The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The latest issue of the DFC (#38) features some great work as it does every week, but this week sees the start of two new strips: Spectrum Black and Chicken Caesar Jnr.

Spectrum Black looks rather like a Ben 10 cartoon but does so in a good way – not appealing to me, but Molly thought it looked good (and that’s the point of a children’s comic – to actually appeal to children). There’s a preview page here to give you a flavour of the thing.

Chicken Caesar Junior is a comedy strip by Julian Hanshaw. A nice comedy about the son of the greatest chef in the world. And despite the stylistic change, it is the same Julian Hanshaw who was the winner of the 2008 Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story prize with Sand Dunes and Sonic Booms:

(left: Chicken Caesar Jnr by Julian Hanshaw in the DFC. Right: Sand Dunes and Sonic Booms by Julian Hanshaw, winner of the Observer/Cape 2008 prize.)

I had to email Julian to just make sure it was the same person and he wrote back with some great news that he’s:

“currently finishing of a Graphic Novel called ‘The Art Of Pho’ which is set in Ho Chi Minh City and revolves around the food of Vietnam. To be published by Jonathan Cape”

As for the rest of the DFC comic, there’s the usual great mix of adventure and comedy strips. Like we wrote a while ago on the FPI blog, Molly and I tend to enjoy the comedy more, so this issues highlights included: Gary Northfield‘s Lil’ Cutie, Sarah McIntyre‘s Vern & Lettuce, Simone Lia‘s Sausage & Carrots, James Turner‘s Super Animal Adventure Squad and Wilbur Dawbarn‘s Bodkin and the Bear which all got big smiles and chuckles from both of us. But the best news of the week, one that elicited huge cheers from Molly is the return of Jim Medway’s Crab Lane Crew in 2 issues time. A very happy girl indeed.

The DFC is a subscription only weekly children’s comic; 36 pages a week, ad free, cheap rubbish plastic toy free and drops through your letterbox every Friday. My daughter Molly gave the fpi blog her first ever interview about it here and we did reviews of some of our favourites here and here.