Archive | February, 2008

Cartoon for sale

29. February 2008

Comments Off

Over on Journalistsa Dirk picks up on a story from the Wall Street Journal which reports that Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, the artist pretty much at the centre of both the first and most recent rounds of insanity concerning the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, is considering putting his cartoon of the Prophet with a [...]

Continue reading...

Jekyll and Hyde launch – in the Jekyll and Hyde

29. February 2008

Comments Off

Scottish Television has a good and fairly long (nearly 8 minutes) video report on the launch of the new Jekyll and Hyde graphic novel which, appropriately enough, was launched in the Jekyll and Hyde pub, which isn’t more than a few minutes from author Robert Louis Stevenson’s old home in Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town (incidentally [...]

Continue reading...

Independent Women

29. February 2008

Comments Off

Bridgeen Gillespie has a great article in the literary review journal Verbal which has just been published in Derry, explaining just why comics, contrary to popular misconceptions, are not exclusively for boys and that real women do read 2000 AD and Hellblazer and why the wonderful world of independent comics presses is worthy of support: [...]

Continue reading...

From Hollyoaks to Harley Quinn?

29. February 2008

3 Comments

We’ve known for a while that former Hollyoaks actress Sarah Jayne Dunn had a part in the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, but apart from confirming she was in it not much else has been leaked out. Over on the Times’ Blockbuster Buzz Michael Moran is reporting that her representation, management company RDF, has [...]

Continue reading...

Time lapse cartooning

29. February 2008

Comments Off

Lew Stringer has posted a cool time-lapse short video of Viz cartoonist (that would be the British Viz, I think) Alex Collier drawing Tasha Slappa’s Mum which is great fun to watch, not just for the blurring pens and the white paper rapidly being filled with cartoon life but also for the vanishing and constantly [...]

Continue reading...

Slinky

29. February 2008

Comments Off

Ryan Smith from the wonderfully-named Slinky Pictures dropped me a line – Slinky have a couple of their animated works nominated in the shortlist for the British Animation Awards. “Talented Mouse” was done for the Channel E4/Channel 4 Fonejacker series, with animation by Kevin Frostick, Inna Phillamore and Jason Guest as well as Leigh Hodgkinson [...]

Continue reading...

From Our Continental Correspondent – the Kamagurka family

29. February 2008

Comments Off

I trust everybody who reads a magazine now and then has heard of Kamagurka. This multi-talented soldier of love – “Kama” being “love” and “Gurka” being “soldier” (although British readers will be more familiar with the spelling ‘Gurkha’, the famous Nepalese warriors who still serve in the British army to this day – Joe) – [...]

Continue reading...

Wham!

28. February 2008

Comments Off

Lew Stringer serves up a scan of some classic British kid’s comics with this enormous cartoon ding-dong between Wham!’s assorted characters all battling it out for the right to grace the front page of the comic; comics anarchy corrupting the impressionable mind of youngsters courtesy of the one and only Leo Baxendale.

Continue reading...

Big bucks art

28. February 2008

Comments Off

Not comics but I couldn’t help but notice this story on the BBC site this morning about a large auction of modern art at Sotheby’s in London. Artists represented included Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Jeff Koon and Lucio Fontana among others, with sales totaling in excess of a staggering £95 million. Warhol’s 1986 work Three [...]

Continue reading...

Propaganda marches proudly into Berlin with The Twelve

28. February 2008

Comments Off

The Twelve #1 By J Michael Straczynski and Chris Weston In what sounds like a particularly dodgy joke: twelve costumed heroes walk into SS Headquarters at the end of the Second World War: “Every Allied Superpower, every man, woman or half assed sidekick who had ever worn a costume, had descended on Berlin. Dynamic Man [...]

Continue reading...

“Let’s do the time warp again…”

28. February 2008

Comments Off

“It’s just a jump to the left...” Okay now I’ve stuck that iconic song from the Rocky Horror Show into your heads (you’ll be whistling it all day, don’t be shy, do the actions while you do, brighten your day!) I’ll confess that was a weak link to news of the new CAPTION 2008 event [...]

Continue reading...

China Now comics exhibition

28. February 2008

Comments Off

China Now is a nationwide arts and cultural series of exhibitions and events which will be happening all around the UK in the next few months. As part of it there will be a special exhibition of manhua – Chinese comics – which is claimed to be the first such exhibition in Britain and since [...]

Continue reading...

The Alphabets of Desire returns

27. February 2008

Comments Off

Letterer supreme Todd Klein tells me that due to overwhelming demand he has printed a second run of The Alphabets of Desire, the print which he hand-lettered from a short, original work by Alan Moore. The original run sold out within three days (and I’m pleased to say I managed to get my order in [...]

Continue reading...

Put downs

27. February 2008

1 Comment

The Radio Times published the top 25 telly put-downs as voted for by their readers; unsurprisingly most of the best put-downs came from classic situation comedies like John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers, but a couple come from BBC science fiction shows, including the brilliant Life on Mars: “To Gene Hunt: “I think you’ve forgotten who you’re [...]

Continue reading...

Spectrum awards announced

27. February 2008

1 Comment

The fifteenth annual Spectrum Awards for fantastic art have been announced. The jury members this year included Daren Bader [artist/art director for Rockstar Games/San Diego], Tim Bodendistel [art director/Hallmark Cards], Frank Cho [artist], Kelley Seda [artist]. and Justin Sweet [artist]. Among the winners I notice that James Jean continues to conquer the known universe (and [...]

Continue reading...