The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

François Schuiten’s never been one for straightforward comic work. His long-running series, Les Cités Obscures (with Benoît Peeters) always involved intricate imagery combined with almost labyrinthine storytelling. Just doing a comic doesn’t seem to be enough of a challenge for Schuiten.

Recently, Schuiten has been in the news with new productions that are perfect examples of this “one extra step”. First, there was the stamp he designed for the Belgian Post Office to commemorate the centennial of the Titanic disaster. It wasn’t Schuiten’s first assignment for the Post Office – in the past he designed stamps commemorating information scientist Paul Otlet, designer Henry Van de Velde and the Belgian endeavours on the Antarctic continent. This time, though, he took it one step ahead, by designing two stamps as a perfect stereogram. When looked at using a special viewer (which is included in the package), the stamps melt together to form an exquisite 3D rendition of the ship’s final hours.

Schuiten’s most recent book, La Douce, takes this even one step further. The book is one long ode to the Type 12 Atlantic, a belgian-built locomotive that was used around the middle of the Twentieth Century. Five locos of this type were built, but only one survived the sixties, largely thanks to railway men who thought it was too beautiful a machine to just scrap. Schuiten discovered the locomotive while designing the Brussels Railway Museum, which is slated to open in 2014, and immediately fell in love with it. The problem with the comic format, though, is that you can only suggest movement, and a such, it is rather a limited medium to use for a celebration of a machine that was essentially built for speed.

For that reason, Schuiten collaborated with 3D visualisation specialists Dassault Systemes to embed movement and speed in the comic. Dassault created a number of splendid 3D animations, that the reader can call up by holding the book up to any webcam. Thanks to Schuiten’s eye for detail, though, the animations are not just some kind of DVD extra, but play an actual role in the story itself.

As that other great Belgian graphic designer, Ever Meulen, said so many years ago, “Use the mood of the past to rewire your brain for the future”. François Schuiten is doing just that.

The Titanic stamps are available from the BPost website; La Douce was published recently by Casterman, and costs 18 Euros.

Well known Irish comics creators and supporter Tommie Kelly has just launched a new webcomic on the unsuspecting populace, The Holy Numbers. Set in Ireland and with a religious/spiritual movement at its heart, Father Ted on Craggy Island this is not. When a woman awakes in the middle of the night, concerned about her boyfriend’s strange behaviour – apparently talking to himself in nonsensical phrases to something that isn’t there – she is understandably concerned. He dismisses her and her worries by simply telling her of course she can’t see anything – she’s not on the right frequency. Oh and he isn’t himself anymore, he is now Ravensdale.

So is Dave – sorry, Ravensdale – a couple of verses short of a gospel or is he simply a charlatan, like so many before out to abuse the need many people have for some sort of religious or spiritual belief, offering them some flim-flam balm to soothe their souls and make them feel better about themselves while profiting from the resulting fame, monetary donations and influence this brings? Or is he the real thing?

Tommie has been kind enough to let me have a sneak peak at the first chunk of storyline and I’m glad to say he isn’t in a hurry to reveal the truth behind Dave/Ravensdale’s transformation into a spiritual guru but with various scenes including multiple flashbacks from various perspectives (from bystanders to other main players) he starts to build up an image of the impact he is having on the country with his ideas, the alarm he causes both the secular and religious authorities along the way. I can see this building into something rather interesting…

Rather nicely Tommie has built a whole site around The Holy Numbers – this isn’t just a few frames every week day of webcomic, the site has been constructed as if Ravensdale were real, his books actually existed and the movement he inspired is running the site, complete with interviews with agents of the movement and quotes from his books, as a way for the uninitiated to learn more about Ravensdale and his teachings. Quite a clever bit of world-building, to put it in SF terms and a nice use of the web to create more depth than just a webstrip itself could offer. I’ve only read the first couple of weeks of strips but already as well as an engrossing hook into an ongoing story there is also clearly a tale here that is drawing parallels to various spiritual organisations, be they the established churches, newer groups (like those started by certain SF writers we won’t name just in case!) or the seemingly never ending glut of theological self-help books churned out in enormous numbers by so-called spiritual gurus promising this is the book that wil help you live that idealised life as it was meant to be (and why not join the association, buy the CDs, make a donation to the retreat etc while you are at it?) and which are usually as spiritually fulfilling as their cousins in the self help ideal diet book section are…

I don’t think Tommie is having a go at any one set of theological ideas here (although I am sure that won’t stop someone being offended and convinced he is attacking their personal belief system, because there is always someone like that), rather the story is more of a comment on the human need to have some sort of spiritual and theological dimension to our lives, and if we don’t have one that fits we either invent a new one or latch onto one someone else shows to us if they can persuade us. There are already several strips up on the site, along with the aforementioned ‘value added’ related items that help set the theme of the world Tommie is creating here, so click on the ‘first’ button if you are just starting it – and obviously bookmark it now, it will be one to watch and see where Tommie is taking this.

(some frames from Cyril Pedrosa’s contribution to Le Monde Diplomatique)

Last year Wim told us about the respected French current affairs journal Le Monde Diplomatique partnering up with Homecooking Books to produce a Hors Série, where their normal thoughtful analyses in prose were replaced by a range of works in comics form by a wide variety of French and global comics creators. Now our own Kenny draws our attention to a whole page on LMD’s site featuring comics and wow, you are going to have to bookmark this one to come back to browse through because it boasts a huge array of stellar world comics talent, such as Bastien Vivès, James Sturm, Cyril Pedrosa, Søren Glosimodt Mosdal, Pablo Auladell, Edmond Baudoin, Jeong Hwa Min, Sophie Martineck, Marijpol, Pascal Rabaté, Stuart Kolakovic, Marc bell, Olivier Schrauwen, Line Hoven, Belxbolex, Gianni Gipi, Martin Tom Dieck, Anke Feuchtenberger and, well, lots more, but come on, just a few of those names alone are enough to get anyone seriously interested in comics wanting to have a look, surely? Yes, I’m afraid there is a language barrier there, sadly, but with this amount of global talent on offer it is still well worth having a browse, go on, you’ll thank us for it!

(above, Jeong Hwa Min’s wordless contribution, below some typically lovely artwork by Stuart Kolakovic)

The always excellent Jason sketches inside a book for a reader at the recent TCAF:

Jason in action from Ila Solomon on Vimeo.

From what I’ve been seeing on Twitter over the last few days one of the venerable landmarks on the British comics con calendar, the Bristol Comics Expo, hasn’t quite cut the mustard this year, at least for some involved in the comics biz. I’ve seen a few creators twittering about poor footfall and subsequently poor sales, making the con a rather expensive proposition for them and others noting that with so many conventions now – including a number during spring and summer months that are so close together now – time and money considerations are dictating which few creators and smaller publishers can go to, not to mention which cons offer a better chance of sales to cover those costs and what guests they may have to help pull in punters. Tim True, a regular at the Bristol happening, has, reluctantly it seems, posted a pretty depressing and negative view of the weekend’s event:

“The fact is, with so many shows, creators are suffering from “convention fatigue”. Cons take up a lot of work time, for professionals. Very few have their expenses covered, unless they are guests of honour, and so it’s a double hit for them, in terms of time away from the writing desk/drawing board and earning money, while having to lay out cash just to appear at the show. Hence, many try and recoup their losses by charging for sketches, selling original artwork and comics, and sleeping with fans for cash (one of those is a lie). Consequently, many stayed away from Bristol this year in favour of the more lucrative London-based Kapow, due the following weekend.”

Tim goes on to note that a lack of ‘star’ guests – Denny O’Neill sadly couldn’t make his appearance – and equal lack of presence from the major US publishers didn’t help, neither did less punters and he also damns organisers for not even organising much in the way of local publicity after he talked to one local journalist who told him there hadn’t really been anything to drive locals along to the event on their doorstep. With the growth in the number of conventions, Tim wonders, does it mean that some, like Bristol, may find themselves marginalised or even relegated to history? I don’t think any of us would like to see that happen. Certainly there has been a large growth in cons of late in the UK and Tim isn’t the first to wonder if the new cons, including the mixed media events like the MCM Expos that draw in film, television and gaming industry figures as well as comics, are going to simply be bigger draws, draining the older, established comic cons?

I suspect this could happen with some cons – the more Indy press events like Caption, Thought Bubble and Hi-Ex I can see managing since they work to a different audience, but a more mainstream event needs bigger names and more footfall. If what Tim and others have been saying over the last few days is true then it is worrying – what about you? Any of you have good or bad experiences of Bristol this year? I know some were tweeting positive messages out of Bristol as well, both as comics pros meeting punters and selling items as well as punters enjoying the weekend, so clearly it wasn’t all one way or the other. If you are a creator or publisher are you having to be careful which cons you can attend now with so many to choose from? And if so how do you decided which ones suits best? Let us know in the comments.

Okay, it’s catch-up time for a few DC New 52 titles I kept up with. You remember the whole DC New 52 thing don’t you? Where DC decided the entire DC Universe needed a good kick up the continuity backside, and started everything from #1 again.

52 new series. And back in September, we looked at them all. Some were okay, some rather terrible, but a surprisingly high number of them were actually rather good. Certainly good enough to keep reading.

That was the plan anyway. But you know how these things work eh? Too many comics, too little time. So over the next couple of months I really, really, honestly meant to pick up lots of them, but sadly never really managed to. However, I get another chance, as we’re getting the first batch of DC New 52 Collections coming out in May, and I thought I might revisit just a few of those I’d been looking at carrying on with.

Green Lantern: Sinestro

By Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke, with Mike Choi

DC Comics

This was a huge surprise to me when I read issues 1 & 2 back in 2011. Geoff Johns messing with the status quo quite marvellously, taking square-jawed Hal Jordan out of the costume at the start, stripped of the ring for some reason in the recent past that frankly doesn’t make an iota of difference to your enjoyment here.

Instead the unlikely Green Lantern on the cover is Sinestro, Jordan’s nemesis, and from what little prior knowledge I had coming into this, not the nicest of men.

Johns does such a great job of painting him not in simple terms, but as a super-smart, incredibly conflicted being who’s been manipulated into this Lantern role once more by The Guardians, and needs Jordan’s help to free his home world of Korugar from the Yellow Lantern Corps he set up as the planet’s protectors:

This really works best in the first three issues, where Sinestro plays Jordan, manipulates him, forces him to do the right thing. Johns’ simple touch of altering

Sinestro’s intellect, his guile, his simply superior knowledge, and time and again Jordan comes off second best:

That sequence from issue 3 really sums up everything I enjoyed in this, and in these set up issues Johns does so well with characterisation and dialogue that it’s perhaps inevitable that once the action starts in the fourth issue it’s something of a let-down. Once the fighting starts there’s less chance for the sparkling dialogue I’d enjoyed thus far.

Johns does a neat job of resolving the storyline in issue 5 before the epilogue/ cliffhanger/ setup for the next arc in issue 6, which also features a damned annoying switch of artist. Gone is the confident, attractive style of Doug Mahnke, and in his place is Mike Choi, whose photoshop effects don’t disguise a distinctly average style.

What started out as something really well done rather turned into a good example of superhero comics done with pace, style, and an above average entertainment value. But I was offered much more than this by Johns at first, and just giving me pretty good, above average, alright for what it it is superhero book, after giving me such enjoyment early on feels a real disappointment. I think I’ll take my enjoyment of the start of this one and leave it there.

You may remember last week I reported on a fascinating talk Heather Middleton of the Glasgow Women’s Library and the Team Girl Collective gave in Edinburgh’s Central Library on the history of women working in comics (you can read the report and see the pics here). Good new for readers on the other side of Scotland as Heather is giving another talk on the same subject at the Glasgow Women’s Library this week – Wednesday 16th from 6pm to 7.30, £3 per ticket (free for concessions and members). Very much worth going to for anyone with a serious interest in the medium. I’d also like to repeat that the library is building their collection of comics by female creators, but they rely on donations, so those of you out there who are working on your own comics, please consider giving them some support by sending them a copy of your work which will be archived where it can be accessed by readers and researchers.

Martin Conaghan and artist Simon Mackie are working on a new comics project, Reflections, which he describes as “a series of single-page autobiographical strips based on events in my life, illustrated brilliantly by Simon.” The collection is tentatively slated for release in November (an eye towards Thought Bubble, perhaps?) and you can already see a few scenes, like the one above, on a new Facebook page Martin started.

A couple of years back I flagged up a trailer for a very unusual and visually fascinating monochromatic animation by Mikey Please, The Eagleman Stag, which was attracting some positive buzz at various film festivals. It went on to glory at the BAFTAs and also scored another gong this spring with the recent British Animation Awards (see here) and I am delighted to note that Mikey has now placed the entire short animation online so you can watch the full film:

THE EAGLEMAN STAG from Mikey Please on Vimeo.

I should also draw your attention to a new project by Mikey, Martyn Miller, a sculptor who finds no-one pays attention until he starts deliberately deforming his creations. Suddenly people are interested, so he applies this don’t-care attitude to other aspects of his life and finds more success in relationships and elsewhere – except with one side effect, he appears to be shrinking… Mikey has some funding secured but requires more to complete the film; all animation is time-consuming and therefore quite expensive, but working in stop-motion is especially laborious (although personally I love the results from stop-motion, as well as the fact when you watch it you know everything you see on screen was made by hand, touched and moved by hand). He has an Indie GoGo fundraiser running right now to try and get enough money to complete the work, so lend one of our gifted young (and award winning) animators some help if you can and spread the link around too.

Another weekend and time to sit back, unfold your ears into a comfortable listening position and take in some of the programmes Alex Fitch is involved in, including, I am pleased to see, more on his series of European comics creators, talking to the artist behind one of my favourite books of last year, Uli Oesterle, about his brilliant Hector Umbra which came out from Blank Slate at the end of 2011 (and made my Best of the Year list, brilliant stuff, if you missed it have a look). As ever for more details check the Panel Borders site, where you can also find links to podcast of previous shows.

Panel Borders: European adventure comics, Sunday 13th of May at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast on Panel Borders afterwards

Continuing our trio of shows looking at international comics we have interviews with a couple of European adventure comics creators. In an interview recorded at last year’s BD & Comics Passion festival at the Institut Français, Dickon Harris talks to Yves Sente, one of the current authors of the classic Franco-Belgian strip Blake and Mortimer, who has penned stories set in the current chronology of the comic as well as flashback tales that depict the characters in their youth. Also, in a pair of interviews recorded at Gosh! comics and Laydeez do comics, Alex Fitch talks to Uli Oesterle about his graphic novel Hector Umbra, a surrealist detective story which follows the travails of a painter who investigates the underworld of modern day Munich.

recent podcasts

Reality Check: Dystopian TV and film

In a pair of Q & As recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON, the London International Festival of Fantastic and Science-Fiction Film, Alex Fitch talks to Ilana Rein (director: We are all Cylons), Andrew Mark Sewell (producer: Blake’s 7 audio) and Ben Aaronovich (writer: Blake’s 7 audio / Doctor Who) about dystopian TV from The Time Tunnel to Battlestar Galactica; and to Elizabeth Karr (producer) and John Alan Simon (writer / director) of new Philip K. Dick adaptation Radio Free Albemuth.

The Pod Delusion episode 134

This week we find out why geeks need to get more political by speaking to Mark Henderson, author of the ‘Geek Manifesto’, speak to Professor Jim Al-Khalili about his new book on paradoxes in science, discover why FRAND is no friend of free software, and go down the Ancestor’s Trail. Also, Alex Fitch looks at protest voting in Bradford and London and Peter English investigates the Biobank…

Comics…. Internet…. Art? We think so….

Craig Thompson does a little of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy (Via Aw Yeah Comics)

Jonathan Edwards has this “Happy Hour” print for sale.

David Hitchcock‘s Batman from many years ago: “Way back when (around 12 years ago I reckon) I did this victorian Batman, if was a for an idea I was going to submit to DC, it was rejected by Bob Wayne who I met at a show. Anyhow, I gave the original art to the show’s charity auction…and lo and behold it sold for about £200, think it was one of the highest single peices that sold in the auction… wish I kept it myself now ;)” (Via Hitchcock’s FB)

There’s a Thor of this as well, but Coulson’s the best … Matt Kaufenberg:

Francesco Francavilla – Avengers, the Earth’s First Heroes:

Dan McDaid (Via Aw Yeah Comics)

Power Man by Toby Cypress: (Via, and more at, Aw Yeah Comics)

Matt Kindt’s Covered version of X-Men #1:

Ashley Wood’s Joker & Harley (Via Aw Yeah Comics)

Noelle Stevenson… Avengers:

We’ve talked of our enjoyment of Sydney Padua’s Lovelace & Babbage before now, but it’s great to be able to report that Padua has recently announced that she’s got herself one of those book deals with one of those book publishers:

“What started as a punchline to a one-shot comic– hey, wouldn’t it be hilarious if there was a comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage fighting crime? –has evolved into… well, a really really long punchline. With footnotes! Now it my great pleasure to announce that this humble comic has been elevated to the PANTHEON one might say, actually, one would definitely say, because Pantheon Bookshas heard your pleas (a lot more effectively than I have it seems) and we are going to do Lovelace and Babbage: The Papery Thing with Ink On!

Pantheon is the legendary publisher of Very Important Graphic Novels Maus,Persepolis, and Habibi, so, you know, NO PRESSURE. As you may imagine I’ve spent the last couple of months alternating between lurking in Gosh Comics muttering, “Do you have any idea who I am?” and hiding under the bed. Not to mention, quivering with the need to tell someone!”

It may be a while before we see it though! That’s the bad news – the good news is that Padua will still be serialising on her 2D Goggles site…. here, start from part 1:

Now go and read on….

Oh, hold on, just one more bit, the gag that still makes me giggle like an idiot:

Over at Comics Alliance Chris Sims has been putting together some great cover mashups, complete with guest art and plotlines. I meant to link to them before, but never managed. But here’s the latest….

Art by Kerry Callan, and here’s the plot by Chris Sims:

For years, the Riddler has been one of Batman’s deadliest foes, but when ace rapper Jay-Z comes to Gotham City to perform at one of Bruce Wayne’s charity events, he sets his sights on a new target! Now, the Prince of Puzzles plots to put Jay-Z’s legendary ability to survive 99 simultaneous problems to the test with a sinister deathtrap designed to destroy the Dark Knight himself!

Will Batman be able to save his friend from nearly a hundred deadly snares set to go off at once, or will this be the Riddler’s greatest triumph? Will Jay-Z prove himself to be a hustler, homie, or a customer, crony? Brush the dirt off your shoulder and strap yourself in for the greatest team-up of all as the World’s Greatest Detective and the Best Rapper Alive face… ”The 99 Problems!”

There are many more of these, and dammit, they’re all good – here’s the lot.

Announced recently from Dark Horse, that’s page 2 from 47 Ronin by Mike Richardson and Stan Sakai, and it looks very good indeed. We all know how great an artist Stan Sakai is from his Usagi Yojimbo series, but his art is often overlooked due to the anthropomorphic characters.

But no chance of that here, as Sakai and Richardson tackle “the tale of the 47 Ronin, about a Japanese feudal lord who was forced to commit ritual suicide, and the samurai-turned-ronin who avenged his death”.

47 Ronin is released in November 2012.

In February 2012, for the 35th anniversary of 2000AD, I made a pledge:

“But here’s a deal for you. If you’ll do it, so will I. 2012 will be the year I read 2000AD. 2012 will be the year YOU read 2000AD.”

Another week, another 2000AD, another week spent trying to avoid simply shouting at you about how bloody good I think Judge Dredd Day Of Chaos is.

John Wagner and a series of great artists, currently Colin Macneil, are delivering a huge, monumental epic of a storyline, with Wagner throwing more and more into the mix, culminating last episode with the reintroduction of Judges Fear, Fire, and Mortis.

Where he’s taking it… I have no idea to be honest. And I don’t think that’s because I’ve only been playing in the 2000AD sandpit for a little while, I think it’s down to Wagner’s willingness to not put any limits on where he’s taking this. Or at least that’s what I hope he’s doing. I really do. As it is, I’m so pleased to be along for what feels like a really important part of Dredd history.

In fact, it’s so good I actually feel slightly sorry for the other strips in the mag at the moment.

Dredd even manages to eclipse (and I’m amazed I’m saying this) McCarthy and Ewing’s Zaucer Of Zilk which, although still looking gorgeous, and developing something more of a dark edge alongside the psychedelia, is still just a story. It loses out to a Dredd epic.

The rest of the issue suffers as well in comparison; Grant and Yeowell’s Cadet Anderson works well, looks fine, reads fine, and just feels like a standard, well done strip. That’s not bad, sometimes the world forgets that average is fine most of the time. And if Anderson is a good, yet average, sort of strip, sadly Flesh is dropping to below average. Now the “oh wow, huge bloody dinosaurs” effect is subsiding, there’s not too much to interest me behind it, as anything Mills is trying to say about time travel is rather lost in being annoyed with Mckay’s continued insistence on upping the cheesecake. Not what I was here for.

No new strip this time, instead, it’s a Tharg Time Twister. Which is actually rather good, and a nice example to a lot of comic creators out there in how to deliver start, middle, and end in just 4 pages whilst also having something approaching a satisfying level of story.

(Zaucer Of Zilk by Al Ewing and Brendan McCarthy)

(Cadet Anderson by Alan Grant and Steve Yeowell)

(Flesh by Pat Mills and James Mckay)

(Tharg’s Time Twisters – Contractions by TC Eglington and Lee Carter)

Next week…. or right now if you’re a subscriber (and I refuse to do that – still enjoying the nostalgic novelty of the newsagent every Wednesday) … DREDD and Block Wars again: