The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

It’s Thursday and bounding towards us like a Mad March Hare comes Alex ‘floppy ears’ Fitch with a basket of radio and podcast goodness for us; as ever for more details and links to podcasts of previous shows check the Panel Borders site.

Strip!: The DFC Library, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

From May 2008 – March 2009, Children’s book publisher David Fickling launched a bold experiment in creating a new kids comic – The DFC – for the British market, which on a weekly basis featured new stories in a variety of genres from some of Britain’s best up and coming comics creators, not to mention a lead strip written by Philip Pullman. Unfortunately the comic folded after 43 issues, but now a year on, the first three volumes of The DFC Library have been released, reprinting collections of material in European Graphic Album format.

Alex Fitch talks to Kate Brown, the award winning creator of Spider Moon (see here for Kate’s recent talk-through of some of her sketches and finished pages from the book), Dave Shelton, the creator of Good Dog, Bad Dog and Ben Haggarty, the writer of MeZolith, who with artist Adam Brockbank has created a book that one critic has already called “the most important British graphic novel of the last twenty years”.

Clear Spot: Alternative Press at Angoulême part two, tonight at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards at the Alternative Press site

The second of the Alt. Press radio shows on their trip to Angoulême is an hour long and features interviews, music and stories from Angoulême International Comics Festival, the largest comics festival in the world (outside Japan!), including Stripburger from Slovenia, Chilli con Carne from Portugal and Robert Crumb!

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Yetis, ghosts and other things that go bump in the night!

Continuing children’s book month on the show, Alex Fitch talks to two creators of atypical titles for kids, which are being published by Walker Books. John Dunning is the writer of Salem Brownstone: All along the watchtowers, a Graphic Album in the European format which combines his script in the style of American horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe with Nikhil Singh’s elegant artwork, reminiscent of Victorian illustrators such as Aubrey Beardsley. Salem Brownstone was originally serialised in the small press anthology Sturgeon White Moss and Alex talks to John about the process of creating this unusual title.

Alex Milway is the author of The Mousehunter trilogy of pirate novels for young adults and in his new series of books – The Mythical 9th Division – which tell the tales of a trio of crimefighting Yetis who work for the British government, he is pioneering a new kind of storytelling in which every chapter of the books segues from sequential art into more traditional text. The two Alexs talk about the first of the Yeti books – Operation Robot Storm – which is being released in June and how comics can be used as another device to get kids into reading.