Panel Borders episode 250 – Alan Moore and the horrors at Red Hook, broadcast Sunday 11th at 8pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Continuing our month of shows about H.P. Lovecraft, Alex Fitch talks to Alan Moore about his final graphic novel that isn’t part of the continuing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen narrative – Neonomicon – which has just been published, along with its prequel The Courtyard, as a graphic novel by Avatar Press. Both comics follow on from Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ and Alan discusses why he chose that story in particular to explore further, plus the origins of The Courtyard in an abandoned short story collection called ‘Yuggoth Cultures’, and examples of Lovecraftian imagery in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga.

Recent shows available as podcasts on Panel Borders:

Panel Borders: Illustrating the Mountains of Madness

Beginning a trio of shows about the influence of writer H.P.Lovecraft on comics, Alex Fitch talks to I.N.J. Culbard about his graphic novel adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness and forthcoming adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward  for Self Made Hero. Cartoonist Rob Davis briefly joins the conversation (recorded at last month’s Thought Bubble convention) as Alex, Rob and Ian discuss Lovecraft’s short stories and the difficulty of illustrating prose that is alternatively wordy, obtuse and unnamable.

Laydeez do podcasts: Magical realism

In a pair of talks recorded at Laydeez do comics, cartoonists Kripa Joshi and Mawil (Markus Witzel) discuss their work, plus Alex Fitch visits Woodrow Phoenix in his studio to discuss his editing of the new graphic novel Nelson. If there is a common theme between the three, it is a sense of magical realism in their art which juxtaposes the ordinary with the out of the ordinary, from Woodrow’s use of road furniture in Rumble Strip, to Kripa’s use of Indian mythology in her tales of domestic incidents and Mawil’s blue collar stories of life in Germany through the lens of his alter-ego Sparky O’Hare. Recorded by Nicola Streeten and Alex Fitch, introduced and edited by Alex Fitch.

Leonard Lopate has two stellar comics guests on his WNYC show – Seth and Dan Clowes, both currently touring North America with The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists and Death Ray respectively. Better still the audio for the show is up on the WNYC site now to listen to. (thanks to Adam Cadwell for the link)

Panel Borders: Exploring war comics, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Continuing our month of shows about war comics, Panel Borders is pleased to present a selection of interviews recorded at the launch of “Draw your Weapons – the art of Commando comics”, a new exhibition at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, as Alex Fitch talks to curator Robert Fleming, current Commando editor Calum Laird, and former editor George Low about the history of the comic and the art on display at the museum. Also in another recording taken from last month’s ‘Comics and conflicts’ festival at the Imperial War Museum, Roger Sabin and Martin Baker give a presentation about the depiction of the Iraq war and PTSD in thje US comic strip Doonesbury.

I’m ready for my close-up: Autumn Sci-Fi, online at SciFi London on Sunday 10th

As the Autumn nights start to draw in, we have a couple of recommendations of DVDs worth staying in for, as Alex Fitch interviews a pair of directors who have both earned cult followings for their work in the SF genre. Duncan Jones talks about his new film Source Code, a time travel thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal and about how themes in his new movie consciously and unconsciously reflect some of his concerns of humanity dislocated by technology in his debut Moon. Alex also chats to John Hough, director of the classic Disney film Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), starring Ray Milland and Donald Pleasance. Hough followed his first family film with a couple more for Disney – Return from Witch Mountain and The Watcher in the Woods – and talks about how the company’s approach to live-action filmmaking has changed over the years.

Previous podcasts:

Panel Borders: Garth Ennis’ Battlefields

Starting a month of shows about war comics, Alex Fitch talks to award winning writer Garth Ennis about his interest in the genre, from the backdrop of conflict in his debut strip Troubled Souls to his exploration of wars throughout the 20th Century and beyond in his series War Stories and Battlefields. Alex and Garth also discuss his past and forthcoming projects for Avatar, Dynamite and Marvel Comics and there are questions from the audience on the subjects of putting his stories into context for younger readers and the use of drones on the battlefield. This interview was recorded live at the Imperial War Museum, London as part of the ‘Comics and Conflicts Festival‘, August 2011.

Panel Borders: Gosh! It’s Electric Man! Tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Concluding our month of shows looking at comic book shops, Alex Fitch talks to Josh Palmano and Andrew Salmond, the proprietors of Gosh! Comics in London which, after 25 years, has relocated from Great Russell Street to the heart of Soho and to Dave Barras, director, and Scott Mackay, co-writer, of the new UK comedy film Electric Man about a rare stolen comic, set in the Edinburgh independent shop, Deadhead comics… (film reviewed here on the blog)

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: The shop around the corner

Continuing our month of shows looking at comic book shops, Alex Fitch talks to the former proprietors of comic shops that existed in the 80s and 90s and have left lasting impression on their fans. Dark Horizons opened in the back of Terri Hooley’s cult record shop Good Vibrations, Belfast in 1985 before graduating into a shop in its own right; in its first incarnation, the store was co-owned by John McCrea who went on to become a popular comic book artist on such titles as Troubled Souls, Hitman and Herogasm, written by Garth Ennis. At much the same time in Richmond, Jon Browne opened They walk among us, a store he co-owned for 22 years which found fame as the comic shop featured on TV in Spaced and in the most recent series of Red Dwarf. Alex talks to John and Jon about their memories of running comic shops, the vagueries of stocking popular titles and how one shop burned down and the other became absorbed into a chain in the 2000s.

Panel Borders: War (comic), what is it good for?

In an episode of Panel Borders previously broadcast as a live ‘Clear Spot’ on Resonance FM, Alex Fitch talks to Paul Gravett, Ariel Kahn, Eileen Cassavetti, Francesca Cassavetti and David Blandy about about the importance of war comics in culture and bringing the experience of war and conflict to new readers in a way that text alone can’t fully realise. Paul and Ariel discuss classic war comics and Francesca and Eileen talk about publishing the latter’s war time diary in comic book format, plus, in excerpts from a couple of classic episodes, Alex talks to Garth Ennis, and Grant Rogers interviews Pat Mills about Charley’s War.

Panel Borders: Comic Therapy, tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

In a panel discussion recorded at the 2010 Comics and Medicine conference, Institute of English Studies, University of London, Paul Gravett talks to Brian Fies, Phillipa Perry and Darryl Cunningham about their work in portraying aspects of medical care and therapy in sequential art. Paul and the panel discuss issues of biography and autobiography on the page, the process of portraying a narrative that has a story structure as well as an element of education to it and what they learned from the experience. (Recorded and edited by Alex Fitch)

Reality Check: Apocalypse cinema, online at SciFi London on the 13th of June

In a pair of on stage interviews recorded at this year’s Sci-Fi London festival, Alex Fitch talks to a couple of film makers about their recent takes on the apocalypse in film; Dekker Dreyer whose film The Arcadian stars Lance Henriksen and Brian Thompson, and mixes the iconography of shamanism with elements of the road movie in a post-apocalyptic setting and Maxì Dejoie whose film The Gerber Syndrome is an Italian take on 28 Days Later…, using a pseudo-documentary style to follow a member of a biohazard clean-up crew who is scouring the streets looking for the contagious and is the first overtly political zombie film in a long time.

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Mom’s Cancer

Starting a month of shows about medical comics, Panel Borders is proud to present a talk given by cartoonist Brian Fies about his web comic / graphic novel Mom’s Cancer, recorded at last year’s Graphic Medicine conference in London. Brian talks about the history of the comic, his experiences of working on a strip with such emotive content and his thoughts regarding the comics medium as a whole as a method for helping people deal with medical and life threatening situations. (Recorded and edited by Alex Fitch)

Electric Sheep Magazine Podcast: Nightmare Movies

Horror maestro Kim Newman discusses the new, updated edition of his essential book Nightmare Movies: Horror on the Screen since the 1960s with Electric Sheep Magazine editor Virginie Sélavy. (originally broadcast 20/05/11 as an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance FM)

One of the blog’s consistent fave creators, Darryl Cunningham, gives us a peek at another of his pop science comics, which this time will be tackling the subject of evolution. I was going to say the ‘controversial’ subject of evolution, but then thought nope, it is only controversial if you deliberately decide to ignore decades of scientific evidence, in which case you probably won’t be reading this anyway… And a reminder that Darryl was interviewed on BBC Radio 4′s All in the Mind programme earlier this week – if you missed it you can find the programme here and use the Beeb’s indisensable iPlayer to listen to it for the next few days.

Panel Borders: City of Abacus , tonight at 5pm on Resonance FM, podcast afterwards on Panel Borders

Continuing our month of shows about the connections between music and comic-books, singer / song-writer V.V. Brown and film maker David Allain talk about their serialised graphic novel City of Abacus, a comic which fuses elements of fantasy films and dystopian science-fiction, in a presentation of their work recorded in The Blue Room, BFI Southbank as part of Comics @ SCI-FI-LONDON, May 2011. V.V. and David are then joined by moderator Alex Fitch and artists Lee O’Connor and John Spelling for a panel discussion about the project.

(page from City of Abacus d (c) VV Brown and David Allain)

Please note: the next episode of Panel Borders will be broadcast 26/05/11 due to next Thursday’s evening programming being devoted to a celebration of 9 years of ‘The Traditional Music Hour’ on Resonance

Online:

Electric Sheep Magazine podcast: An introduction to Secret Societies

Virginie Sélavy hosts a discussion on secret societies to tie in with the East End Film Festival’s themed day of screenings on May 2. With her guests, Strange Attractor Press editor Mark Pilkington and horror film expert Richard Bancroft, they discuss the links between crime and the occult, looking at Jack the Ripper and the Masons theory and other filmed examples of the arcane and conspiratorial. (Previously broadcast 22/04/11 as an episode of “I’m ready for my close-up” on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Recent podcasts:

Panel Borders: Beatles in Black (and White)

Starting a month of shows about the crossover between comics books and music, Alex Fitch talks to graphic novelist Arne Bellstorf about his new book, Baby’s in black which retells the story of Astrid Kirchherr & Stuart Sutcliffe in cartoon form. Alex and Arne talk about the travails of depicting 1960s Hamburg on the page, what led to the creation of the graphic novel and his use of cinematic pacing in the book.

(portrait of Douglas from his Wikipedia entry)

Can it really be ten years today since we lost the great Douglas Adams?Taken from us far too early, can’t help but wonder what the famously techno-fixated scribe would have done with books and other media of his works on today’s portable, wifi, 4G tech? Wonder what Douglas, a famous lover of Macs, would have thought of an iPad, a device smaller and slimmer than the version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide electronic book we saw in the BBC TV adaptation of his original radio series (and how amazing that looked in the early 80s, a digital book you could carry around and could update through the ether)? I wonder what other ideas it would have sparked in his mind and how many deadlines he would have missed before he completed those projects?

(are digital watches still a pretty neat idea? Opening page from the comics adaptation of the Guide by John Carnell and Steve Leialoh, published DC)

Ah, Douglas, you got to carve out one of the iconic shows/books of SF that many of us can still quote huge chunks of, you got to work with Doctor Who, the Pythons and to raise awareness of increasingly endangered species in our fragile world. Not a bad life’s work, just too damned short by half. Of course, perhaps today we can pretend that perhaps you are not really dead but simply engaged in a very elaborate plan to avoid another publishing deadline. Or perhaps you are spending a decade or two dead for tax reasons like Hotblack Desiato. Let’s think that, eh? Towels to half-mast.