Bear Alley Books Presents CL Doughty

Cecil Langley Doughty is not a familiar artist, even to those of us who regularly write about the history of British comics, but Steve Holland is planning to change all that with Pages From History: Illustrated By CL Doughty, the next release from his Bear Alley Books imprint.

CL Doughty was born in Yorkshire in 1913 and contributed illustrations to the Radio Times, amongst other titles, before WWII. After spending the war in the army he returned to civilian life and began drawing comic strips for The Children's Newspaper, School Friend and the digest Thriller Picture Library. Later titles included Mickey Mouse Weekly, Swift, Girl, Princess and June before he moved over to the magazine Look and Learn. For Look and Learn, Doughty provided a varied selection of both historical comic strips and feature illustrations, much of which is featured in Pages From History.

In its 172 pages, the book includes an 11 page article on Doughty's life and career, over 60 pages of feature illustrations and more than 90 pages of comic strip including complete stories of Pott's Progress, The Crusader, A Sword For The Stadtholder and The Black Pirate, all from Look and Learn. The book also includes four pages of comic strip artwork from a Moll Moonlight strip that was probably created for the girl's comic School Friend around 1960 and has never been published before. Over half of all the artwork in the book has been scanned from the original artboards.

Pages From History: Illustrated By CL Doughty is available directly from the Bear Alley Books website and the cover price is £17.99. Anyone ordering a copy of the book before Friday 3 February 2012 will receive a 10% discount on the cover price.

The Bear Alley Books website is here and includes links to the trio of Eagles Over the Western Front books, written by Michael Butterworth and illustrated by Bill Lacey, and the Hurricane And Champion Comics Index book written by Steve Holland.

Team Girl Comic Issue 4 Now Available

The fourth issue of the Glasgow based Team Girl Comic is now available featuring twelve different artists presenting fifteen short comic strips.

This issue sees the return of Jude Stoo, Claire Yvette and Jessica Hatcher and has first appearances from MJ Wallace and Claire JC Stewart. With front cover artwork provided by Evy Craig, the issue also has a story by the team's youngest contributor to date, 11 year old Jasmine McPhee.

Issue 4, as well as previous issues, is available for £3 from the TGC website and the Team will be taking a table at the Glasgow Charity Comic Mart on Saturday 10 March 2012 which is taking place at the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall in Glasgow's Trongate between 11am and 4pm.

Before then Team Girl Comic editor Gillian Hatcher has been invited on to the Women In Comics panel at the Glasgow Film Festival on Thursday 23 February at 15:15 along with crime novelist Denise Mina, Phoenix writer/artist Kate Brown and animator Penny Sharp.

There are more details about Team Girl Comic at their website and Facebook page.

There are more details of the Glasgow Charity Comic Mart at its Facebook page.

There are more details of the Women In Comics panel on the Glasgow Film Festival website.

Tube Surfing: Phoenix, Jamie Smart, Commando and The Broons

It has been a while since we have had a Tube Surf so…

The Phoenix had a bumpier than expected take-off when their distribution deal through Waitrose supermarkets left many potential readers puzzled when no Waitrose had copies of the new comic. We are glad to say that our network of twitchers are now reported sightings of Phoenixes nesting on the shelves of many different Waitrose stores so, if you have a nearby store, this is a nest site that we would be happy for you to raid. It you don't have a nearby Waitrose there is still the option of a taster subscription which gets you five issues (worth £14.95) delivered to your door for just £10. Our review of Phoenix issue 1 is here and the Phoenix website with subscription details is here.

Dandy, Phoenix, Corporate Skull Who et al artist and writer Jamie Smart has recently been on the receiving end of criticism of his work that has too often crossed the line into some disgracefully personal attacks. Jamie takes the time to write a very well thought-out and articulated FAQ-style piece on what artists, professional or amateur, should expect when they release their work out into a harsh, cruel world. Jamie's blog piece is here.

On a similar note, while we don't hang out on forums much, we have noticed that comics professionals seem to be quietly withdrawing from many of the various comics forums. While such places are poorer when they leave, it is understandable if, for instance, a forum member posts that they hate a particular artist when what they actually mean is that they dislike that artist's work. To a certain extent Facebook has replaced the work of a lot of the forums, as forums previously replaced Yahoo groups. downthetubes gets more comments about our blog pieces on Facebook than on the blog itself and it is a much more pleasant place to be than some forums as people appear to think twice about what they say when they cannot hide behind cryptic nicknames.

Last year Carlton books issued a set of four Commando paperbacks each containing 3 Commando reprints which were reminiscent of the IPC War and Battle Picture Library Summer Specials from the 1970s and 1980s. They were also considerably cheaper (and lighter) than the big 10 and 12 story oversized reprint books of previous years. The four titles have proved popular enough that Carlton are issuing a second set of four, each themed around a particular military subject and with stories chosen by Commando editor Calum Laird. The titles are Bombs Away!, Desert Rats, Dive! Dive! Dive! and Who Dares Wins and they are due to be published on 12 April 2012 at a cover price of £4.99 each.

Sticking with a DC Thomson theme, the company now has a Broons and Oor Wullie on-line shop, separate from the main DC Thomson e-shop. They have also expanded their range of Broons and Oor Wullie merchandise from the familiar softcover bi-annuals, hardcover reprint books and Ma's cookbooks to include, amongst other things, scarfs, flat caps and baseball caps in the official Broons and Oor Wullie tartans plus a range of jute shopping bags with Broons images on them. With DC Thomson's hometown of Dundee known for its three J's of Jute, Jam and Journalism our favourite of the new items would have to be the shopping bag, showing Ma Broon despairing of the cost of her groceries, which covers the jute and journalism of the three J's and allows you to add the jam yourself.

The Independent has an interesting piece on book illustrators and how, in modern book publishing, internal book illustration has become the preserve of children's books when, in the past, major authors writing for an adult audience such as Charles Dickens would work closely with an artist to illustrate their work. With quotes from the likes of Gerald Scarfe and Posy Simmonds, it is worth a read.

John McCrea takes on Mars Attacks! project

US publisher IDW Publishing and Topps have announces multiple Eisner Award-winning creative team for Mars Attacks, an all-new ongoing comic series based on the fan-favourite Mars Attacks franchise - and STRIP Magazine's John McCrea is one part of the line-up.

Debuting in June 2012, IDW’s comic series will offer the first stories of an all-new Mars Attacks universe, bringing the brand’s outrageous action and dark humour to a new set of tales.

Writer John Layman, author and co-creator of the Eisner-winning series Chew, will script the series, with art by John McCrea, best known for his collaborations with Garth Ennis, including Eisner-winner Hitman, whose creator-owned story, Warpaint, is currently running in STRIP Magazine.

Created in 1962, Mars Attacks celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012 with major product launches throughout the year. IDW’s new comic series, as well as high-quality reprints of existing material, will be a cornerstone of that effort.

Originally published by Topps as a series of trading cards, Mars Attacks was created by Len Brown and Woody Gelman, after Brown was inspired by the Wally Wood cover to EC Comics Weird Science #16. The cards went on to achieve cult status for their then-shocking imagery — fully painted by pulp legend Norm Saunders and based on designs by Wood and Bob Powell — and remains a staple of pop culture. Topps revived the franchise in the mid 1990s with a second card set, comic book series and toy line. The story was also adapted into the 1996 feature film Mars Attacks!, directed by Tim Burton.

“We were excited to hear of the award-winning creative team that IDW had secured,” said Ira Friedman, Topps vice president of global licensing. “John McCrea was our first choice to illustrate Mars Attacks and we were thrilled that IDW was able to bring him aboard. His experience drawing over-the-top violence on comics like Hitman, Judge Dredd and The Boys, coupled with John Layman’s penchant for twisted, offbeat humor makes them the perfect team to relaunch Mars Attacks.”

Mars Attacks will include covers by McCrea and alternate covers by such comic-book luminaries as Sam Kieth, Ben Templesmith and Eric Powell. The first issue will also feature a unique approach to variant covers: It will ship with 55 different covers, each depicting one of the original trading cards from the debut set of Mars Attacks from 1962. A complete collector’s set of the 55 covers in a box that replicates the original card packaging will be offered separately as well.

• Mars Attacks #1 will be available in stores in June 2012. More info from IDWPublishing.com. For information on Topps visit topps.com.