The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The organisers of Prestonpandemonium, the comics and small press event in Prestonpans, just down the coast a bit from Edinburgh, have announced that after a gap between the first and second bashes a third Prestonpandemonium will take place this summer on May 31st from 12 to 3pm at the Prestoungrange Gothenburg (a CAMRA-listed pub, meaning there should be some decent ale, always important!). This year it will be part of the Three Harbour Arts Festival; so far confirmed are Graeme Neil Reid, Nulsh (who also provided the artwork for the logo you see below), Jeremy Briggs, Paul Von Scott, Ben Clark and an exhibition of art by the one and only Malcy Duff. For more details, including directions on how to get there (you can apparently grab a bus direct from Edinburgh city centre) or if you want to take part, check out the official site. (thanks to Dan Fish at Bugpowder for reminding me of this)

And still on the British small press theme, Bugpowder also points me towards this chat between Dave Evans and Colin J Dinnie on Comics Village as Colin hands over the reigns on the top 2000 AD fan-inspired small press comics Zarjaz to Dave and Richard Clements, discussing the strips, the writers and the artists (including some like Al Ewing who have actually worked on 2000 AD proper but still like to do Zarjaz strips, such as for the recent Dredd 30th anniversary special reviewed last week), trying to juggle editing a popular small press journal and real life obligations such as the day job and family (a problem for all small press folks, which makes some of the excellent work they produce all the more impressive, I think) and things he’d like to have done, while Dave talks about what will stay the same, what might change (more multi-part stories for example) and how it feels to come in to take on an existing title and starting a blog – the quaequamblog – to keep readers up to date on events; you should check it out and offer up your support when the next Zarjaz comes out because I’m sure Dave and Rich will continue to build on Colin’s fine work.