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.

Process art and sketches by R Kikuo Johnson

Kicking off this weeks links round up with some process prettiness, I give you R Kikuo Johnson’s blog post on the  making of The Shark King.

Craig Thompson has penned a deal with publishers Scholastic to produce an all-ages graphic novel about “a little girl and her misfit friends who set out to rescue her father from the belly of a planet-eating space whale.” You can view some preliminary sketches of said girl, Violet, at Thompson’s blog.

I really, REALLY love the stuff that Nick Edwards and Zac Gorman are producing at the moment; comics fused with gaming influences and subtly animated. Here’s Edwards excellent piece on the pains of being a creative.

Heads up: I’m linking to my own blog. I’ve been thinking about comics resolutions for next year for an upcoming post and one major aspect I’d personally like to improve on is reading comics from all around the world, instead of focusing mainly on the US and the UK. To that end, I’ve been following the development of Singapore publishing and design company, Epigram, as they begin producing comics for the first time next year, with a great line up of books. I took a look at their Spring catalogue here. Looking forward to reviewing some of these soon, so do keep an eye out if you’re interested.

Praise the Lord! Ian Edginton, author of 3 of my most favourite comics: Kingdom of the Wicked, Stickleback and Scarlet Traces, now has a blog and a twitter. Go forth and follow.

Here at FPI, we are fast believers in Sarah McIntyre’s general awesomeness, but she’s also tireless in the promotion of comics and libraries. While her thoughts and activities are always worth keeping up-to-date with (in a strictly non-stalker manner, mind), I just wanted to highlight this recent post on getting librarians to stock and encourage children to read comics.

Once Upon A Time in the West by Sam Hiti

Oh, look- Sam Hiti done gone made a beautiful thing: a single-page comic poster of one of my all time favourite movies, Once Upon A Time in the West. I expect this to be available as a print shortly.

I’m very interested to read about certain topics in comics and literature- race being one. David Brothers, who generally writes very eloquently on various subjects, and particularly thoughtfully on comics, has a long post about the issue here.

Ales Kot, Brandon Graham, Matt Kindt, Box Brown, Kieron Gillen and many others discuss their favourite comic writers of 2012.

This kickstarter for physical magnetic comics, for which you can write and change around your own dialogue, seems to be doing something different which I haven’t seen before- it looks like it could be a very useful learning tool. It’s fully, and very, very successfully funded, but take a look to see the medium being used in a new manner.

Becky Cloonan, Andy Belanger and Karl Kerschl have set up their own distribution company, Lounak Distribution, a platform from which to sell their books and art amongst other things. Here’s some info from their newly launched website:

‘Studio Lounak is a creative hub of freelance artists working primarily in the field of American comics and European graphic novels, as well as in commercial illustration, video game design, painting, storyboard, animation and advertising.Behind Lounak Distribution is the idea to offer a streamlined distribution experience for both self-publishing creators who want to get their books into stores but don’t have the resources, and retailers looking to offer artist edition books previously only offered directly through creators.’

I’m no Star Wars fan, but this Millenium Falcon model made from a French rail ticket, by Geek Art, is pretty cool.