The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

It has been a while coming, but with summer finally arriving here are a few pointers for upcoming comics festivals on the Continent for the coming month or so. We’ve just had the 31st edition of the Arctic Comics Festival in Kemi, Finland, where Christophe Blain was the guest of honour. Also present were tintinologist Reijo Valta, Ola Skogäng (Sweden), literary cartoonist Maijastiina Vilenius, Disney cartoonist Kari Korhonen and more. Moving southwards down Europe and looking ahead there’s plenty more festvial goodness to look forward to.

Over the weekend of June 2nd and 3rd, the Stripdagen in Haarlem, Holland, is where it’s at. This year the main theme is comics from the Arab world, from Morocco to Qatar, with lectures, interviews and exhibitions. Other exhibitions focus on the work of Peter van Dongen, Lamelos, Rudolf Valster and Stripdagen VIP par excellence, Joost Swarte (never a bad thing to have a helping of Swarte, we think). And lots more, of course!

At the same time, the 17th edition of the Rendez-vous de la BD in Amiens, France takes place, with lots of, mostly French creators (unsurprisingly), exhibitions on the series Aquablue and Okko and on venerable satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (still going despite the firebombing of their offices a few months ago), and on American short stories in comics format.

One week later (7th to 10th June), there’s the Internationaler Comic Salon in Erlangen, Germany. With more than 400 artists present from all over the world and an expo with no less than 150 German and international publishers, this is a great opportunity to meet all of comics in one venue. Information on exhibitions and events has not been published as yet, although you can see the shortlist for the pretigious Max und Moritz awards here on the blog.

From June 4th to 10th, the Sismics Festival d’Images in Sierre, Switzerland, has people as varied as Italian cartoonist Guido Volpi, graphic artist Terhi Ekebom, the Swish Remake collective and American-Swiss illustrator Randy DuBurke.

Finally, 16th and 17th of June are the dates for the Strasbulles festival in Strasbourg, France. Guest of Honour is Korean comic artist Kim Jung-Gi, who is as yet not really well-known beyond the world of Manwha, but hopefully this exhibition of some of his sketchwork will change that. In addition to this, this year’s guest country is Germany, with exhibitions of work by and interviews with (as yet unnamed) German authors.

Cool Johnny‘s mashup of Calvin and Hobbes with Lord of the Rings made me smile. (via Live for Films)

Mike Smith’s Blogshank features some cracking short comic strips, usually drawn across a couple of pages of a diary, detailing the delights of family life and parenthood – well worth a look (thanks to Dave Shelton for the tip).

Psircus Issue 1 – The Origins of Kathy and Icarus

Written by Daniel Bell, art by Katja Lindblom, Iain Buchanan, Daniel Bell

Yes, PT Barnum presents…. yes, the same PT Barnum who runs the circus. Except in here, it’s the Psircus he’s running, the Psircus being a way for writer (and sometime artist) Daniel Bell to shoehorn PT Barnum into his comic in a sort of weird Professor X (less wheelchair, more elephants perhaps?) fashion, the leader of a secret society of psychics, and secret saviour of the world.

Once you get over that bizarre, slightly off-putting inclusion, what we have here is 28 pages of comic, and three stories that deliver this Psi-sage really rather well. It’s by no means perfect sure, but for what it is, for what it’s trying to be, it does a fair job.

Kathy and Icarus are two girls with psi-powers, and in the three short tales we get a couple of origins of sorts, and a joint mission. What I thought was handled particularly well was Bell’s control of his storyline. He’s obviously got something bigger he’s trying to tell through this and hopefully future issues, but he understands that to tell what he want to he has to tell the smaller stories first, establish his characters, work them into the plot, and if he’s clever enough, he can combine all of that into these 28 pages.

Quick answer – yes, he’s clever enough.

(Kathy Isn’t Right by Daniel Bell and Katja Lindblom)

Kathy’s tale involves young Kathy breaking out of the mental hospital she’s been incarcerated in to deal with what they see as her paranoid schizophrenia, but actually is her massive psychic power.

She’s part of a power struggle between the afore-mentioned Barnum and some other, unseen force that calls to Kathy to escape. And this is very much her first meeting with Barnum, her introduction to the world she’s to inhabit in the future.

(Icarus by Daniel Bell and Iain Buchanan)

Icarus’ tale has something of the Leon about it; the young girl being apprenticed in the ways of the professional assassin. Or at least that’s what she thinks she’s doing.

In actual fact, she’s a powerful telekinetic, and her trainer is more concerned with the power of her brain than he is the power of the gun. I could tell you more, but that’s a sweet twist in the story that’s yours to discover.

(The Pull by Daniel Bell)

Finally, in story three – The Pull – we get to see a little of the girls in action now, what feels like a few years after their individual origin-ish stories. Now they’re working for Barnum’s Psi-operation and out on a job tracking down a particular piece of lowlife with low level psi-abilities that he puts to all too pathetic use.

Kathy and Icarus trawl the local flesh pit nightclubs, posing as more prey for this nasty little rapist, and deliver a suitable punishment after a well worked psychic conflict.

Three stories, each one well done, short, sweet, telling a tale within the story, yet also delivering something more, something of the greater saga.

If I had to criticise, it would be over bits of the art. None of the three artists are particularly bad here, but neither do any of them really stand out. Personally Bell’s story with his own art is the best of the three. Too much of Lindblom’s work seems too rough to me, with some panels really making me question just what she’s trying to show me. Buchanan’s art is suffering as it seems to be merely a black & white version of the colour work on Bell’s blog. It makes the tones artificial.

But even as I write those criticisms I feel a little too harsh. What worked best of all was the story, and each artist delivers the story as best they could, without real detriment to my enjoyment. For someone who’s always more story driven than cares about the art, that’s just fine.

There’s some interesting questions left unanswered here, although never to the detriment of the story in front of you. But who is Sunnyside? Who are the girls reporting to at the end of The Pull? It’s not Barnum. Who was Barnum up against in his fight over Kathy? How long has all this been going on? Who is Icarus’ trainer, Barnums’ partner, something else, just another team member?

Just having this many questions and still having enjoyed the comic tells me that it worked, that it’s enjoyable as a single issue, yet full of enough to make me want more. That, I think, is proof of job done for any #1 of a comic. Well done to all involved.

Now, where’s issue 2?

Great news from John Allison – his excellent Bad Machinery webcomic on his Scary Go Round site has been picked up by great Indy comics publisher Oni Press, home of, among many others, Scott Pilgrim. The series sees two groups of schoolkids in Scooby Doo hijinks (okay, not that Scooby Doo…) investigating odd goings on in their fictional small town as well as the everyday interaction of young teens at a high school; given John’s work has consistently proved popular (with shout outs in our annual guest Best of the Years from his peers as well as blog crew) I think this should do well, we’re very chuffed for John. There are several complete Bad Machinery tales up online already and this first printed volume is due from Oni next March.

I know nothing about this fan-film teaser for Matt Wagner’s superb Grendel series – is it just a trailer, a wish for a the film they’d like to see or is it a teaser for a fan-film they are actually planning to make? It doesn’t really say, but it is still a nice teaser and of course, we’d love to see an actual fan-film of Grendel (actually given how much Hollywood is eating up comics titles of all sorts to adapt right now I am surprised they’re not scheduling a Grendel flick soon):

Matt Wagner’s Grendel – a fan film teaser trailer from Michael C. Poole on Vimeo.

Spirou & Fantasio: Running Scared

Written by Philippe Vandevelde (Tome), illustrated by Jean-Richard Geurts (Janry)

Cinebook

Spirou and Fantasio are hired by a doctor to escort some of his patients. Their ailment? An apparently incurable case of the hiccups. His solution: Send them on the most insane adventure ever and scare the hiccups out of them! Since he offers to pay for their expedition, the two fearless reporters agree to take the patients with them as they attempt to locate two explorers lost in 1938 near the Nepalese border… in the middle of a war!

Volume 2 – Spirou & Fantasio In New York really impressed, with the timing, the slapstick, the carefully constructed wordplay, the background visual gags all leading me to a conclusion that my eventual comparisons to classic Asterix and Tintin were warranted, not with the art necessarily, but with the same manic intensity of Asterix, and the travel and adventuring of Tintin (albeit with far more gags).

I hadn’t realised, before a quick internet search, that Tome and Janry’s take on the characters was merely the 80s version, with the title stretching back to the 40s. From a very quick overview, it seems Cinebook’s decision to reprint starting with Tome & Janry’s work is a smart one, with this version being arguably the best.

This is a good, rip-roaring adventure, just not up there with Volume 2, this convoluted tale of Spirou and Fantasio taking a group of hiccuping patients into Nepal to get their conditions cured through the shock of adventuring. Yeah, weird, but it’s simply a background to hang some impressive and funny set-pieces from, and as such it matters not one bit.

And early on, even tough the sum total of the book was a little under par, the setpieces certainly impressed, with Tome’s spirited, exuberant action sequences matched by Janry’s lovely artwork, never better represented by this page….

I do love the excitement, action, and sheer exuberance that’s delivered there, and there’s similar several times throughout, a great deal of adventuring going on, worthy of a certain boy reporter…. In fact, if you needed any more proof of the adventuring link with Herge’s creation, how about this, where Spirou and Fantasio meet their guide, one familiar it seems with a certain “young foreigner with little white dog” looking for Yetis, who even seems to have picked up a few choice expressions from a certain Captain:

Volume 3, although good, felt a little flat in comparison to the tight, very funny work of Volume 2. Much of that is down to this storyline splitting across this and the next Volume, more length means less enjoyment here, with the gags and action not coming as thick and fast perhaps, and the tight, funny storyline seems looser and consequently less funny, less complete.

So although it might not be as great as the standalone US trip of Volume 2, this certainly has the action, adventure, and laughs, just not as tightly done.

I’ve known for a while that one of my favourite science fiction writers, Ken MacLeod, was working alongside the excellent Edward Ross (who created the fascinating Filmish comics on film theory I reviewed previously) on a science education project using comics. Ken drops us a line to let us know that the fruits of their labours are now out in the public domain: Hope Beyond Hype, which uses the medium to explain the development and benefits of a branch of the life sciences that some with a particular ideology decry, usually without examining the actual fact. As with Darryl Cunningham’s just-released (and well received) Science Tales the idea is to use the medium to explain the facts behind the science in a clear and accessible manner anyone can understand.

From the description: ”[it]starts with the true life story of two badly burned boys being treated with stem cell generated skin grafts in 1983. We then follow the successes and setbacks of a group of researchers working together to use stem cells to cure blindness, whilst being introduced to knotty issues that are part of the process, including stem cell regulation and the controversial ethical issues surrounding the subject. Whilst some of the story lines sound like science fiction they are in fact all true, despite the fact the script was written by the well-known Scottish Science Fiction writer, Ken Macleod. Comic book artist Edward Ross illustrated the script with his clear, friendly and attractive artwork, whilst stem cell researchers from OptiStem provided the real-life examples of their research and experiences.”

Although Ken is best known for being one of the UK’s top SF writers his own educational background is in science, he’s always delighted in incorporating real scientific thinking into his fiction and in recent years he has been doing a stellar job as a writer in residence with science teams in Edinburgh (I caught some of the talks that were part of that residency, which were open to all, and they were fascinating and a good way to get the public thinking about the scientific research we rely on). Away from his Filmish self published comics I enjoyed so much Edward is no stranger to educational, science-based comics now either, having also worked recently on illustrating a comic work with Glasgow University’s Jamie Hall on a comic on malaria. The work is nice, simple and clear, taking in some of the early discoveries in the field of stem cells in medicine and the applications to help heal conditions which previously had few viable treatments that could be used for them, including the use of the research to literally grow more new skin to heal boys hideously burned in a bad fire.

I rather like the way the comic took some pains to explain the enormous effort that goes into scientific research, how many years of dedicated work goes on at the most basic levels to see where these new techniques can be pushed, some leading to fruitful new areas of further research, some eating years of work but leading nowhere (but as it makes clear, the research needs to be done, it is the only way to find which techniques and possible therapies could be viable and helpful in the long run – and any real scientific research has to consider the long run), and also how funding is required to sustain such efforts on the potential promise of new discoveries that can vastly improve human health and wellbeing, as well as commenting on the way some possible new discoveries are taken by the media and overblown in the usual tabloid style leading to a perhaps unrealistic expectation of how effective new therapies will be and how quickly they can be developed and delivered – the comic, thankfully, tries to put the reality of the research into some clear context.

Ken documents working on Hope Beyond Hype on his blog – his first comics work, for which he thanks, among others, former Tharg David Bishop (who, as regular readers will recall, also now teaches on a course in genre writing, including comics work, at Edinburgh’s Napier University), for advice in how to script a comic. You can read Hope Beyond Hype on the Euro Stem Cell site, download it as a PDF or order a printed version via Edinburgh University’s site. And one a related note I’d like to say a huge congrats to Edward and his other half (and Edinburgh Science Fiction Book Group regular) Mary on the recent birth of their wee boy.

Missed this until I had a wee back-browse through some videos, but the always fascinating TED lectures series has a fairly recent (March, I think) talk up by Chip Kidd – it isn’t specifically about his comics work, rather about his approaches to book design in general, but it is a funny, fascinating and well-presented talk and well worth a look:

SPOOKS Volume 1: The Fall Of Babylon

By Xavier Dorison and Fabien Nury, art by Christian Rossi

Cinebook

“1895. Members of the East Coast elite have died under mysterious circumstances. To investigate this delicate problem, Richard Clayton—against the wishes of the President—calls upon a man named Morton Chapel for his unorthodox methods and peculiar associates. As they begin to uncover strange, vanishing marks on people’s bodies, unexplained changes in behaviour and hints of widespread corruption, the team reforms around the name Ulysses S. Grant himself gave it years earlier: his SPecialists in the Odd and the OCcult—his SPOOKS.”

I was expecting rather great things from SPOOKS, or WEST, as it was originally titled, written as it is by Xavier Dorison, whose Long John Silver is a near perfect book whose next volume I eagerly await.

But sadly SPOOKS didn’t quite manage the brilliance of LJS, perhaps due to it being published in France 4 years prior to LJS, and there are moments where Dorison’s ideas and pacing fail here where they were confident, assured, and flawless in LJS.

But there’s still more than enough here to make it something worth reading, something worth enjoying for all the silliness and excitement that a genre mashup of Cowboys and Paranormal Investigations promises.

Come on, this is the Magnificent Seven meets the X-Files. Doesn’t that put a smile on your face?

The Cinebook summary blurb gives you pretty much everything you need to decipher the plot here… that sequence above features cigar chomping SPOOKS sponsor Richard Clayton getting his marching orders from the US Government and beginning the process of assembling his SPOOKS team, starting with the Englishman Morton Chapel.

The final panel with Chapel under threat is just a classic example of the over the top stuff Dorison is going for – the cut to a different panel, the cliché of the Russian roulette moment, it wont be the first familiar comic/film stereotype you see here. And you know something – it didn’t bother in the slightest. In fact, it’s all part of the fun.

So you’ll get a riotous beginning, introducing the supernatural stuff, where all those very important people start dying, all with that occult symbol that goes as soon as they do, all culminating in the chaos you see above. Again, the whole train crash out of the station isn’t new wither. And again, it matters not one whit. This is something that rather wonderfully wears all it’s influences proudly.

And after this we have the classically structured team book  - the heroes assembled in response to a threat, again wonderfully familiar, this time with the Magnificent Seven firmly in my mind.

There’s so much to enjoy here, as long as you want to, as long as you don’t go looking for too much. This is an unashamed genre mashing romp, harking back to so much that has gone before, Dorison and Nury tripping over themselves to shoehorn as many different western/paranormal moments into the plot.

It promised a lot more than it delivered to be honest, much of that possibly down to Dorison’s development as a writer since, but some of it simply down to them trying too damn hard to get so much in.

But nevertheless, if you’re looking for something interesting, light, fast, and fun…. SPOOKS may well fit the bill.

Neil Gaiman, suitably gowned, robed and hatted and looking very happy, gives the address to this year’s graduating class in this video uploaded by the University of the Arts:

Neil Gaiman Addresses the Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts on Vimeo.

Pictures…. yeah….

Margaux Motin (author of the lovely looking, very funny sounding But I Really Wanted To Be An Anthropologist) cover for Fluide.G mag – from the SelfMadeHero blog:

The first thing he’s posted since October 2011…. Paul Pope’s Jedi from 2011:

Just one from a series of Chris Weston commissions over at 2000AD Online:

Mick McMahon commission pencils…

Tony Moore… Hellboy Versus Popeye….

I may be getting a little tired of Charles Paul Wilson‘s Pooh style stuff…. but this was too much fun to pass up (Via Ashcan All-Stars):

Having said that, a quick look at his Deviant art page sends me looking at “The Stuff Of Legend” comic that he provides pencils for. Looks very nice, another to go on the long, long list of stuff to look at!

Who Is Rupert Ray? – Luke Pearson: “A drawing I did for the exhibition ‘Who is Rupert Ray?’, an exhibition for the launch of ‘Rupert Ray’, a new agency founded by Alex Maclean and Caroline Matthews”

Colleen Coover – pre order sketch for Emerald City and one lucky punter:

A wonderful series, way back when…. ad from 1990, courtesy Mr Phil:

Tyranus: Krak:

Rafael Grampa (via Warren Ellis): “Rafael Grampa’s been producing some fine covers lately, but, for my money, none finer than this piece for Brian Wood & Kristian Donaldson’s new comics project at Dark Horse, THE MASSIVE.  Colours by Dave Stewart.”

Rian Hughes DC Merchandise work… from his FB:

The What Not collaborative blog is on a film kick right now…. Dave Johnson does Carrie:

Francesco Francavilla does something about a shark:

The brick sized TCJ #302 should be out this Autumn. As usual, full of more reading than you can probably get through before Christmas.

But noteably, it has an interview with Maurice Sendak, something we’d talk about anyway, but made all the more important by his death this month. Essential reading.

Gary Groth has posted a sneak preview over at TCJ blog:

Groth, from his introduction:

“The fact is, we got along incredibly well. We had several 30-40 minute conversations that ranged all over the place, but which usually centered on the state of the world and how much he loathed it. He was quite cheerfully and gregariously grumpy about it all, an attitude and a point of view that I appreciated, and even shared. It was obvious that he took no small measure of delight in inveighing against contemporary degradations, and I have to admit that I took no little delight in listening to him. He would cite specifics about the world going to hell in a hand-basket and I would inevitably, and truthfully, concur.”

The actual interview itself mostly consists of Groth and Sendak chatting one afternoon and evening in Sendak’s house, his yard, wandering around the neighbourhood. As Groth says:

“He didn’t throw me out; in fact, quite the opposite, he spoke animatedly all afternoon and into the evening, mostly while we walked around his property, sat on a bench in his sprawling backyard (more like a private park), and strolled down the street, the tape recorder going much the time, and yielding the most unconventional, conversational interview I’ve ever done.”

And a few quotes from Sendak:

“Well, I get criticized for doing too serious books. Why is there a dead child in so many of your books? Why is there a chagrined mother? Because that’s the way it is. It works both ways. You either become very superficial, and do it strictly for the money, or you become very serious and turn people off. And if it’s a book for children, my God! I would not know how to write a book for children.I’ve never written a book for children.”

“Bush was president, I thought, “Be brave. Tie a bomb to your shirt. Insist on going to the White House. And I wanna have a big hug with the vice president, definitely. And his wife, and the president, and his wife, and anybody else that can fit into the love hug.””

Yes, sounds like essential reading.

Coming to a venue near you in May. If you happen to live in Paris, Montargis, Nantes, or Lyon that is. David Ziggy Greene is off on a mini tour of France…

The Alter Ego show finished on Wednesday – and from all reports it was a bit good.

Seven artists involved: Waste, Cottonmouth (RichT) , Guy McKinley, Klingatron, Robert Ball, Smug, and WJC looking at the ideas of being someone else, hero, villain, whatever…. the artwork is over at the Alter Ego Facebook page. But I figured you could cope with a piece from each here….

Klingatron

Waste

Guy McKinley

Cottonmouth - RichT

Smug

WJC

… and finally Robert Ball, whose first foray into superhero comics has had immediate results…

“After all this mucking about with superheroes and the like, I was contacted by comic creator Raffaele Ienco about drawing a pin-up for his comic book ‘Epic Kill’ from Image comics. As the title suggests, this ain’t Emily Bronte – the female protagonist basically killing anything that moves in a variety of inventive ways. Thanks to Raffaele for chancing his arm on a complete unkown, this picture will appear in the July issue of Epic Kill, in all good comic shops etc etc…”

Here’s that pin-up, and you can get Epic Kill here.