Tube Surfing: 25 February 2008

• Comics artist Doug Noble, whose past works include work for Marvel, Live Static and The Silent Choir and who was recently interviewed by fellow creator Sean Azzopardi, is about to launch a new longform strip called Complex. "Hopefully some of you will be interested in checking it out once it starts," he pitches. "It’s going to be fairly interesting, I hope. An end of the world story, a love story, a murder mystery." Check it out from Monday on www.strip-for-me.com
Doug is currently working with Daniel Merlin Goodbrey on the webcomic The Rule Of Death at serializer.net.

• Fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be pleased to hear the Cartoon Network has announced a second season is in the works. Now showing on Cartoon Network UK, the series features in Titan Magazines' Star Wars Comic, available in all good newsagents. The latest issue sees the start of Shipyard of Doom, an epic Clone Wars action spectacular... As the Republic and Separatist forces race to build their armies, a desperate battle rages at the crossroads of the hyperspace lanes of Nexus Ortai. Our heroes, meanwhile, head beyond droid enemy lines…

• Happy Birthday to the Forbidden Planet International blog! The team there, headed up by Joe Gordon, celebrate four years of comics and genre news blogging, encompassing US and European comics as well as British coverage. "Growing out of our increasing online presence we wanted a way that we could discuss and highlight good comics, graphic novels, SF&F, cool merch - all the things we do through our stores and the webstore and our catalogues," Joe says of the blog's aims. "Mostly we wanted to be able to use it as a platform where we could share our love of comics and SF; we’ve posted news, reviews and interviews and some great comics art, we’ve talked to folks who make comics in their bedroom in their spare time and make up part of the vibrant small press and we’ve talked to some of the best known creators and all of them have been interesting, all of them a part of the medium we love." Never mind all that, where's the cake?

• Dynamite writers Leah Moore and John Reppion will be giving a talk on their latest project The Complete Dracula, a new five issue comic book version of Stoker’s novel illustrated by Colton Worley, at the prestigious Dublin Writers Museum on Saturday 18th April. The talk will begin at 3.00 pm. More details here

• As reported previously, Captain Jack Harkness actor John Barrowman has written a Torchwood comic strip with his sister Carole Barrowman - and she's been interviewed by the Newsarama.com guys about the story that appears in current issues of Torchwood Magazine.

• The Times features an interview with Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons this week. Dave reveals that he was not involved in any earlier attempts to turn the comic into a film but when it came to the eagerly-anticipated Zach Snyder film, it was the top British comics artist who approached him about making it. "I’d been invited along to the London premiere of 300," he tells Michael Moran, "which was based on the graphic novel by my friend Frank Miller. I thought it was a fantastic, a wonderful, true adaptation of Frank’s work. I think it had been announced then that Zach was in the frame to direct Watchmen, so I thought, I’ll have to go and shake him by the hand. I grabbed him on his way to the VIP enclosure at the premiere party and shook him by the hand and introduced myself. I just really wanted to say hello but we ended up talking for half an hour. I realised then that he did understand Watchmen. I got such a gut feeling that he could do it justice.” Read More...

• Talking of Watchmen, Bear Alley notes that the graphic novel has sold around 750,000 copies since it was first published in 1986. Following its appearance in Time magazine's Top 100 English Novels since 1923 and the release of the Watchmen movie trailer, it has been racking up sales at an astonishing rate these past few months and was the highest-selling graphic novel in the USA in 2008. "Brian Hibbs revealing recently that Bookscan figures put the 2008 US sales at 308,396 copies," notes Steve Holland, "and that's probably a low figure as Bookscan does not cover all outlets)." Read More...

(Compiled with thanks to Matthew Badham)