How to Draw a Cartoon Cat

Esbjorn Jorsater, who runs the Comic Art School forum on Ning, has come up with a novel use for ROK Comics -- as a way to deliver tutorials!

Esbjorn has created this simple guide to creating a cartoon cat, which can be viewed in full above. To get the embed code to put the tutorial on your own site, visit this page on ROK Comics!

New British ebook service launches

Just launched in the past few weeks is Myebook.com (www.myebook.com), a new web-based ebook community from a British company, which aims to give people the tools to create book content and 'get it out there' for free. Every aspect of publishing content is covered - from creating, to sharing and reading - in a slick and simple way.

The service has been met with a great deal of interest from several comic creators, with a number of comics from Markosia and Orang Utan already available on the service.

"Comic book creators love it," enthuses Simon Whitehall, head of myebook.com communications. "The system is a great environment to create and publish comics and graphic novels. The power and richness of the design features are out of this world, certainly by web standards."

"Forget web 2.0," he says, "We've just turned the page to chapter 3.0. With myebook.com, we've made it possible for anyone to upload or create from scratch beautifully simple or adventurously complex page designs and covers online, in no time. What's more, users can publish their book with a single button and release it to the world before the (virtual) ink's dry! They can create as many publications as they want. And it's all free."

Readers may think myebook.com sounds too good to be true. So where's the small print?

"There isn't one," says Whitehall. "The only limit is our users’ imagination. An over-used cliché but never more appropriate than now. Ourethos is: create, publish and share.

"Our audience is everyone from the kid at school who's just written a short story in English class; to his sister who wants to document a recent family trip; to the author who wants to share the novel he's just finished; to his friend who wants to share the novel he's sat on for 20 years!

"My grandmother, for example, has led a rather 'colourful life' and has always threatened to write a book some day. 'But who would publish that?' she would ask. Well, we would - so all her friends could read it online."

"It's the ultimate ebook platform for any personal or corporate publications," Whitehall continues, "whether it's for novels, childrens books, magazines, comics, photo albums, leaflets, brochures, instruction manuals. You can even embed or link to videos, audio, documents, images and flash files to make your books fully interactive. And what's more, since the whole myebook system is community-based, getting your word out to your audience is easy."

The team behind myebook.com feels that the service has ‘stolen a march’ on the rest of the publishing industry. While judging a book by its cover is never advised, spending a few minutes on the site will convince even the most hardened bookworm.

"Like the digital music revolution, myebook.com aims to give back total control to the content creator and the reader," Whitehall concludes. "Itprovides a way for users to publish what they want and connect with their audiences directly."

myebook.com are however, not trumpeting the death of print. The company is quick to point out that, while print is an excellent medium, it is the advantages of the traditional publishing and distribution model that are fading.

• More information: www.myebook.com

Classical Comics Video Interview

Comics artist Jon Haward and writer John McDonald, part of the creative team on Classicial Comics Macbeth, have been interviewed for the BookZone TV, an online video channel from the Borders bookshop. View the video here

Classical Comics recently announced Japanese publisher Ittosha Incorporated are to translate their books into Japanese. Using a mixture of the company's Plain and Quick Text versions as the basis, they'll be producing a single text version for the Japanese market.

"This is hugely exciting and we can't wait to see the finished books," a spokesperson for Classical Comics commented. "With luck, we'll be able to see them at Frankfurt Book Show this October."

"Our multiple text versions of well-loved classic literature have already proven to be a huge success around the globe," says Clive Bryant, Chairman of Classical Comics, "particularly with students and teachers who welcome this vibrant, colourful way of introducing these wonderful books.

"Language translations are a natural extension to this. Not only are we exporting Great British literature, but we’re also delivering part of our deep culture at the same time. Just as westerners nd the Japanese culture intriguing, we think that there are many people in Japan who will be equally fascinated by our heritage.”

Comic Book Movies

Brian Bolland has provided the artwork for the "Comic Book Movies - Graphic novels on the big screen" festival at the BFI on London's Southbank.

Showing a non-identified spandex-wearing hero (is it Directorman? FirstGripman? Gafferman?) the season of movies is on now and runs until the end of August.

As previously reported here, movies being shown (at BFI Southbank) as part of the festival include Superman, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, 300, Ghost World, Hellboy and Iron Man.

The BFI IMAX will also be showing a number of movies including V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight and an X-Men trilogy all-nighter (introduced by Sir Ian McKellen).

• More details from www.bfi.org.uk/comics

Celebrate 70 years of Comic Mayhem!

Ken Harrison has provided this great illustration for the forthcoming Beano and Dandy exhibition at the Cartoon Muesum in London.

While some of the characters featured will be familar to today's readers of The Beano and Dandy Ken has also included a few that may have faded from memory. Test yourself! See how many you can identify.

The exhibition runs from 30th July until 2nd November 2008. Opening times are 10:30-17:30 (Tue-Sat) and 12:00-17:30 (Sun). Closed Mondays.

Entrance prices are £4 adults, £3 for concessons and free to Under-18s and students.

The Cartoon Musuem can be found at 35 Little Russell Street, WC1A 2HH

Tube Surfing: 19 July 2008

Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter interviews British comic creator Daniel Merlin Goodbrey here. 'What little I know about the writer and cartoonist Daniel Merlin Goodbrey intrigues in a way that it's surprising I didn't interview him a long time ago,' confesses Spurgeon, in his introduction to the interview. 'He's a considerable presence within webcomics and is a generally prolific cartoonist in that realm, perhaps best known in the on-line world for developing the Tarquin Engine. Goodbrey's a "new media lecturer" -- which sounds fantastic -- and done a number of works in hypercomics, yet he's also written an old-school, print-bound Avengers short story, and has just completed another such assignment for Marvel.' (Above right: a page from Necessary Monsters by Goodbrey and Sean Azzopardi)

Richard Bruton has written 100 comic reviews for the Forbidden Planet International Blog. To celebrate this feat, he's created an index of his reviews, which you can find here.

And congrats to British cartoonist Jim Medway. He's a dad! Down the Tubes wishes Jim and his family all the best. Jim Medway self-publishes via his own Paw Quality Comics and is a regular contributor to children's comic The DFC.

Cartoonist Oliver East has posted the cover to his second book, Proper Go Well High, over at his blog. Proper Go Well High will be released by new British independent comics publisher Blank Slate Books, the company that released East's first collection, Trains are Mint, reviewed here by Down the Tubes.

Cancertown Graphic Novel Planned

Cancertown (out at the end of the year from Insomnia Publications) is a new original graphic novel from British comic writer Cy (Starship Troopers) Dethan with art by Stephen Downey, colours by Melanie Cook and letters by Nic Wilkinson.

It's the story of a former mental patient with an inoperable brain tumour who conducts search-and-rescue missions into a monstrous, alternate version of London. The guy's name is Morley, and he suffers from a rare mental disorder that causes him to believe a number of weird things about himself and his relationship to the outside world.

The major upshot of this is that his delusions manifest themselves in a twisted alternate world he calls Cancertown. The real fun for Morley began when dispossessed people - those who were lost or who had a diminished sense of their own identity - started to fall into Cancertown and Morley decided that his purpose in life was to find those people and return them to the real world before they became permanent residents.

There's a lot more to Cancertown, of course, described by Cy as Chinatown meets the Wizard of Oz, including monsters, ganglords and a horrifically scarred burn victim whose connection to Cancertown seems every bit as strong as Morley's - but that's the basic set-up.

• More details on Cy Dethan's website - including some preview pages and character concept sketches.

In Review: Smuggling Vacation

by Jason Wilson
Published by Dealer Comics

The Book: A 74-page graphic novel telling the story of an ordinary British couple - he works in IT, she works in Marks and Spencer - who, when on holiday in Spain, stumble across an abandoned consignment of cocaine. Endeavouring to smuggle it to Britain themselves, they enlist the help of hapless "Him's" brother to help them, pursued by the consignment's owners and the police...

The Review: Smuggling Vacation by Jason Wilson and Tony Spencer is, put simply, one of the best independently published British humour comics I have read in a long time.

With no small tip of the hat to the kind of European bande dessine-style storytelling found in the pages of strips such as Joe Bar or Asterix, but with a definite adult sensibility, this tale of two hapless British tourists who find a huge stash of illegal drugs in Spain and attempt to smuggle it home is a comics gem.

In their attempts to bring a tonne of cannabis stashed away on a Spanish beach, “Him and Her” incur the wrath and pursuit of the drug gang whose stash they’ve taken; and become the focus for a huge (and, largely, hapless) police surveillance operation.

The story also reveals some of the lengths criminal gangs go to in trying to smuggle drugs across Europe, and the steps the police and customs take to stop them.

Along with a very funny script Smuggling Vacation, which has been serialised in Weed World magazine, creates a wonderful set of characters, many based on real life crime figures – the 75-page story being the end product of a two-year collaboration between convicted hashish smuggler Tony Spencer and former animator Jas Wilson.

Wilson says that he and Spencer had planned such a book for some years, but it wasn't until Spencer made the front page of Spain's 'El Sun' newspaper and he had received six years for smuggling hashish that there was time available to work on it. Wilson then began working with Spencer via scores of letters containing sketches, scripts and drawn pages, sent back and forth between Spencer at Valdemoro prison and Wilson's makeshift cartoon studio.

Smuggling Vacation takes the dealers, growers, black marketeers and smugglers they both knew – although names have of course been changed to protect the guilty and we’re told the originals were often far more intimidating! – and makes them the stars and cast in the tale of two Brits abroad who come across the opportunity of a lifetime.

Blending a real world background with well-realized fictional characters - Him and Her surely a young George and Mildred in the making - the story takes readers on a roller coaster race across Europe, from a surprising discovery on a Spanish beach to a cross channel ferry, with Jason’s extraordinary attention to detail in his superb art.

With fantastic storytelling throughout, the book may have European influences but the best of British humour comics, from the Beano to the best of Knockabout Comics, exemplified by cartoonist such as Hunt Emerson, surely helped shape its pages.

This is a funny, well drawn, well researched and written humour comic with terrific characters and characterisation, that deserves success after the huge effort Jason and Spencer have put into getting it onto book shelves. Available now from the Smuggling Vacation web site (where you’ll also find details of signings, background to the making of the book, a gallery and more), it’s also available from Smallzone and and selected bookshops.

I was delighted to see a second Him and Her book, Indignant in Budapest, is in development. I can’t wait!

• Smuggling Vacation is available from Smallzone and www.smugglingvacation.co.uk or order it through any bookshop (ISBN:9780955917004) priced £6.99.

• UPDATE: A sequel, actually titled Day of the Deal was released in May 2010. Read all about it here

Creepy Curtain Crawlers!

Comic creator Chris Reynolds, the groundbreaking talent behind the classic Mauretania graphic novel, has just added a new Moon Queen adventure to the comics to mobile service ROK Comics.

Titled Curtain Crawlers, the spooky tale is different to the previous run of Moon Queen stories, which feature Chris' very own take on superheroes and superheroines, for a number of reasons.

"Because of their content, the previous Moon Queen stories all use ROK Comics' 'R' rating," Chris explains. "Curtain Crawlers is the first Moon Queen story I felt could take the 'U' rating without bowdlerising it into nothingness."

The story also markes the first Moon Queen story where Chris has taken 'as read' the previous body of stories as knowledge that, really, is required of the reader - so if you want to catch up with what has gone before your best bet is to subscribe to the WAP subscription service for just £3 for 30 days, and then you can read all the earlier Moon Queen stories on your mobile.

"I wanted a to go back to a story like my prose novels that's a bit more than just one, however interesting, incident from Moon Queen's life," says Chris of the haunting 24-episode tale. "In Curtain Crawlers, I wanted to write more of a novel-length type of thing – to cover that sort of ground - even if the final story isn't actually very long.

My inspiration for this is the amount of content they fit into the 45-minute episodes of post-Eccleston Doctor Who," he reveals. "I sometimes think some of these these zip by too quickly for me to get a proper grip on them, but that's where comics have a unique advantage shared with text novels - that you can take them at your own pace and re-read at will!"

There are more developments in this story, further expanding the Moon Queen mythos. "By now, I wanted to link the stories a bit with the world and the journey of Mauretania Comics," says Chris, "from which so far Moon Queen's been at arm's length. So Garnet Ross from 'Pure Holiday' makes a cameo appearance (at quite an important moment) and the themes and the concerns of the whole story are quite Mauretania-like, connecting with 'Pure Holiday' again in using audio recordings as an element of the plot.

"I've even re-used one of the imaginary locations from 'How To Do Your Own Dentistry' for the place where 'our' Moon Queen is held while the story unfolds."

Chris was one of the first creators to give ROK Comics a try when it comes to bringing comics to mobile and has some useful tips on developing new comics for the young medium.

"I found 'mobile storytelling' simple to get into because I nearly always draw strips using a uniform panel size anyway," he says, "and my scenes are generally quite short, so the translation to 'page-by-page' format is straightforward.

"The most recent thing I've learned, in correspondence with [ROK Comics Managing Editor John Freeman], is that it's best to have very brief episodes starting with a one-panel recap using the final panel of the previous episode."

At present, Moon Queen stories can only be found on mobile and on Chris' official web site MetroPoppyfield. While there are no plans for a print edition just yet, Marc Baines at Kingly Books, who, among other titles, also pulished The Dial by Chris and Voice of the Wilberforce by Ed Pinsent, is planning a new edition of the Penguin Mauretania.

• You can view all the comics on ROK Comics on your mobile by subscribing to the WAP service for a small monthly fee - $4 in the US, £3 in the UK, other countries also served. Simply visit this page on the ROK Comics site and choose the subscribe option. When you receive a WAP push message to your mobile, connect to the site using that link using your browser, bookmark it -- and you'll be subscribed to ROK Comics Mobile for the next month.

Tube Surfing: 17 July 2008

• Due to unforeseen circumstances Jimi Gerkin's much anticipated 'Pens, Pencils and Photocopiers' Comics and Zines Event in London this Saturday is going to cost exhibiting contributors £7 each. More details here: Jimi has asked that contributors get in contact with him to confirm.

• Talking of events, London Undrground Comics has announced its announce its second festival of the year, Low Energy Day on 30th August. "After the success of No Barcodes, with its beautiful atmosphere, universal profit making and footfall of over six hundred visitors we’ve decided to do… well pretty much the same again actually," says Oli Smith. The event in Camden will have more tables and DJ Laurence Powell from small press legends Modern Monstrosity (Tales From The Flat) will be entertaining fans all day with his comics themed mixes in the middle of the main room.

• Lee Slattery, whose work has previously apeared in Eddie Campbell's Bachus, has just finished putting his Everyone Loves the Lizard man online. This used to run as a serial in Deevee at the same time as my How to be an Artist. Also, he has coloured the whole thing. It's brilliant.

(in the scroll that opens for the five chapters watch out for the numbering, as I don't think they appear in correct order)

• Glu Mobile has released The Dark Knight, a mobile game based on the latest Batman installment due for US release this week (18 July). The game is Glu Mobile’s second title for Warner Bros and the companu is also releasing a suite of content associated with the film, including over 30 wallpapers, 14 voice tones, four music tones and eight animated screensavers for mobile phones.

• More comics on mobile news: Fun Mobility is bringing Hello Kitty to mobile phones thanks to a new deal with Sanrio, which created the icon more than 30 years ago. FunMobility will sell Hello Kitty imagery and more to mobile phone users through its wallpaper applications and syndication deals with carrier storefronts.

Pubishing News Closes, Victim of Web Competition

British book trade weekly Publishing News, which has occasionally covered graphic novels and related illustrated books in its pages, is to cease publication. The issue of Friday July 25th will be the last.

In a statement on the magazine's website the publishers stated the publication, founded in 1979, has been hit by the same problems that have affected all magazines and newspapers: advertisers have shifted increasing proportions of their spend to online and direct sales.

The closure reflects problems facing all niche publishers. Titan Magazines, for excample, moved its SF magazine Dreamwatch to the web some time ago.

'This has been a sad and difficult decision to make," commented PNL's founder and Chairman, Fred Newman, commented, "but the nature of the book trade which today offers a multiplicity of ways for publishers to sell books both to booksellers and to consumers has changed dramatically. For the biggest book publishers, the trade press is now only one of many options for the promotion and sale of their titles."

Newman stressed that all other activities of PN Ltd are unaffected by the closure of Publishing News. The company will continue to organise the British Book Awards and has recently signed a new two-year contract with its headline sponsor, Galaxy. The team involved in the management both of the Awards and the British Book Industry Awards, Alastair Giles, Merric Davidson and Midas PR, will continue in their roles.

Also unaffected is the Christmas Books Catalogue, a joint venture with the BA. The 2008 edition is now in production and close to one million copies will be distributed through bookshops. BML, the leading research agency for the book business, will also continue, mounting its usual Books and the Consumer Conference in March 2009.

Bell Defends New Yorker Obama cover

Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell has sprung to the defence of the New Yorker magazine, currently embroiled in controversy for its latest cover depicting US presidential candidate Barrack Obama and his wife Michelle.

Barack Obama supporters are said to be furious that the cartoon depicts him and his wife as Muslim terrorists. In response, the magazine has insisted that the cartoon is meant to satirize opposition slurs on Mr Obama, and is not itself an attack.

On Tuesday, Obama told CNN's Larry King. that the satirical cover, depicting him and his wife as flag-burning, fist-bumping radicals, doesn't bother him but that it was an insult to Muslim-Americans.

Reaction to the cartoon has been mixed, earning the New Yorker support from unusual sources. Right-leaning news channel Fox News' Greg Gutfeld immediately spotted the cartoon wasn't meant to bash Barack, "rather it was an attack on his critics — a commentary on those who sensationalize Obama's perceived flaws.

"Basically The New Yorker cover suggests that anyone who finds Obama to be less than a cross between Jesus Christ and gorgeous unicorn, to be a racist creep."

USA Today's Chuck Raasch noted the cartoon "offended many, including John McCain. But as crude and offensive as it was, the cover was tame next to other Internet rot, not all of it aimed at Obama. The ageism directed at John McCain is prevalent, too."

Steve Bell, no stranger to controversy about his own work, feels the New Yorker cover falls into the category of cartoonists going too far -- which is exactly what they should do. "Having seen the full image (along with unimaginable numbers of idiots and psycho-paths worldwide), I can say that I rather warm to it," says Bell. "I look at it, and it works, for me anyway."

Often attacked for his portrayal of some British politicians, Bell argues cartoons -- many drawn by some of the most paintstaking, shyest and most timid people on Earth - need to be disturbing, and they should also dare to ask questions.

"People in the US aren't generally fools (even though the fools have been over-represented of late, particularly in the current administration), though some may be a little over-literal, and these are not always the psychos... But whether a cartoon is funny or not is one judgment that is always going to remain subjective."

Writing for the Daily Telegraph, cartoonist Christian Adams felt the cover missed its mark. "All cartoonists have one simple task. To get their message over visually in roughly three seconds. This is how long a reader will take to glance at their work. That's it. It has to be bold, then intriguing, then acute, and then, hopefully, funny. In three seconds.

"The New Yorker Obama cover may well be all of these, but unfortunately, thanks to the world wide web, it has been a victim of its own wit... taken out of context, [the cartoon] can mean whatever you want it to. And here we come to the internet. Seen on its own, scattered randomly over the internet, with no knowledge of what the New Yorker's mindset is, this cartoon can be interpreted however you wish."

Meanwhile, a New York Times article on how difficult it is to make jokes about Obama quotes comedian Bill Maher made a good point: "If you can't do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?"

BBC Issue a Comics Challenge

(with thanks to Robin Ashwell): The BBC online News Magazine has just published an article on newspaper comic strips -- and is challenging readers to send in their own four panel creations.

The article, published to publicise self-taught artist (and occasisonal DJ, raconteur etc) Phill Jupitus' documentary Comic Love on Radio 4 (available at Radio 4's Listen Again site), notes that for as long as there has been the concept of daily newspapers, there has been the political cartoon. And in the 20th Century there has been a natural symbiosis between the modern newspaper and one particular form of cartoon, the four-panel strip.

The article notes the work of the creators of the Daily Telegraph's Alex strip, the controversy caused by Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury - including audio interviews with the US cartoonist - and features an exclsuive strip by Phil Jupitus himself (first panel above).

Readers -- and several have already commented on the article noting their favourite strips -- are also challenged to send in their own four-panel strips:

• Email: yourpics@bbc.co.uk, subject CARTOON
• MMS from UK: 61124
• Int MMS: +44 7725 100100
• Click here for terms and conditions

Shatner on Your Mobile...

Thanks to a deal between ROK Media (publishers of ROK Comics) and top Hollywood photographer Sue Schneider, you can now buy wallpapers featuring some top SF TV and film stars -- along with other celebrities -- for your mobile.

Mobile service Fonepark is offering a number of 'wallpapers' for mobile featuring the likes of William Shatner, Jeri Ryan, Robert Picardo and many others, along with TV theme ring tones and more.

More SF celebrities will be added to the service in coming months.

Fonepark is also set to add wallpapers by top comics artists already creating comics for mobile, complementing existing comics and magazine-sourced imagery from titles such as Look and Learn and The Bible Story.

No Heroics Reviewed

Over on Comic Book Resources, Rich Johnston has published a preview, complete with several photographs, of ITV2's new superhero sitcom No Heroics, as part of his latest Lying in the Gutters comics news and gossip column.

The show, set to debut later this year, is currently being previewed for the press, so expect more mainstream media to pick up on the new show, which is being produced by Tiger Aspect.

Created and produced by Drew Pearce, whose credits include ITV2's magazine reality show Deadline, No Heroics is ITV2's first original sitcom, and centres on the lives of four London-based off-duty superheroes and their struggles in love and with fame - or the lack of it.

The sees the off-duty superheroes living their day to day life, which for supposed saviours of the world is actually rather normal – as they just can’t be bothered. Instead, this group of b-listers would rather get drunk in their local superheroes-only pub, The Fortress and commiserate at their lack of superiority.

The show is directed by Ben Gregor and executive produced by Sophie Clarke-Jevoise, who also worked behind the scenes on BBC1's My Hero series as its executive producer.

The show stars Patrick Baladi as Excelsior - the strongest of the heroes and bane of the Hotness’ life), Nicholas Burns (as the Hotness, a heat-controlling hero desperate to save, well something…), James Lance (who plays Timebomb, who can see sixty seconds into the future), Claire Keelan (as Electroclash, who can control machines but prefers to use her powers to empty out cigarette machines) and Rebekah Staton (who plays super-strong She-Force, a mighty heroine who’s more interested in waiting for Mr Right to sweep her off her feet).

Commissioned by the ITV2 controller, Zai Bennett, and the ITV editor of comedy, Michaela Hennessey-Vass, the initial commission was for eight episodes and is seen by ITV2 as part of a wider strategy to develop its comedy output.

"This is a perfect ITV2 comedy," commented Bennett last year, when the show was first announced. "It's witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, and is being produced with real passion from a great team."

For creator Drew Pearce, No Heroics is an opportunity to put a British take on superheroes. "Plus, I have about 20 years' worth of comic books that I'm looking forward to finally being able to claim as expenses."

• ITV2 web site: itv2.itv.com
• Fan Site: www.noheroics.com

2000AD Owners Interviewed

Game site Develop reports that British independent developer Rebellion, publishers of the Rogue Trooper and Judge Dredd games and also owners of cult comics 2000AD and Judge Dredd: The Megazine, has hit out at reports saying that the UK is the most expensive place to develop a game.

Asked in a Develop-exclusive interview whether the studio struggles as a work-for-hire developer when it's pitching against other teams in less costy locations such as the US, CEO Jason Kingsley said: "No - the UK is nowhere near as expensive as it is in California. Although we're not that far behind, I would say Britain is the best place to get a game made."

"There are some horror stories other studios will tell you about going to low-cost places to get a game made," he continues. "There is a risk/reward situation for publishers when it comes to paying for that. We've been around 16 years, and we've not got a reputation to maintain, which I think is one of the things that helps us attract work. The same goes for other UK studios."

Jason Kingsley has also suggested that the team are in the business for the long haul, with no prospect soon of the company being bought out, which might ultimately affect 2000AD and its other print publishing ventures.

"We’ve never said never to [accquisition], but it’s not something on our roadmap," says Jason. "We’re not planning to cash out because I like the lifestyle of running and owning a company."

Among other recent success stories for the highly-rated independent game developer, The company recently announced that Reef Entertainment has confirmed it has agreed an exclusive deal to launch 2000AD character Rogue Trooper videogame globally on Wii.

• For more from the Kingsleys check out the full interview here.

New Blake’s 7 Designer Speaks

(with thanks to Jeremy Briggs for the link): Scottish newspaper the Queensferry Gazette has just interviewed designer David Carey about his work for the new Blake’s 7 show in development for Sky One.

The British broadcaster revealed back in April that it had commissioned two 60-minute scripts for a potential series, working with Blake’s 7 Productions.

Carey, who works as marketing manager and graphic designer for a global software company in Edinburgh was commissioned by Blake’s 7 Productions and has been working on the branding for the last couple of years. In consultation with the scriptwriters, the producer and all those involved in the story, he has designed illustrations and graphics for the show

“Blake’s 7 had been a passion of mine when I was younger,” he told the paper, “and it has been great fun getting involved.”

Hinting at the style of the new take on the classic BBC show, Carey says the look “is an art nouveau, dark Blake’s 7. I try to come up with a good concept and be original.”

There's no news yet on whether there will be any new Blake's 7 comics concurent with the release of the new show, although producer Andrew Sewell does have a long association with comics.

• Read the full new item
• Visit the Blake’s 7 Productions web site

Tank Girl: More Preview Art Online

(with thanks to Mattew Badham): Chris Ryall, Editor in Chief at US publisher IDW, has just posted a selection of art from their new Tank Girl series on his personal blog.

Written by creator Alan C. Martin and drawn by Rufus Dayglo and Christian Krank (who Chris describes as "the best-named art team in comics"), the pages are from Issue 3, mentioned in an earlier post here.

Chris syas he's delighted with the work, describing it as "a great mix of Jamie Hewlett's style and a look and feel all their own, too."