One, two, Freddy’s coming for you, three four, better lock your door... Yes, folks, we have horror icon Robert Englund coming soon. Englund has been well known and beloved of SF and horror genre fans for many years, appearing in a large number of productions from playing the good alien in the original V mini-series to the knowing nods and winks of the silly and highly enjoyable Zombie Strippers and voice acting for some great superhero animations like The Spectacular Spider-Man and The Batman. Of course to legions of fans, especially those of us who grew up on the 80s horror boom, Robert will always be forever linked with the razor fingered Freddy Kreuger, the monstrous slaughterer of teens who strikes in their dreams who has gone on to become a huge icon of the genre, taking his place alongside the venerable array of famous monsters of filmland (to borrow a phrase from the late Forry Ackerman), thanks in no small part to Robert treating the role with respect to deliver such a memorable monster (not least in the clever and disturbing New Nightmare where he played both himself as the actor playing Freddy and Freddy as ‘real’ too).

Robert will be appearing in the Manchester Forbidden Planet (65 Oldham Street, Piccadilly) on Thursday November 26th from 4 to 6pm, then at our Nostalgia & Comics store in Birmignham on Monday November 30th from 4 to 6pm, so please do come along and enjoy a rare chance to meet one of the genre’s truly iconic stars (we accept no responsibility for cuts sustained if shaking hands). Please note that there will be a fee for autographs.

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Strip! – Ctrl Alt Shift: Lightspeed Champion and Savage Messiah, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards at Panel Borders

Continuing ‘British Mavericks’ month on the show, Alex Fitch looks at the new charity anthology: “Ctrl Alt Shift unmasks corruption”, a collection of short comic strips that mixes seasoned professionals with the work of small press artists and creators from other media who are less well known for working in comics. From the latter group, Alex is talking to Dev Hynes*, better known as the musician Lightspeed Champion, who has a sincere interest in comics that led to the creation of two strips in the anthology. Alex also talks to the cover illustrator Laura Oldfield Ford, whose work can normally be found in fine art galleries in the fields of collage and traditional illustration, but also creates sequential art ‘zines under the name of Savage Messiah…

*(If you want to quibble, Dev was born in Texas but raised in Essex since the age of 2, so he’s an honorary British Maverick)

I’m ready for my close-up: The films of Joseph Strick, Firday 20th at 5pm on Resonance FM

To coincide with the ‘Directorspective’ of the work of Joseph Strick, currently at The Barbican centre in London, Alex Fitch talks to the Oscar Winning director about his career from working as a U.S. Airforce photographer during the Second World War to directing adaptations of challenging texts such as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Portrait of the artist as a young man, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Jean Genet’s The Balcony. A selection of six of Strick’s films will be screened on consecutive days at The Barbican from 19/11/09 and there is also an additional daily screening of a new print of Ulysses (1967) until 26/11/09.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Doctor Who and The Spiral Cage

Continuing our month look long at ‘British Mavericks’ – interviews with artists whose work brings aspects of the avant-garde to mainstream comics – Alex Fitch talks to artist Al Davison about his career so far, from early graphic novels based on autobiography such as The Spiral Cage and The Minotaur’s Tale which depict Al’s struggle with his identity as an artist with spina bifida to his most recent book Hokusai: Demons which explores Japanese erotic art and bestiaries based on the artist’s dreams; and also writer Tony Lee joins Alex and Al to discuss the latter’s collaboration with the artist on the American Doctor Who comic which depicts David Tennant’s alter-ego having adventures in 1920s Hollywood. Interviews recorded last month at the British International Comics Show in Birmingham.

Panel Borders: Lost gloves, types of women and a (comic) Book of lists

In the first of two episodes recorded at this summer’s Alternative Press week, ‘zine creator Dickon Harris talks to a couple of small press creators about their work: writer / artist Paul Rainey, whose comic book paperback The Book of Lists sees the cartoonist collating events from his life into thematic order and poet Ceri May who self publishes her writing at alt. press events. The podcast includes Ceri’s reading of the poems: “All the lost gloves of London”, “There are two types of women” and “When I grow up” and was recorded at The Miller pub on Snowsfield, Borough during Collaborama!… (Edited by Alex Fitch)

Panel Borders: The art of Paul Ashley Brown

In the second of two interviews recorded during the Alternative Press Fair, Dickon Harris talks to comic book writer and artist Paul Ashley Brown about his work outside the St. Aloysius Social Club in Somers Town, London. Dickon and Paul discuss the latter’s latest small press comic – Browner Knowle – and the small press scene in London from Fast Fiction in the 1980s to the present day.

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(Björk, image borrowed from her website gallery)

Icelandic singer and all round engima Björk is working with Sjón to create a song especially for a new film being made by the Finnish Filmkompaniet studio and due next year, “Moomins and the Comet Chase”. Hard to think on someone more suitable to sing for a Moomin Troll! I’ve been loving the really beautiful Tove Jansson Moomins collections that Drawn & Quarterly has been publishing over the last couple of years, how lovely to hear of a film too, although I wonder if we will get it in the English language cinema world? Fingers crossed.

(a scene from the first volume of the Complete Tove Jansson Moomin from D&Q)

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Oh yes, on the Multiverse forum, Michael Moorcock reports the following:

“Looks like it’s official. I’ll be doing a new Dr Who novel (not a tie-in) for appearance, I understand, by next Christmas. Still have to have talks etc. with producers and publishers but we should be signing shortly. Should be fun.”

I don’t know about you but the very first thing I thought was …… crossover potential:

(via ComicMix)

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At last, the waiting is nearly over – tomorrow night at 7pm we’ve got the Doctor back on UK screens. 7pm, BBC1, take the phone off the hook. The Beeb is promising this will be a good scary episode, so make space behind the sofas of the nation, in the traditional manner. Gosh, hard to believe this is us counting down to the last few special episodes with David Tennant… (pic (c) BBC, borrowed from Den of Geek who have a pile of pics from the Waters of Mars episode)

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Strip! – Doctor Who and The Spiral Cage, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Continuing our month look long at ‘British Mavericks’ – interviews with artists whose work brings aspects of the avant-garde to mainstream comics – Alex Fitch talks to artist Al Davison about his career so far, from early graphic novels based on autobiography such as The Spiral Cage and The Minotaur’s Tale which depict Al’s struggle with his identity as an artist with spina bifida to his most recent book Hokusai: Demons which explores Japanese erotic art and bestiaries based on the artist’s dreams. Alex and Al are also joined by writer Tony Lee to discuss the latter’s collaboration with the artist on the American Doctor Who comic which depicts David Tennant’s alter-ego having adventures in 1920s Hollywood. Today’s interviews were recorded last month at the British International Comics Show in Birmingham.

Clear Spot – The Alternative Press Fair, tonight at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

In an hour-long collection of interviews recorded at a couple of events during August’s Alternative Press week in London, ‘zine creator Dickon Harris talks to a trio of small press creators about their work; these include Paul Rainey, whose comic book paperback The Book of Lists sees the writer / artist collating events from his life into thematic order, poet Ceri May who self publishes and performs her work at alt. press events and accomplished illustrator Paul Ashley Brown who creates a bitter sweet, whimsical ‘zine called Browner Knowle based on observation from life. The broadcast compliments the event “Are you ‘zine friendly?” which is taking place at the same time as the programme at The Foundry in Hoxton.

Recent podcasts:

Reality Check: Time travelling Hobbits and other paradoxes, online at Sci-Fi London

In a pair of Q & As recorded in front of a live cinema audience at this year’s Sci-Fi London Film Festival, Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new low budget films: The Hunt for Gollum and Cryptic. Joining Alex and director Chris Bouchard on stage, members of the cast and crew of The Hunt for Gollum talk about making an extended short film that stands up to the quality of the official Lord of the Rings movies, in an adaptation of material by J.R.R. Tolkein that was a labour of love for all involved, even when recreating Middle Earth in Epping Forest on limited resources. Alex also talks to producer / co-director Danny Kuchuck about his film Cryptic which mixes teen therapy with tropes of murder mysteries, revenge thrillers and time paradoxes to create an intriguing Sci-Fi drama .

Panel Borders: The Art of Brendan McCarthy

Starting ‘British Mavericks’ month on the show – a series of conversations with illustrators whose work is surprisingly avant-garde for mainstream comics – we have an interview with pop art surrealist Brendan McCarthy. Appropriately for Guy Fawkes’ Night, Brendan’s work is the comic strip equivalent of fireworks, mixing lurid colours with hallucinogenic rendering that he has managed to smuggle into British periodicals such as 2000AD and Crisis and more recently has led to work in the field of film and animation design, working on TV series such as Reboot and the new film ‘Mad Max 4: Fury Road’. Today’s interview was conducted by author and librarian Pedro Galvao in front of an audience of Graphic Novel fans at Minet Library in Camberwell as part of Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival during the summer. (The episode was recorded and edited by Alex Fitch)

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Yep, there is an official trailer for Mark Millar and Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, the unusual superhero movie where the guys went around the traditional studio system and raised finance themselves to fund the film, allowing them to make it as they thought it should be, free of endless notes and memos from Hollywood suits demanding changes. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival this summer Mark touched on both the comic and film versions of Kick-Ass and seemed pretty happy with it, saying that the film was drawn pretty much directly from the comics, none of the ‘oh, please change this character and make her older or this guy’s motivation to this’. I’ve got to admit I’m quite intrigued by the concept – not just the actual story (what happens when an ordinary, non superpowered kid decides to dress up and take on bad guys as if he were in a comic book, with all that entails) but the way Mark and Matthew have actually made the film. You can listen to an hour long recording of Mark at the Book Festival here on the blog. (via Big Shiny Robot, via Andy Diggle’s Twitter)

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MSN has episodes from the classic Patrick Troughton era Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen tale on their video player as well as some other classic Who, Day of the Triffids and the modern remake of the Quatermass Experiment starring David Tennant. (above Deborah Watling as Victoria and Pat Troughton as the second incarnation of the errant Time Lord, (c) BBC).

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