Recently by Paul Birch
STAN LEE, the man who made Marvel Comics mighty, is to make a guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory!
The American CBS hit situation comedy show The Big Bang Theory has included comics and other aspects of popular culture as part of its winning formula since it debuted in 2007.
The series has also found fans in the UK where it is featured on Channel 4.
Now the series is to feature a guest appearance by Stan Lee, the editor and writer who lead Marvel Comics out from the low-ranks of the American comic book publishing field it had been in under various names since the 40s to become its nation's leading publisher of superhero comics.
Stan Lee co-created such enduring characters as The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, The X-men and The Fantastic Four... All of which have been turned into hit movies.
CLICK ON Episode 6 of Shang Ri La La La below and it will expand to fill your screen.
For more information on the creators visit:
For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch
For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com
For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten
For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com
DOCTOR WHO #7 is now available from American publisher IDW Comics.
This Dr Who series may be published way over across the Atlantic and primarily intended for our kissing cousins there, but its creative team is predominantly British.
Former Birmingham-based Tony Lee is the regular writer on the series; Coventry-based Al Davison provides the interior illustrated comic pages and a variant cover; Paul Grist illustrated the standard cover art, with American Lovern Kindzierski providing interior colour work.
Al Davison's original artwork is available for sale, as are copies of the Dr Who series at his Astral Gypsy shop in Coventry.
For more information on Al Davison visit: www.astralgypsy.com and www.astralgypsy.blogspot.com
For more information on Tony Lee visit: www.tonylee.co.uk
For more information on IDW visit: www.idwpublishing.com
TIME BOMB Comics has now released its Bomb Scares, its first horror anthology collection.
Bomb Scares has been described by publisher Steve Tanner as "Disturbing horror in a twisted vein".
The strips within this 56 page volume range from zombies to curses, and mind terrors to body horror by the following creators: Shane Oakley, Gary Crutchley, Richmond Clements, John Cahill, Alec Robertson, Montos, Scott Mitchell, Gordon Robertson, MC Carper, Jonathan Darque, Rachele Aragno, Chris Young, Katja Lindblom, GM Jordan, Anglada Kamarasa, Dino Caruso, Andrew Dodd and Steve Tanner himself
While the publiser is keen to remind people that Bomb Scares is "A horror anthology that really is not for the faint-hearted," we brave souls here at Speech Balloons are made of sterner stuff, and believe we have lived with an early penciled version of the Gary Crutchley strip for quite some time so present a few reduced sized sample pages.
For a decidedly different piece of news from the Time Bomb camp, is the happy news of the arrival of a little angel in the form of Sasha Joyce Tanner, on 31st January. While Suzanne did all the hard work producing their daughter, Steve appeared to be busy posting updates on Facebook! Regardless, our congratulations to all concerned.
Time Bomb Comics has been developing swiftly as a small but relevant publisher on the British comics scene, so it is not surprising that the company is considering locating to Birmingham, home of the British International Comics Show (BICS).
For more information on Time Bomb Comic and to order their books direct visit: www.timebombcomics.com
Indiana Jones Omnibus Volume 2
By Various
Dark Horse
Harrison Ford might be knocking on a bit but the beauty of the comics medium means that your lead characters can look eternally young if you want them to be.
This Dark Horse collection is able to collect a grab bag of assorted adventures that see our archaeological hero go gallivanting around the world in search of Jason's Golden Fleece, Christ's Spear of Destiny, a Viking map leading to Vinland and the Philosopher's Stone.
He kisses his leading ladies and outmanoeuvres Nazis and every other bad guy who rears his crooked little head at every twist and turn, with a wise crack on hand and a whip in his hand.
With a troop of more than capable draughtsmen like , Leo Duranona, Gary Gianni, Ken Hooper, Dan Spiegel and Eduardo Barreto you know the art department's well catered for.
Writers include Lee Marrs and Elaine Lee but not simply to show Dark Horse aren't sexually exclusive because those ladies have proven talent, although my favourite story is the cleverly written Indiana Jones and the Golden Fleece story by Pat McGreal and Dave Rawson (who I've never heard of before, unless they're normally screenwriters).
The odd magical fantasy aspect in some of the stories feels out of place, and when such things enter the films they're only there for a few hokum moments. Indiana Jones is about cliff-hanger daring-do and on the whole this is a great collection of such romps.
CAMPFIRE IS currently getting readers' attention at the New Delhi World Book Fair in India.
The Asian publisher of graphic novels intended for the youth market is causing quite a stir in Hall 14 at Stand 3 where people are gathering to look at the publisher's latest books, in English and now Hindi too.
The fair lasts up until Sunday 7th February, and Campfire's managing editor, Andy Dodd, has invited local and international visitors to the show to visit their stand : "Where they can to browse through our graphic novels and have a chat."
For more about Campfire visit: www.campfire.co.in
DEAD AHEAD the hot comic book of a seafaring vogage that finds life on the ocean wave is better than life as an undead zombie is back on schedule after far too long a delay.
Created by Mel Smith and Clark Castillo, wordsmithed by Paul H Birch with art by Alex Nino, colours by Steve Oliff and lettered by Bob Pinaha, Speech Balloons presents two double page spreads from the forthcoming Dead Ahead #3 to published by Image. However, take note that these are low quality versions of the spectacular pages that will see print.
The delay in Dead Ahead's publishing schedule is, in part, due to interest in it being developed for other media, such as the cinema. That stated, future stories in the Dead Ahead mythos are in production for once the current series is concluded.
For more information on Dead Ahead visit:www.myspace.com/dead_ahed
CLICK ON Episode 5 of Shang Ri La La La below and it will expand to fill your screen.
For more information on the creators visit:
For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch
For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com
For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten
For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com
Outlaw - The Legend of Robin Hood
By Tony Lee & Sam Hart
Walker Books
What more can be said about Robin Hood?
What new twist in the tale can be put upon an archer hiding between the verses of old English poems, only to find his own back-story hijacked pretty much wholesale by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe and himself forced to play a walk-on part in the book, but steal the limelight and be elevated to the status of cultural national hero?
Still a few it transpires.
Former Birmingham resident Tony Lee weaves the familiar folklore of the Lincoln Green archer as popularised last century by the good humour prevalent in the Richard Green TV series and the Errol Flynn movie, develops the mythological trimmings of the later Robin of Sherwood TV series, gets written before the BBC's current one, and romps it up like the Kevin Costner Prince of Thieves' hit movie.
But he throws some journalistic traits in too. Now maybe they're of the speculative kind, where presumptive "ifs" lead to "therefores" but they make logical sense in and off themselves and more importantly a rollicking good adventure story.
Not for Mr Lee the dialogue scenarios prevalent in far too many comic book scripts these days where such authors betray their real ambition is to write movie scripts (as if they were something better, instead of just another creative medium, albeit one that pays infinitely better) with the visuals lacking direction despite looking attractive to the eye.
This writer actually knows how to pace a story, leads up to an event, and give validity to the reason behind those moves and motives. His dialogue, by the way, tends towards conciseness with emotive purpose there's little throwaway matter.
Let me confess here and now, I know Tony Lee. The fact that I got to know Tony Lee the person prior to reading any of his actual comics work doesn't influence my liking his work in Outlaw - The Legend of Robin Hood, nor the Baghdad series he did for The DFC. That's not the way I'm built.
He's solid at his craft, has an enquiring mind, and I'm looking forward to sitting back and reading more stories by him as the years go by in an objective manner.
I can't say I know Sam Hart, or his previous work, but he moves the story in a visually appealing manner to carry the story.
This book came out last year. Tony wrote it a good while before that. In fact, I even believe there may be a follow-up. Regardless, Walker Books publish quality children's books and they are to be applauded for stepping out and entering the graphic novel market. That it's been nominated for a number of awards doesn't surprise me.
For more on Tony Lee visit: www.tonylee.co.uk
CLICK ON Episode 4 of Shang Ri La La La below and it will expand to fill your screen.
For more information on the creators visit:
For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch
For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com
For Garen Ewing: www.garenewing.co.uk
For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten
For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com
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