Tube Surfing: 23 November 2008

"It's a cracking read, Gromit". Having appeared on the cover of the 70th anniversary Beano and with their next adventure due to be broadcast on BBC1 this Christmas, Wallace and Gromit's popularity is being used to give a boost to the 2009 city reading campaigns. downthetubes has previously reported on the One Book-One Edinburgh campaign which produced two graphic novels by Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, Kidnapped in 2007 and Jekyll and Hyde this year. For 2009 Edinburgh will be teaming up with Glasgow's Aye Write! book festival and Bristol's Great Reading Adventure to present The Lost World Read 2009. The Lost World is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of a South American plateau where dinosaurs still survive which has been filmed numerous times for cinema and television from the 1925 silent film with stop motion dinosaurs to the latest American TV series. The Lost World Read 2009 will distribute thousands of free copies of the original novel, a quick read version of the novel and, perhaps more interestingly, a paperback comic biography of the life of Charles Darwin. The novels will use a specially created Wallace and Gromit image as their front cover and all three will be available in February 2009. More details at the Edinburgh City Of Literature website.

The art exhibition An English Interior is currently on at the Foundling Museum in London's Brunswick Square near the Russell Square tube station. The exhibition by Belfast artist John Kindness includes works inspired by Desperate Dan from the Dandy. In addition to the works by Kindness, DC Thomson have loaned original Desperate Dan art by Dudley D Watkins to the museum for the duration of the exhibition which runs until 31 December 2008. This is the fourth exhibition in 2008 to include artwork from the DC Thomson archives following on from exhibitions in the Cartoon Museum, Dundee University and Harrods. Entrance to the Foundling Museum is £5 and details of the opening hours can be found at the museum website.

A reminder for those who would like to sample a copy of the weekly DFC comic without committing to a subscription that issue 26 of the DFC will be hitting the shelves of Tesco stores this coming Wednesday, 26 November 2008. For anyone unable to make it to the supermarket to buy a copy it is worth a reminder that individual back issues are available from the DFC website at £3 per issue including postage in the UK and £4 per issue including postage to everywhere else.