Results tagged “Batman” from Birmingham Mail - Speech Balloon

CRIME, DETECTIVE & Thriller Collections.

Nowheresville
By Mark Ricketts
(Image)

Mark Ricketts' art has come on a bundle since I last saw it - I can't remember where, but I'm sure it was a Caliber Press comic published back in the 90s, but not his actual Nowhereseville titled comic.

This here's a Zen beatnik crime novel, a murder mystery that mixes Chandler and Kerouac. It's hard not to think of Howard Chaykin at every turn of the page, and one's particularly drawn to the odd similarity with Black Kiss both in use of b/w art and plot situations here and there. But Ricketts has ironically got some credible reviews while that particular Chaykin trope got slagged and amusingly, mostly, by people who hadn't seen it.

Nowheresville has strong enough legs to stand on its own two feet without too many comparisons. It rambles occasionally, with the beatnik take probably being the excuse but overall it has got nice art, an interesting okay story and shows a good promise for future work that I will check out.

On the Road to Perdition: Sanctuary, Book 2 0f 3
By Max Allan Collins & Steve Lieber
(Paradox Press/DC Comics)

Now known to the world at large via the Tom Hanks starring film, this Lone Wolf & Cub influenced prohibition mob dram finds father and son, Michael O'Sullivan senior and Junior travelling, making deals and waiting for old scores to be settled as the Two Jacks come after them, and between it all a shrewd lass named Quennie who knows how to play her cards tight and close to her chest.

A fulfilling drama for despite being part of an arc this section is self-contained. The black and white digest format works satisfactorily but it use four panels page grids and that's always been an aggravating point with me, two and six even wise are fine, but four flattens content too sharply and tends towards repetition if used in the widescreen manner or just plain dull in terms of design, just two or three can work well in this format if it suits the story as DC Thomson's Commando has proved for decades.

A good book to read with the captions telling a narrative whereas - ironically seeing what happened with the original graphic novel - most comic book writers are these days too busy practicing writing movie scripts in their comics.

Danger Girl: Odd Jobs
By J Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell, (with Joe Chiodo & Arthur Adams)
(WildStorm/DC)

Daft stories, incredulous plots, plenty of death-defying drama, that's the bread and butter of this collection, featuring the book's regular writers and several art stylists.

Not all the jokes work but the action generally does for these she-spies with an eye towards danger even on their days off!

There's a definite filler feel to this collection but it's a decent romp. Any more pages and it probably wouldn't have worked though.

From reincarnated pharaohs to Hawaiian jungle adventures it's all inside - a bit like some long lost issue of DC's The Inferior Five wherein it would have guest-starred Dumb Bunny with two clever girlfriends.

Top 10 Book 2
By Alan Moore & Gene Ha/Zander Cannon
(ABC/DC)

The Hill Street Blues for superheroes scenario that is Top 10 was my favourite of Moore's ABC books. The stories are less so a mystery or crime needing to be solved as much as a puzzle we haven't the obvious clues to, and a bit like an exemplary 2000AD Future Shock in part.

The subplots develop with characters coming and going, and longstanding issues tie into current events. Tightly drawn, perhaps in homage to the work of the late Harvey Kurtzman with its visual background antics, and possibly Moore's scripts requesting as such. A good sold read. There was a touch of Rick Veitch's Bratpack in some of the plot ideas running over the last couple of issues in this collection.

As a whole it explores different cultures in an entertaining way, preaches tolerance while going for the wonderfully contradictory big explosion effect.

Batman: Hong Kong
By Doug Moench & Tony Wong
(DC/Titan)

You have to question whether when the offer to have internationally-applauded manga artist Tony Wong work DC Comics it had them then needing to come up with a project or whether there was a story already in development that they felt suited his artwork. A mote point perhaps as Doug Moench delivers a story that uses all the usual Batman mythos trappings without getting bogged down in cliches.

A computer nerd hacks into a snuff movie broadcast - only this is reality TV taken to extremes. Commissioner Gordon doesn't believe him and the hacker suffers the consequences. Cue Batman's involvement - having failed to save both the youth's life and a similar murder setting, things escalate with clues leading all the way to Hong Kong, meaning Bruce Wayne and Alfred take a business/vacation there.

Batman finds himself out of sorts, able to do a crime-fighting job but lacking the cultural (more than language) barrier to get his mean demeanour across. Fortunately, his presence has influenced a young lad enough to become a hero called NightDragon.

They work together and a story of the past unravels - of loving uncles each taking a different path in life, one a police officer the other a tong leader. Gang wars, fighting, a mystery, then an inevitable couple of twists to the tale, but all along it avoids being The Corsican Twins.

Moench is really trying to show a difference in his story via cultural divides. It's also a good adventure. Wong's art doesn't always work for me here. A little too stiff and manga stylised for my personal tastes, but there's no doubt it's good stuff - even if I'm half-sure there's at least one curious art swipe: what looks to be a Norm Breyfogle figure with a John Byrne drawn head on it... It can't be. Can it?

The Iron Wagon
By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)

A sombre detective tale based on a 1909 novel by Stein Riverton (an alias for Norwegian Sven Elvestad), and adapted by the similarly pseudonymous Jason.

I did not expect to like this book as first impressions are always of the visual kind when leafing a work of the comics' medium, and Jason's flat simple art style and use of anthropmorphics without any intrinsic reason did not initially impress. As it is, the style lends itself quite well to evoking this other-time and quieter place while reminding us that all times can be filled with the dark melancholies that enthuse the human mind.

Psychology may have been a brave new science when Riverton first wrote his novel and its affectations and substances are put to use by Asbjorn Krag the detective who comes to what will become Oslo to solve a murder.

One has an eerie concern that this tale could slip into a funny animal version of TV cop show Columbo but it doesn't. In fact there's quite a bit of police procedural activity floating in the background. And there is more than one mystery that needs solving.

A satisfying read that can sit comfortably, and quietly proud, on your graphic novel shelves.

Also in this genre: Johnny Double by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso is stylish, Honour Among Punks - The Complete Baker Street Graphic Novel by Guy Davis & Gary Reed a good mystery on an alternative world full of sub-cultures, A Treasury of Victorian Murder by Rick Geary always a gem, Batman: Evolution by Greg Rucka, art by Shawn Martinbrough, John Watkiss, William Rosado, Phil Hester, inks by Steve Mitchell is a bit of a hit and miss collection, The Hound of the Baskervilles adapted by Philip Page & Marilyn Pettit not the best example of British publishing getting into the graphic novel market, CSI: Miami by Various rather bland for my tastes, Catwoman: Selina's Big Score by Darwyn Cooke a cracking good read, Catwoman: Relentless by Ed Brubaker, Cameron Stewart & Javier Pulido, Mike Manley additional inks pretty good,

Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles, Volume 3 by Max Allan Collins and Rick Fletcher a decent collection, and The Bloody Streets of Paris by Jacques Tardi and Leo Malet is absolutely excellent.

HEROES COME in all shapes and sizes. Most of them are fictional characters but they can inspire you in real life... Birch's Bark, worse than its bite?

The Speed Abater (NBM Comics Lit)
By Christophe Blain

An award-winning European book and deservedly so.

The exact time is not given but we presume this to be set in the early part of the 20th century, during the first or second world war. There are new recruits to one of the last monster sized vessels that roamed the earth in those days and they prepare to set sail and face the enemy. Who would have thought that getting seasick could cause so much trouble?

The author (and the translator?) have a wonderful ear for dialogue as the very humanity of it all comes across mundanely and joyfully in equal measures. The art, like some weird cross between Harvey Kurtzman and Popeye's Elzie Segar, evokes both easy passion and startling menace. Very readable, an easy read in fact and all the more impressive since it works on multiple levels.

James Bond 007: The Man with the Golden Gun
By Ian Fleming, Jim Lawrence & Yaroslav Horak (Titan Books)

This newspaper strip collection also includes the shorter The Living Daylights story. They are adapted from Ian Fleming's novels by Jim Lawrence who adds his own spin with near-impressionistic art by Yaroslav Horak.

First published in The Daily Express in 1966 they still hold up well being fast-paced but with some surprising cerebral connotations for Bond to figure out about his own character along the way.

Batman: The Collected Adventures: Volume 1
By Various (Titan/DC)

This collects the original Adventures issues. They're well plotted although you wish editor Scott Peterson had been a better proofreader, and some of the dialogue could have been made better in places. Fortunately, it's clearly drawn by, and then charismatically inked, by Rick Burchett.

Okay, there is the feel that we're looking at strips that could have been done in half their page count but the irony there is that you'll have a couple of silent action pages that turn out to be the best in each story. 7/10 for effort and 8/10 for something that entertains all age groups.

Trenches
By Scott Mills (Top Shelf Productions)

Designed so that you view the pages in a landscape format but more oversized than your standard newspaper strip collection. Also the pages in no way conform to that 3-4 panel set-up to punchline format but a general four panel (2 at the top, 2 at the bottom) grid, and that's not rigidly established either, but suits the loose cartooning style presented within the panels.

Set during World War I, two very different brothers from up north, in England, join up to serve king and country. Lloyd Allenby is the more timid brother, David, or Davey, the have-a-go permanently mouth-engaged one. To this set-up add Officer Jonathan Hemmingway, a professional soldier - likewise he leaves his nice home to lead his men. From thereon most of the story takes place down in the trenches of No-Man's Land in France.

Hemmingway and the Allenbys start to integrate, initially arguing, there are possible court-martials, a Queensbury Rules punch up and a poison gas attack. To anyone regularly picking up one of the eight monthly 64 page digest Commando comics, published by Scotland's DC Thomson, they might wonder what any commotion could be about and why the hefty price tag. Well, I guess the fact that it's produced by one of our cousins across the Atlantic makes it all the more intriguing.

Mills has done his research but doesn't bog us down in it. Sure it tends towards whimsy at times, but there are heartfelt moments realistically done. The Germans aren't portrayed as evil, just guys on the other side, the world waited until the second time round for a specific group known as Nazis to fit that bill.

Brotherly love, human understanding battling on in the face of adversity - no different from what your average superhero comic used to be, except in this book they wear mud on their face instead of a mask.

Superman: Adventures of the Man of Steel
By Scott McCloud, Paul Dini, Rick Burchett, Terry Austin & Brett Blevins (DC/Titan)

I guess you could describe the Dini debut story as fast-paced, introducing characters along the way and Lex Luthor as a major villain who is as much a chancer come risk-taker as a mastermind tactician and scientific genius. Truthfully, the cartoon Adventures' story editor gives us the equivalent of the opening establishing scenario before the credits roll up. There's little subplot, no subtext, superficial emotional value and little to make us return for next issue save Burchett's captivating art.

When McLoud takes over scripting it's a completely different story with all the aspects missing in Dini's story standing present and correct with some fun, twists and turns. Villains include Metallo (always naff), Brainiac (super cool design) and Livewire plus the best emotional story going to the one about Krypton.. There is depth to the stories and they are also simple entertaining adventures suitable for kids off all ages. I have to say I preferred this to the Batman one I mentioned.

But, is Luthor meant to be inferred as being gay? He's preoccupied by his appearance, his eyebrows are plucked, and there's a strange dividing line between the macho and the camp with a constant use of female bodyguards that comes across as a poor foil to avoid showing his true self? It's an odd one. Interesting, but unnecessary. Other than that Perry, Lois & Jimmy stay in the classic mould and do well by it.

Isolation And Illusion
By P Craig Russell (Dark Horse)

Subtitled Collected Short Stories 1977-1997, this book has a line somewhere that it's the first such collection of Russell's work. I thought an American book publisher who he had been doing illustration work for on books such as The Arabian Knights had bought an album-sized collection out, possibly in the late 80s, but maybe I'm mistaken. It doesn't claim as such in the list of other books available. I suspect if it did come out any long-term fans of Russell's work will have that in their collection.

Actually, I'd say most long-time admirers of his work have already got most of these strips in the irregularly published Night Cries series of yesteryear (or should that be decade now?) from Eclipse Comics, and a few rarer places. One presumes this collection is for the newer P Craig Russell fans that have come to his work via his contributions to comics like The Sandman but those older ones won't complain at having a nice new compilation.

As those older fans will tell the newer ones, Russell has been doing his fantasy shtick for quite some time, 30 years or more. But aside from that genre there are also literary adaptations and science fiction material. There is also much seriousness and despair but there is also a tip of the hat to comic humour now and again, although it doesn't always work.

Some may say Russell seeks to make comics highbrow art but if so one has to admit that his visual material reaches in that direction well. He is strong on overall page composition and design while his classic approach to figure work is ever present (although photo reference becomes a dominating effect in the more recent stories collected). His penchant for page boy hair-styled angels can begin to grate after a bit and I'm constantly reminded about the Frank Frazetta meets William Blake look that emblazoned the old Swan Song record label.

The texts are frankly too long. This is a man whose original claim to fame was as collaborator to wordy writer Don McGregor on the Killraven series in Marvel's Amazing Adventures back in the 70s, it should be noted. For the most part, that worked because of the emotional context that prevailed in McGregor's work. Here, they largely read as too verbose and do not interact with the pictures to any great capacity, leaving one unfulfilled. Comics is the magic of words and pictures interacting to become something more than either. Too often I found the choices of strips collected here too dull or too lengthy. Some beautiful images and very appealing colour when used make it something I may return to as an art book rather than a comic book.

Witchblade featuring Tomb Raider: Coda
By Various (Top Cow/Titan)

An odd mix this. Not the combination of Witchblade and Lara Croft but that their particular story team-up takes up the first half of the book and ends up abruptly presumably unfinished. The remainder of the book is taken from the regular series of Witchblade, the last page of the book also having a cliffhanger, meaning you don't know the outcome .Two stories without resolutions isn't good.

In the first story, by Charles Holland, Lara finds the Sword of Lucifer for an old wizard called The Master. His apprentice, the well-stacked Daria, gets hold of it, kills him and brings back Sir Lancelot from the dead with the promise that he can kill his old enemy, Merlin. There are some nifty interpretations of the Arthurian legends that pad out the pages, whereas Miss Croft is in and out over fewer pages either doing her Indiana Jones with boobs bit or packing her clothes for a couple of pages, before briefly teaming up with Sara Pezzini (Witchblade) and Jackie Ecatatado (The Darkness) to play cops and robbers chasing after Daria.

There must be at least another issue not collected here. Why? It's madness. It pleases fans of neither character and has got to put off the casual purchaser coming back for more (I'm big on crime fiction).

Dwayne Turner's art is what kept me along for the ride - it's like some hyper-Philippines style with the odd flourish of John Buscema in a WildStorm! mode.This stated there is the odd panel here and there that's below the standard of the others and it gets me begging some uneasy questions about artistic boredom and swiping.

The Witchblade issues have Christina Z and David Wohl nailing the Witchblade scenario in their dialogue to make it both accessible to new readers and at the same time pushes the plot along. It sees one story arc concluding and another's opening chapters begin in Pezzini's life as she is pushed out of the NYPD after defeating demonic forces to take up a position in some Black Ops set-up that in fact sets her up for what looks to be a more science fiction/potentially mainstream superhero styled scenario and ends with her about to be killed.

The Michael Turner/D-Ton art doesn't really keep my attention and dates in style and substance before my eyes.

Overall the collection is fun enough superficial action, but badly mispackaged.

Batman: Castle of the Bat
By Jack C Harris and Bo Hampton (DC/Titan)

Brother Scott and Bo Hampton were promoted as being something rather new and exciting when they first broke onto the American comics' scene. They invested some of the storytelling qualities of Will Eisner (who they had briefly studied under as apprentices) then add the world of painting to their styles. It takes a better man than me to tell the brothers' styles apart I fear.

Harris was a new latter-day editor at DC in the late 70s early 80s and also wrote, doing similar at other companies. He adhered to the regimentation of the old school of DC editing but seemed to look and appreciate new ideas if they worked. He may well have been the man who brought Brian Bolland to US comics and from thereon the whole British invasion.

Here in Castle of the Bat they bring those old traditional values to play and try to incorporate the odd new twist. It's an Elseworlds book and that too often means an imaginary Superman or Batman that goes on for too many pages.

This is a slim volume and a reworking of the story of Frankenstein and his monster with the Batman legend tagged onto it. It is suitably gothic in feel, uses the comics medium's strengths and while in conclusion it isn't the greatest comics story ever (there's tense drama intended rather than slam bang action excitement, kids) it's a well structured one with its short length working to its advantage.

Dr Thomas Wayne as the reborn monster that is Bat-Man is actually off panel more than one would expect allowing character studies to be given more time. Is that what the kids want though?

I would rather that Harris and Hampton had developed something completely of their own but this is a commercial world we live in and at the time of their creating it, the Elseworlds series wasn't quite a flogged dead horse.

Superman Exile
By Various (DC/Titan)

Collecting various Superman titles first published between 1988-89 we're in the second phase of rebirth for the character (after John Byrne had rebooted him).

Blaming himself for the unfortunate death of others Superman goes into self-imposed exile in outer space, and goes through the various points of conflict that make up Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces (you can picture the writers' summit with them ticking off all the relevant sections covered). In brief he becomes a slave, forced into gladiatorial combat but refusing to kill - this all ties in via flashback memories for both himself and an ancient alien called The Cleric who had visited Krypton in its dim distant past.

There are some curious comments upon the subject of (anti) cloning given by The Cleric and you wonder what the thought processes were back then in the 80s while now it's just round the door if not already in proliferation under our noses by the rich and powerful for use as spare body parts. The writers also revisit an old Superman story from the 70s where lack of sleep caused problems - that's what I don't like about reigning characters' histories: once it's done every other writer that comes along feels they have to put back the original idea, but with their own spin.

For me, space opera can be boring, especially in comics and with superheroes shoehorned into them. They used to do this with Green Lantern by sending him out into space for a year but black skies with twinkly star bits get boring after a bit. Fortunately we also intercut with Earthbound tales of Superman's friends and family as they go on about their business doing their best to live up to his credo. Well-drawn characterisations of personality are given to many - standouts being Lois whose few appearances though they are ensure her importance to the legend.

The fact that Mongul's seemingly left to fight someone else while Superman rushes back to Earth leaves an empty unfulfilled feeling - and that he returns to Earth to deal with an even bigger menace, Darkseid's Turmoil robot... only it's secretly Desaad (the real best 4th World creation Jack Kirby came up with).

Superman is Superman - an icon, good guy, symbol of truth, justice and truthfully the humanitarian way. I wish this was available in b/w and sold cheap to kids so they could pick it up but Superman stories don't really date, no matter what editors and publishers think.

HOW TO get the best use out of a dead tree... Birch's Bark continues.

Supreme: The Story of the Year
By Alan Moore & Various (CheckerBPG)

This collection found Alan Moore moving on from his 1962 concepts and the odd conceit to clear the way for his ABC line of thinking. It's the tale of Superman (in all but name) given some modern spin.

The theme is faithful to the heart of what traditionally makes a hero and yet is clothed in new technology theories (reminding us perhaps of that age-old tale of The Emperor's New Clothes and the moral implicit within it?).

Where the story fails is Moore's overused plot device of the villain of the piece always being the person you'd least expect... simply because he or she has been standing next to you through thick and thin for several hundred pages! Still we fall for it the nine times out of ten that he uses this because we get carried along with the characterisations and never look for any other would be red herrings.

Visually, Rick Veitch gives a more than decent take on pre-modern American comic art styles for the flashback scenes produced within, but, curiously, Moore's words are best complimented by the various Image/Rob Liefield styled guys on this particular book. There is a downside to this, if what I hear is true, because I understand that apart from Liefield none of the creators have received monies from this particular collection.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
By Various (DC/Titan)

There's an old plot creaking away in this book, The Count of Monte Christie used it to some effect, among others. Basically, Batman's alter ego of Bruce Wayne is accused of killing a former lover. Did he, didn't he? That's the game the extended Batman family have to play within this collection and they do it well enough with Nightwing (Dick Grayson, the original Robin) getting the best lines.

The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel
By Various (iBooks)

The contents within were first published as a mini-series from Topps, and apparently previously collected by Bantam. They were also available for viewing online as a subscription service from Stan Lee's Sunday Comics on www.Komikweks.com.

You can't fault the standard of artwork; from Richard Corben to P Craig Russell it's all top-notch stuff. And Bradbury is a world-renowned science fiction author so there's little doubt that the book should at least attract the browser's attention.

The trouble is, while there's a star team on the bench they don't deliver the goods when they're out on the field.

I think the main problem is that these adaptations follow too closely Bradbury's texts, or at least the prose part of what comics is about. They linger and seek to resonate when they should allow the pictures themselves to activate and engage. Not always, but often enough to make it a less than a cohesive whole. Strangely, having just stated that, it's the more painterly artists like Jon J Muth and John Van Fleet whose work comes off as having least pretensions towards the conventions of what constitutes real art and actually take the stories to a higher plane.

The Story of Tao: 1
By Andy Seto and Ding Kin Lau (ComicsOne.Corp)

Mixing various Eastern cultures' ideals of heroism to bring about a manga style adventure of gods walking the earth kung fu-ing each other and seeking forbidden romance on the side. It doesn't always come off, and you probably need to see yet another 100 pages of what is no doubt an epic before really getting into it, but there are some interesting enough visual moments.

King Volume 3
By Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics Books)

What little I had seen of Anderson's art previously made me recall the poor man's painter division that developed in America after Bill Sienkiewicz's shift in art style after once being labelled a Neal Adams clone. This is opposed to the one year in art school swipers who got work in the UK once Simon Bisley made it big, by the way.

Anderson's artwork lacked definition. It was sketchy without style. Frankly, it did not move me in any way. He either got a lot better or I wasn't looking hard enough before. I'm still not enamoured of his art but it works well in tandem with the story he's telling in this volume.

The story is indeed a very terse one, because we know the inevitable outcome that will come in the final pages. I say "we" but sadly, do the young still know who Martin Luther King was and what he achieved?

Anderson doesn't portray King as a complete saint, but a man, that's what kept my interest.

Remembrance of Things Past: Combray
By Marcel Proust, adapted by Stephane Heuet (NBM Comics Lit)

Some consider Proust brilliant, others unreadable. Having never read him apart from in this graphic novel adaptation I have to assume it's somewhere in between with some good pruning by Heuet.

Proust lived between 1871 and 1922 so his wordy descriptions reflect those times and the bourgeois society he lived in. The book is basically a man remembering events in his youth, you keep expecting them to tie in to each other but they don't. And that's irritating. However, the passages do act as an interesting barometer to the social history of the times albeit that one feels like a voyeur. It never truly engages the reader, but it has its moments. The art follows the clear line European school method but it is only functional rarely doing more than illustrate the words.

The Invisibles Book 7: The Invisible Kingdom
By Grant Morrison & Various (Vertigo-DC/Titan)

The series may well have gone on too long but Morrison brought most of the bits together to play mind games for the Mission Impossible crowd one last time so that The Prisoner in each of us could break free to politely shout "Hooray!" for a genuinely satisfying climax. The changing tour of duty for the artists in the latter part of the book actually works better for me than the first part that is predominately drawn by Phillip Bond.

A HIGHLIGHT of the International Comic show next week will be the ticket only Watchmen event hosted by artist Dave Gibbons.

With the Watchmen Hollywood film gearing for release in March and interest in the graphic novel stronger than ever its co-creator Gibbons is soon to become very hot property indeed.

So Speech Balloon was delighted to grab a quick chat with him as he prepares for his weekend in Birmingham where he will be promoting his new book Watching the Watchmen.

The book, published by Titan next month, details his collaboration with writer Alan Moore and the origins of the comic and he says will be stuffed with pages of original scripts, sketches and artwork.

From Garfield to Batman comic books and their characters have a pedigree and a history that make them a tried and tested formula to become successful films.

There's a whole roster of major movie stars including Nicholas Cage, Halle Berry, Sean Connery, Robert Downey Jr, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reeves who have willingly put their names forward to feature in comic book silver screen sagas, confident that they will reach an eager audience.

Wanted, The Fantastic Four, Ironman, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Superman, The Crow, Batman - the titles literally leap out and mug you at the cinemas these days.

But, when at the end of a movie, those screen credits roll on half as long as the actual film itself, consider for a moment that it might take a handful, or less, of creative individuals to deliver similarly exciting adventures on a regular monthly, or even weekly, basis.

On the 4th- 5th October some of the best of those writers, artists and editors will be congregating in England's second city to appear at the Birmingham International Comics Convention 2008.

From Judge Dredd to The Beano's Little Plumb, there will be comics and creators galore and from all around the globe. With talks, signings, competitions and much more besides it promises to be a show to remember.

If you want to know what's going to be the next Wanted, Iron Man or even The Incredibles, then The Birmingham International Comics Show is the happening place to be this October.

For further information & to reserve tickets visit: www.thecomicsshow.co.uk

SINCE gettting a reputation as the 'comics guy' in the Mail newsroom I get handed many weird and wonderful press releases. Those where dry-cleaning companies compare themselves to Superman or Hulk smashes down prices as big business tries to cling to the cape of the latest big screen hero.

One I was passed today uses the classic press release technique of a poll of the nation's favourite super hero to promote a new season of films on telly. Obviously several Batman movies are on because he is, funnily enough, the favourite hero. We are told he was chosen in a survey of 100 movie 'experts'. They must have missed Batman and Robin - which managed to undo all the good work of earlier films.

As ever there is no indication of who these expers are, so they are probably film buffs from the PR company's office. Nor does it say how many votes each received and whether it was an open field. But to compensate they do give us some expert analysis.