October 2008 Archives

OVER A year ago some likeminded folk who were interested in producing material for small press comics and getting them seen by a wider readership banded together to form Unico Publishing.

The underlying principle behind Unico is to help new creators who have written and drawn strips get them printed, advertised and published, at no cost to themselves. Unico only take a small percentage of any sales profits made with the rest going into a fund to continue paying for print runs of the title.

The invitation to join is open to anyone across the UK who feel they are up to the challenge of drawing their own comic and have not yet been published in any other small press comics.

Among its titles, Unico Publishing currently has Collections out. This 110 pages annual contains some colour interior pages and should prove an interesting Christmas present.

"Apart from entertaining its readers the other point of this annual is to give all the people involved who are wanting to break out into the comic world a chance to show their talent through this annual and present them with that rare first step on to the small press network," the publishers commented.

For further information visit: www.unicocomics.co.uk &
www.amateurcomicsguild.co.uk

Comic creators John Freeman and Mike Nicoll are pleased to announce that their all-new comic strip Secrets of Ceres debuts in the latest issue of British science fiction comic Spaceship Away.

Written by comic writer and editor Freeman and drawn as 3D computer art by Perth-based Nicoll, Secrets of Ceres delivers an action-packed SF adventure set in a future world of shady corporations, killer robots and stars Sarah Blake as a space-faring female private investigator who supplements her bounty hunting with a webcam-style broadcast of her adventures... when she can get a connection!

Secrets of Ceres is part of the creators' Ex Astris saga where stories have now appeared in print in both Spaceship Away and Bulletproof Comics, as a web comic on the internet and in a mobile comic format via www.rokcomics.com.

"Ex Astris reflects my love of the kind of SF space adventures I grew up reading," explains John Freeman, who lives in Lancaster England, currently edits ROK Comics, and has previously been an editor of Doctor Who Magazine and a director of the Lancaster Literature Festival. "I was a sucker for the work of Asimov, EE Doc Smith, Robert Heinlein and others, the kind of SF I'd say Charles Stross and others are continuing to this day."

Spaceship Away is a Dan Dare-inspired SF magazine featuring new adventures of the original 1950s comics space hero alongside a mix of new and other classic comics featuring the art of such creative talents as Don Harley, Keith Page, John Ridgway, Ron Turner and Keith Watson.

Spaceship Away editor Rod Barzilay sees the issue as a "jumping on point" for new readers, with Ian McLumpha's Space Girls and Eric Chilton's Journey into Space (drawn by Tacconi) just two more strips in the jam-packed line up, complemented by a range of features on the making of the original Dan Dare stories.

The three times a year, full colour glossy magazine started out as a way to get a newly created 1950s "old Eagle" style Dan Dare strip story (Drawn by Keith Watson and Don Harley) in print, and now has a loyal and growing following worldwide, delivering high quality SF strips to an eager audience who love the kind of classic space adventure now being rekindled by TV shows such as Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica.

Further information:

• Spaceship Away is available from all good comic shops and via mail order from www.spaceshipaway.org.uk

• For more information about Ex Astris visit: www.exastris.co.uk

ROK Comics, the global mobile entertainment company, has announced that the overall winner of its 2008 Humour Comic Competition is David Fletcher, for Pitter Patter, a strip that features a crazy, ever-hungry blackbird.

External judges for the competition were the editorial team at top British comic Toxic. Editor Matt Yeo describes the strip, starring Crumb the blackbird and his rat friend as "A punchy quick-fire gag, with simple yet effective illustrations!"

For his winning strip, David Fletcher won a Nokia 95 mobile, worth almost £500.

The strip can be viewed at: www.rokcomics.com/full_player.php?comicid=5072323138

Meanwhile BICS Got Talent ran over both days at the recent Birmingham International Comics Show allowing potential writers to pitch their ideas for a Future Shock strip to be publishing in the popular British science fiction comic 2000AD.

The contestants took part in a live first round elimination round on the Saturday before a panel of judges featuring Mark Farmer, Dave Gibbons, Tony Lee and 2000AD's editor Matt Smith. Those who survived were allowed to expand upon their ideas that the panellists then took down to a final three contestants, with the final winner voted upon by the studio audience.

The eventual winner was John Howson of Leicester for his original idea of "Getting to work in a paranoid and terrorist filled world." How that develops readers can find out in a future issue of 2000AD.

"Frank Miller is bat s**t crazy"

That was the opening gambit from Tony Lee as he constructed a sophisticated case for Miller's Batman:Year One to be considered the greatest graphic novel of all time.

The audience eventually, and perhaps not surprisingly voted The Watchmen the World's Greatest Graphic Novel from a shortlist of 16. Akira came second.

My main job, covering the goings on at Birmingham City Council, has delivered a line for the Speech Balloons, but this week it did.

At one of the many events and meetings held for the Tory Party Conference in Birmingham I bumped into Councillor Deirdre Alden - widely tipped to be the next Conservative MP for Edgbaston.

But her day job for many years was writing comics for DC Thomson's pre-teen girls titles like Bunty, Jackie and even photo stories for Blue Jeans.

She wrote for series such as the boarding school adventure the Four Marys and, until recently, was the main writer for a German comic Wendy - a series about a girl and her pony.

It was as her political career grew, she is now chairwoman of Birmingham's official health watchdog committee, that she had to give up the writing.

She said: "It was a good career. I really enjoyed it."