The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log » Britain

Vote for Change You Can Believe In!

Joe — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:06:35 +0000

The final shortlist of nominees for the Eagle Awards, the main British comics gongs, are now online, awaiting your perusal and your vote. And ‘for your consideration’ as they say in Tinsel Town, cast your eyes down to Favourite Comics Related Website and among the fine sites jostling for your attention and vote is our very own Forbidden Planet blog. Yes, your FP blog crew can now attach the phrase ‘Eagle-nominated’ to their description.Huge thanks to all of you who nominated us, it’s much appreciated; we all love writing about comics, SF, animation and all the fantastical genres that we love and it’s really rewarding to know that a lot of you enjoy what we post, so we really appreciate the support.

And yes, now that the final voting form is live online this is indeed a brazen, shameless plea from us for more support. Forget those damned conniving politicians, a vote for us will help end world hunger, the global recession, make sure all children get fluffy puppies and kittens to adore and everyone has their personal atomic powered jetpacks. Okay, okay, like most election promises we clearly can’t achieve those, you got us. But we can promise comics news, opinion, reviews and interviews from the Brit small press scene to the big names, from the US to Europe.

And while you are on the Eagle voting page, please do cast your eye over the other categories; there are some truly excellent creators nominated in the various categories – Al Ewing, Kieron Gillen, Declan Shalvey, Jamie McKelvie, Tony Lee, Warren Ellis, John Wagner, Stuart Immonen, Frank Quitely, Guy Davis, Charlie Adlard, Ben Templesmith to name but a few – and one of the things I like about the Eagles is it gives the independent Brit comics presses a chance to shine too: Whatever Happened to the World’s Fastest Man?, FutureQuake, Chloe Noonan, Dragon Heir and Spandex are among the UK small press comics up for a gong, so you get a good chance to support some top homegrown talent.

UniComics Festival

Joe — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:01:58 +0000

The UniComics Festival will be taking place from the 22nd to 25th of April at the University of Hertfordshire, with events aimed at newcomers and longtime fans, both young and old. Among the guests on the roster there’s some top talent to be seen, including Dave Gibbons, Ian Edginton, Sarah McIntyre, Gary Erskine, Kevin O’Neill, Ian Culbard and Pat Mills and will take in various subjects from children’s comics and animation to classic Brit comics like 2000 AD and Dan Dare; you can download a PDF of the programme from the official site. (thanks to Sara at the Edinburgh Book Festival for the link)

Lit Sutra – Brit writers in India

Joe — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:07:55 +0000

Alastair kindly informs us that several British writers – China Mieville, Andy Diggle, Mark Billingham and Denise Mina -are all travelling to India this week. It’s part of the Lit Sutra programme of the British Council, “whose aim is to introduce the best British crime fiction, sf & fantasy, and graphic novel writers to the subcontinent.” Alastair tells me that we will be able to follow blog posts, images and audio via the Lit Sutra site and to start things off there’s also a nice treat in the form of an extract from China’s upcoming novel Kraken.

(cover to The Losers Volumes 1 & 2 by Andy Diggle and Jock, published DC)

Awards round-up: British Fantasy Society, Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, Avilés Comic Convention

Joe — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:47:58 +0000

There’s been a bunch of SF&F and comics awards over the last few days – the British Fantasy Society awards were given out at Fantasycon (doubtless over many drinks), with William Heaney taking the gong for Best Novel (the August Derleth Fantasy Award) for Memoirs of a Master Forger, Doctor Who took the Best Television award, The Dark Knight the Best Film and Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez won the Best Comic/Graphic Novel gong for Locke and Key. On a personal note I’ve got to say congrats to my mate Tim Lebbon (as well as being a fantasy-horror scribe par excellence Tim also writes with several of us on the Blog O’Beer, proper ale and SF&F being two items which strangely enough often go together…) who won the Best Novella award for The Reach of Children; the full list can be read here.

(a page from Orn Historia Universal 3, by and (c) Quim Bou, borrowed from the artist’s blog)

Meanwhile the invaluable SF Awards Watch points us to more awards news – in French SF&F le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire shortlist (which covers both original French language work and translated SF&F) has been announced. And SFAW also has news from Spain of the awards given out at the XIV Avilés Comic Convention, which includes Quim Bou taking the Best National Comic Book Artist for Orn: Historia Universal 3, Best National Scriptwriter going to Felipe Hernández Cava por Las Serpientes Ciegas, Best Foreign Work went to Jaime Hernandez for The Education of Hopey Glass and Ed Brubaker taking best foreign scriptwriter for Criminal (full details on SFAW; Spanish publisher Dolmen Editorial has a couple of photos here).

(cover to The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime Hernandez, published Fantagraphics)