May 2009 Archives

BIRMINGHAM'S leading comic store had a blast on free comic book day and plenty of customers joined in the fun by coming in costume.

Surfer Dave reports: "Every Customer who came in fancy dress received a goody bag of super hero stuff - photos included.

"We had a drawing competition 'Invent a new super vilian' open to all ages, we had entries from ages three to 33. Five lucky winners received art related prizes.

BIGGLES, THE great British ace-fighter pilot hero of World War I created by Captain W.E. Johns can now be read in graphic novel format.

WHEN I was a little boy my Great Aunt Rene and Uncle Bill gave me two Biggles books for either Christmas or a birthday. They had smashing painted covers, but, you know, I wasn't that interested in war stories back then, and they were pretty thick books, so, although I meant to, I never got round to reading them. Still haven't. But I've still got them, somewhere up in the loft, and I may just get round to reading them now.

Captain W.E. Johns, those initials stood for William Earl, had fought in the Great War himself, and he took those experiences and elaborated on them to create to the adventurous fighter pilot James Bigglesworth, better known as Biggles, whose first printed tale appeared in Popular Flying Magazine in 1932 under the title The White Fokker. There must have been plenty more serialised in its pages as the first Biggles collection, The Camels are Coming, was published in the same year.

From the sources I've read, the Captain's chief concern was to entertain the youth of his time, but ensured he paid attention to historical detail, and, although I may be incorrect here, didn't shy away from the fact that not all battles were glorious and people did die in them.

Time moved on, and the character's adventures took place during World War II also, and his popularity continued to grow with books now having bneen translated into 26 countries, in 17 different languages. Yes, I know, I really should get round to leafing through those ones my relatives kindly gave me all that time ago. But in the meantime, I can read the graphic novel adaptations.

Cinebook is publishing the Biggles books in comic book format. And guess what, Britain's first flying ace had his stories adapted overseas by a Frenchman!

Francis Bergèse got his pilot's licence at seventeen, enlisted in the French army where he flew reconnaissance missions, then at 23 began a career as a comic book artist. This was back in 1963 and the following decades found him a busy though not necessarily famous artist. Come the 1980s his work began to focus increasingly on the war genre, in 1983 he took over Buck Danny, after Victor Hubinon passed away. Then, from 1990 to 1994 he began adapting Biggles.

On the continent Bergèse is now acknowledged as the leading comic book artist of aviation stories, and from the work I've seen so far, it's pretty easy to see why.

In Biggles Book 1: Spitfire Parade, Bergèse introduces us to the titular hero as he lands at an airbase in Kent, during the summer of 1940. It transpires Biggles has been sent there to put a crack squadron together, using characters Johns used previously in other books alongside some new ones.

For one minute it begins to feel like some precursor to the class Seven Samurai film but then we get a comedy moment as a hunting hound chases a cat across Biggles' desk, followed by a new lieutenant, by the name of Lissie, dressed ready to get on a horse and chase some foxes. Us Brits and our quaint ways, eh. What must the thousands of Europeans who've read these Biggles adaptations already think of us I wonder.

Anyway, the story develops as Biggles gathers his band of flying aces and hones them into a crack team, the story interspersed with comic moments involving a pig called Hermann and other such jolly japes.

If I have a problem with the story, I guess it veers towards that privileged middle-class smug middle-RAF act a little dangerously, the same way that old black and white movie about Douglas Bader's life starring Kenneth More makes me embarrassed to watch it despite me knowing the real pilot was a war hero.

However, despite a few too many of those silly moments there is still some good humour in it, and, let's face it, it is the action that most comic book readers will be picking this up for and there are some rip-roaring furious air battles to be seen.

Bergèse not only knows his subject matter he knows how to make it thrilling, and that's pretty hard to do with planes that fly at great speeds but can only be captured in a handful of panel frames. Design comes into play there too. It's not just the aviation work that's top notch though, both figure work and natural landscapes are well defined too. These blooming foreigners sure know how to draw! (You do know I'm being ironic there, I take it!?).

Biggles has come onto the English speaking graphic novel market at just the right time. The last few years have found British bookstores, comic shops, department stores and Amazon alike doing good business selling collections of classic comic strip stories from D.C. Thomson's Commando and Fleetway/IPC's War Picture Library.

For more information on cinebook visit: cinebook.com

For more information on Biggles visit: www.biggles.info

SCIENCE FICTION Classics is the first full-colour volume in the Graphic Classics® series of comics adaptations from Eureka Productions.

Contained within the 114-page book will be The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum, a rare short story by Jules Verne titled In the Year 2889, and The Disintegration Machine, starring Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger.

The anthology book will also include E.M. Forster's only science fiction tale, the poignant The Machine Stops, and shorts by Lord Dunsany and Hans Christian Anderson. Quite some variety, I'm sure you'll agree.

Graphic Classics Publisher Tom Pomplum informed us that: "All comics adaptations in the Graphic Classics series, including those in Science Fiction Classics are created specifically for the series; they are not reprints."

Graphic Classics are available in bookstores, comics shops, or direct from the publisher via www.graphicclassics.com worldwide.

THE WINNERS of the Indepependent Publisher Book Awards 2009 have been announced and include one by Birmingham-born publisher.

The results in the Graphic Novel/Drawn Book - Drama/Documentary section are as follows:

Gold: The Red Star: Sword of Lies by Christian Gossett (Archangel Studios).

Silver: Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor with Liz Cavalier (Automatic Pictures Publishing).

Bronze(tie): Macbeth: The Graphic Novel script adaptation by John McDonald, art by Jon Haward (Classical Comics Ltd.) and Good and Evil by Michael Pearl (No Greater Joy Ministries, Inc.)

This is one in a growing number of awards that Classical Comics has received since it was created only a few years back by Clive Bryant and Macbeth's artist Jon Haward announced: "I'm so chuffed that Macbeth has won another award!"

For more on Classical Comics refer to previous posts here at Speech Balloons and by visiting: www.classicalcomics.com

Among a series of graphic novels currently being published in English by Cinebooks is the science fiction saga Aldebaran.

Created by Leo, Aldebaran has been described as "an epic, humanist fantasy tale".

Information, at least in English, on the singularly named comic book writer and artist Leo is sparse.

He was born in Brazil, and - like a number of celebrated comic artists from South America - left during the nineteen-seventies because of political unrest.

Leo had begun his working career as an engineer but turned to art, later moving to France where he would develop graphic novels.

The Aldebaran's Worlds series began publication in France in 1993. Cinebook's Aldebaran Book 1 - The Catastrophe is split into distinct chapters and was most likely published as two shorter comic albums by Dargaud when it first came out.

Recommended for 15 + age readers, it's appropriate for most teenagers but tends to handle topics of a philosophical and political nature that the older ones will be more patient and appreciative of.

To be frank, at the outset I felt as if I'd just opened the pages to a comic book version of some Australian soap opera set on an alien planet. It's set in some sunny coastal area and the young characters start talking as if we were supposed to know their back-story, personal relationships to each other, and wondering who will end up making out with whom at the local dance. But things soon change, albeit subtly, and not predictably.

100 years ago space ships from earth stopped coming to this planet, but they apparently did pretty regularly before that. Even so, the people still retain a western European ethos in their attitudes, social life and general demeanour. In fact it's all very seaside fishing village like apart from the bloated monstrosities that are being washed up on the shore.

When a mysterious drifter called Driss turns up in the village and starts telling those at a bar about a number of strange phenomena that have been appearing on the planet of Aldebaran that could prove dangerous the locals fail to believe him.

Meanwhile, Mark Sorenson, the 17 year-old narrator of this saga, is set on asking Nelly out. Nelly's younger sister Kim teases him that he's one in a growing line of suitors, and has come too late. The next day, reflecting on this with his pals along the beach, a windcar taxies up towards them and drops off another new arrival. She's got long flowing curly hair, a figure that doesn't need a bikini to appreciate it, and a handful of years on her that implicitly tells these boys that's she's woman, young in heart and mature in mind. What's more she claims to be a journalist by the name of Gwendoline who's come in search of Driss.

Mark tells her Driss has already moved onto the next village and offers to take her there in his sailing boat. He's told to hold onto the coast, but like any young kid his impulses tend to put him out of his depth. Or rather, the water begins to solidify into a jellyfish substance and the pair head for land, having to run over the stuff, and not a moment too soon for the boat is sucked down.

Hiking through forestland until they come to a road, fortune smiles as Nelly's family, the Kellers, are driving by on a horseless carriage (how it's powered I've no idea, but accept it) and give them a ride. More weird things happen out at sea and then a small plane lands from out of nowhere. Inside is Driss and he comes bearing grave news, warning them that they cannot return to their village. Mark makes strikes Driss over the back of the head with a log, rendering him unconscious, and head home regardless. They find the jelly substance from the sea has gone inland, decaying all jellifying everything of importance in the village, most notably all life! It takes its final life in the form of a grieving Mr Keller.

Driss, Gwendoline, Mark and the Keller girls have no choice but to head north. Old squabbles and words unspoke cause tension as the journey continues until fate causes Mark to be travelling alone with 13 year-old Kim when they come upon Mr Pad.

Mr Pad is what I like to call the stereotypical European graphic novel's old git, because you often find his sort in them - A character who's got a load of bad habits, has either mad scientist or half-baked alchemist tendencies, can't be trusted, but sometimes does a good deed; a two-dimensional four-colour character symbolising the trickster of so many myths and folkloric stories and so too supposedly making a statement on our psychological being. Yeah, and he's comical relief until the moment he stitches our two young heroes up and steals their carriage.

Walking to a village, they're given shelter in a tavern, only to find their free meal ticket disturbed by the arrival of the military that want to take Mark to meet a priest. It transpires this secular character's place of worship is up in a zeppelin, and he's your typical power-mad business-suited zealot of modern popular culture wanting to know if the lad's seen either Driss or a short-haired blond woman during his travels. Mark denies this, but then the armed guards produce Mr Pad who's gone telling tales. Mark keeps quiet saying Pad's a liar but does relate what happened to his village. This is seemingly enough for now and they are let free. When they meet up with Kim, Pad promises to repay their previous good deeds to him, and tells them he's arranged them safe passage on board a ship. Unsurprisingly when they get on deck they find they've literally been sold into slavery!

In chapter two if this collection, subtitled The Blonde, the youths are seen going about their chores on deck. The characters have grown, matured. But they've still a lot to learn. Mark gets the come-on from the captain's wife and becomes a man in the sense of the sexual act as a rite of passage, but within the next panel finds out just how immature he really is as the captain comes charging at him with a knife. The lad jumps overboard, and Kim drops a plank down into the sea, followed by her self so they can float away safely. The natural presumption is that Kim's becoming besotted with him, but as she pours out her scorn and outrage over his follies we begin to consider which of them is actually the more mature. Of course, just as this as this is turning into some serious soap opera worth of awards what can only be described as a very ugly humpty dumpty head pops its head onto the surface and the pair head for shore fast.

Their journey continues, hugging the coast until they come to a lighthouse. Again symbolic. That they're greeted by gun is probably no surprise, but the fact that it's held by an old woman who's lived there many years, the last few on her own since her husband died, who then turns into a mother hen who feeds and cares for them, reminds us of good old fashioned values such as trust and so she is the antithesis of bad old Mr Pad.

His stomach fed, and feeling good inside, Mark begins to stop bickering with Kim, relating to her better, and appreciating that she was always more mature than her years and time is also changing her. If his affections are changing for her then they are soon put to the test as H.R. Giger-styled little aliens squiggle out of the sand to attack them only for another male youth to appear cavalry style on a bicycle with two mini-pteradons playing the part of hunting falcons, that and a sharp knife wielded by this Jose Cabal save the day.

So enter the cool Mediterranean swagger of a new hero and possible rival to Kim's future affections because he can also play music to sooth her savagely frustrated heart. When Mark sees them kissing and an argument ensues, he claims it's for all the right moral reasons, and I'm tending to believe this fictional character for the moment. Not least because there's a forced interlude as Driss and his plane turn up to witness yet another peculiar experience at sea.

When next we see Mark and Kim they're happy in each other's company again, only for them to spot the blond whose photograph the priest showed Mark being lead gunpoint by the military. More by luck than judgement Mark breaks in and rescues the blond, Alex Komarova, and they escape on a flying Loch Ness monster creature, but she's badly wounded, possibly dying. The fact that she doesn't tell Mark that she's regenerated a bandaged-up decapitated hand adds mystery to the proceedings. But then, the priest and his zeppelin return, capture them and have Kim already. It's not looking good despite the smiles the youths share happy to be in each other's company as the book concludes.

I'm mildly surprised how much I enjoyed the scope of this book, it's dressed up to be labelled as being of the science fiction genre but with only the smallest aspect thrown in to show this in the act of alien landscape or creature with a touch here and there of steam punk to entice the casual reader. It's just enough to make the unbelievable believable and not get in the way of (a) a story about young people, and (b) what's becoming a slow burning metaphor for politics and power that we're being teased into.

Leo, and his English translator do a pretty good job on that score. Visually, Leo's work betrays the draughtsman influence of his engineering background. Things are methodical, worked-out, precise, not caricatured. He uses distant perspectives in the manner of Italian comics superstar Milo Manara, but whereas that creator's all too obvious love of the human form is always perfectly captured (if too stylised by favourite facial and figurative types) Leo appears to use photo reference in some of his more extreme facial expressions that don't always gel. That stated, I'm now looking to find faults in what is generally not the kind of book that appeals to me but I found myself liking.

While the creator himself remains something of an enigma to me, his world of Aldebaran must be incredibly popular on the continent, when you put a search out on the internet you're drawn to Youtube where both Dargaud and fans have produced videos based on the series.

To check out Aldebaran and other books by Leo published by Cinebooks check out: www.cinebook.com

BIRMINGHAM'S leading comic artists have once again teamed up with local arts charity Hi8us in a hunt for the region's best young talent.

They are looking for 20 talented artists to develop their skills under the new Comix project. The successor to the hugely successful Stripsearch project.

Among artists giving guidance are John McCrea (X-Men, Spider-man and The Hulk - pictured right), Hunt Emerson (The Beano, Wall Street Journal and Fortean Times), Laura Howell (The Beano, The Guardian), Asia Alfasi (IMAF Winner, Bloomsbury Graphic Novelist) and Andi Watson (Geisha, Buffy)..

AS PROMISED earlier this year, Speech Balloons can now present you with a tempting teaser for award-winning British comic book creator Bryan Talbot's forthcoming graphic novel, Grandville.

Click on the screen and be prepared to be thrilled!

For more information on Bryan Talbot visit: www.bryan-talbot.com and www.myspace.com/lutherarkwright

DESPITE RUMOURS claiming otherwise, Great Britain's longest-running comic book awards, The Eagles, still promise to take place this year, albeit somewhat differently.

The Eagle Awards were founded back in 1976 by Richard Burton and Mike Conroy and are the comics industry's longest established awards. Acknowledged as the pre-eminent international prizes, they have been featured on the covers of leading US and UK titles across the last 28 years ranging from The Uncanny X-Men and Saga of the Swamp Thing to MAD and 2000AD.

Cassandra Conroy is the Eagle Awards' new organiser and she recently made public her comments on the various rumours surrounding their future.

"When I took over the Eagles last year from my father, Mike Conroy - people said that I had an uphill battle to keep the Eagles at the top of the UK awards scene.

"When circumstances meant that the main hall of the Bristol Comic Con, our traditional place of ceremony over the years would not be able to be used in the evening, we realised that there was no way that the Eagles could be run as they usually are, for 2009 at least. But I didn't want my first year as organiser to be a no-show, and so after a lot of discussions and opinions, we're still going to be running the awards."

Cassandra has taken advice from some of the biggest names in comics, and she feels that the Eagles really do have a place in UK comics' history.

"Over the years we have had some of the fiercest competitions out there. When you have an award ceremony that has categories nominated by creators and fans and then voted for by creators and fans, the pressure for a creator to gain such a prestigious award is immense. We've had some of the biggest names in comics step up onto that stage to accept their awards, and although this year we cannot achieve that vision, in future years we will be back, bigger and better than ever."

She explained that, as far as the nominations process and voting goes, the Eagle Awards would be following their well known format.

"The nominations process will begin Friday 8th May 2009 on our website, eagleawards.co.uk. Just nominate your 2008 choice in each category and click return. Nominations close on Friday 22nd May 2009, and then we'll take the top five nominations in each section and place them up for voting to begin Monday 1st June 2009."

Unique in the comics industry, they reflect both the professional and the reader's choice, the Eagle Awards comprise two distinct stages: a nominations form allowing the entire comics community to choose their favourites, and that the top five nominations then appear on the voting form for the readers and fans to choose from, thus focusing the fans with no wasted votes.

Above: BICS 2007 special guest and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola with Eagle Awards creator and Comics International publisher Mike Conroy (Picture (c) Jordan X).

Cassandra Conroy concluded: "The winners of the Eagle Awards might not have a stage to stand on or an opportunity to give a speech this year, but they will receive an Eagle Award, whether in person or by other means. And the full list of Award Winners will be released to the world on Monday 15th June 2009.

'We might not have a meal this year, but we will have awards. We will have winners. And the best of the UK and US comic scene will still fight for the right to be showcased on one of the longest and most prestigious awards out there."

For more details visit: eagleawards.co.uk.

Lucky Luke is one of the most popular all-age comic strips across the continent.

Created by the cartoonist known as Morris and debuting in the December 7th 1946 dated issue of the anthology title Spirou, Lucky Luke told the story of a laid-back cowboy who could "shoot faster than his shadow" and his rambling comedy antics that have now gone on entertaining millions of readers over fifty years later.

The early strips displayed a simpler style of cartooning, developing in time to keep the clarity of those days but with more concise figured artwork. Morris illustrated Lucky Luke until his death in 2001, and along the way several writers worked with him, most notably Asterix's René Goscinny.

The series was continued by others after Morris passed away and in its time moved from being serialised in Sprirou to Pilote and eventually being produced as albums put out by Darguad and others around the world, as well as comics, anthologies, newspapers (where I first came across the series in Portugal), and other media.

Cinebook is the current English-speaking publisher of Lucky Luke, and they have put out many of the albums chronologically in only a few years.

Book 13 is subtitled The Tenderfoot and is a classic tale from back in 1968 when Goscinny and Morris were collaborating.

What will be familiar motifs for the series are already in place by the time of this story, but they present no awkwardness for the new reader.

After some brief comic history lessons regarding the fate of tenderfoots out in the wild west we move onto the the sombe funeral of ranch-owner Old Baddy (who appears to actually have been one of the good guys!).

It soon develops into a classic baroom fight in the style of Goscinny's Asterix punch-ups before Jefferson, the town lawyer reveals to Lucky Luke that an Englishman is to be the reciprient of Old Baddy's will.

Enter Harold Lucius Badmington, an English gentleman of the proper sort, who looks more accustomed to fox hunting and tea on the lawn than rolling up his sleeves and branding irons onto cattle. But we're proved wrong.

It's no great plot secret that the villain of the piece is Jack Ready who wanted Old Baddy's place for himself and will stop at nothing to make it happen still.

Fortunately, Lucky Luke stays hanging round town and with some trial and errors, the assistance of a faithful butler and a noplussed red injun, gunfights, sight-gags and verbal double entrendres the story quick draws to its conclusion in a pithy amusing manner.

It's obvious that the writer of Asterix is involved in this story, but he played it even more deadpan humour and it remains unique rather than being derivative. While Morris' cartooning is charismatic, full-realised and a hoot to look at!

Okay you can often see the jokes coming over the hill, but the way they're set up and delivered is partly why we come along for the ride. If you can imagine Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles done as an Ealing comedy that's Lucky Luke: The Tenderfoot for you, and a darn fine reason its been an international success all these years!

Check out The Tenderfoot or any of the other Luck Luke books in the series by visiting: www.cinebook.com