equally brilliant Jon Courtenay Grimwood over the 16th, 17th and 18th of August and all are invited to [...]

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SF TV and movies at San Diego

30. July 2007

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The Hollywood Reporter has a good round-up of the science fiction and comics related TV and movie revelations from the weekend’s San Diego Comic con, including news that Kevin Smith will direct the first episode of the spin-off show Heroes: Origins, the former Warrior Princess Lucy Lawless will return for the next season of Battlestar [...]

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Gaiman and Avery talk Beowulf

30. July 2007

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Movie site IESB.net has video interviews up with both Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary at the San Diego Comic Con discussing the Beowulf movie, along with a large number of pics from the con. (link via Neorama). (Neil Gaiman, still refusing the aid of a comb and judging by the redness of the hair I’m [...]

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The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga returns

30. July 2007

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After slaving away over a hot graphic novel Ilya has finally managed to raise his head and get away from his work long enough to tell us that the second volume of The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga will be coming out this October. When I spoke with Ilya last year ahead of the [...]

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Eisner winners 2007

30. July 2007

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Heidi at the Beat has the list of this year’s winners for the prestigious Eisner Awards which were announced at the weekend. Again it is a fair mixture, from the big players like DC (my gods but Fables did them proud, didn’t it?) to Fantagraphics and Oni Press, while it probably won’t be a surprise [...]

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The demon barber

30. July 2007

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The BBC site had this single image of Johnny Depp and his astonishing cheekbones portraying Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street who had an interesting sideline in meat pies with an unusual filling. The picture is from the Deppster’s latest collaboration with Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd, which I believe may be based on [...]

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