The Forbidden Planet International Blog

News, Views and Oddities, where we link to various bits and bobs which have grabbed our attention, encompassing comics, books, illustration, design and film. Clicking fingers at the ready.

Interesting  and timely coincidence- just last week on here, we were wondering along with Abhay Khosla whether Paul Pope’s Battling Boy will ever see print and this weeks edition of News points you in the direction of Sailor Twain author and First Second Editor Mark Siegel. Siegel’s been keeping a diary column over at The Comics Journal, which is worth a read in itself, but made particularly noteworthy as he shared the above page by Pope for the afore-mentioned Battling Boy (book the first), along with news that all the pages for the book had now been submitted, which bodes well, I suppose. I know Richard’s a huge Paul Pope fan, so this should please him.

We like to inform you whenever someone new enters the murky waters of blogging- freshly launched in the past week or so, Lewis Trondheim now has a tumblr, as does Noah van Sciver.

Daniel Clowes inks Kirby and Ditko. The Ditko page Clowes inked after persuading a friend to photocopy some of Steve’s pencils and the Kirby piece was done as part of a tribute anthology.

A thing I suspect we’re not alone in doing at my place of work, is linking one another to sites of amusement and interest. One we all had a laugh over this week was this blog, which ferrets out old and classic sci-fi book covers accompanied with some jocular commentary.

There’s at least one link that I include here every fortnight which makes me think ‘surely everyone’s seen this by now’, but then I remember the amount of stuff that passes me by, and I put it in anyway for those who are similarly minded (and may God bless you). This edition’s ubiquitous, done-the-rounds: Gary Panter’s 10 drawing tips.

Dockwood by Jon McNaught

Jon McNaught, of Pebble Island and Birchfield Close, releases the expectantly beautiful 4-colour Dockwood next week. If you’re a fan of McNaught’s work, chances are you’ll be picking it up anyway. If not, there’s a rather glowing recommendation on the back from one Mr Ware that may just convince you:

‘There are few younger comics artists with whom I feel a genuine aesthetic kinship, but the radiant and glowing Dockwood is Jon McNaught’s loveliest argument yet for the beauty of just being alive. It’s a gem.’

More on those over-achieving van Sciver brothers- Ethan has just been announced as the new artist for the Batman: Dark Knight title. He’ll take over duties in the new year, on issue #16 onwards, in collaboration with crime/thriller writer Greg Hurwitz on a Mad Hatter story.

Online comics and illustration collective Brand New Nostalgia have put together a kickstarter to publish a 200 page+ book, featuring Andrew Maclean, Tradd Moore, Giannis Milonogiannis, Logan Faerber, Brian Churilla, Greg Ruth, Ming Doyle, among others. It’s already been funded, so purely pointing it out here as an opportunity to get ahold of what looks to be a very nice anthology indeed.

Outstanding web-comic of the fortnight has got to be Sam Alden’s Farmer’s Dilemma, and for a fiver (or thereabouts)  you can get your hands on a very limited print run, signed and with an original drawing, although the whole thing is available to read online for free.