• Things to buy this month -
Marvel Heroes #3 from
Panini UK, which allegedly features an Iron Man story by
Al Ewing and
Kev Walker, and
Judge Dredd Megazine #280, on sale now in UK newsagents, which has the man himself by Al and Colin Wilson, featuring the first part of
Magic Bullets, a story Al describes as "pulsing epic of murder, mayhem and jucidial procedure the way you like it!
"I can't think of a single character I'd rather write regularly in comics than Dredd, so hopefully these few tales are the start of a long and happy relationship. Which means I need to speed up a tad. That's my resolution for 2009, anyway."
• Also worth checking out is Rebellion's
The VCs
,
2000AD’s tale of space warfare, in which the 'Vacuum Cleaners' take on the power of the alien Geek empire. Created by
Gerry Findley-Day (who also created
Rogue Trooper) with art from Mike McMahon, Cam Kennedy, Gary Leach, it's a story in the spirit of Joe Haldeman's Forever War and Pat Mils Charley's War, about the futility of war told from the perspective of new recruit Steve Smith as his steep learning curve throws him into the midst of a vicious intergalactic conflict.Personally, I wsn't a big fan of the strip when it was first published but it has a loyal following nonetheless.
The VCs is available from amazon.co.uk and bookshops.
• ICV2 reports
Boom! Studios is to offer retailers free comics and other incentives
to support its new Hexed series, launching this week, in conjunction with making the
book available free online on MySpace. Boom!, who have cultivated several British creators of late, have had considerable success with some of their titles, including
Farscape -
the first issue sold out in just five days.
• (via
Lee Robson):
Kieron Gillen of
Phonogram fame, amongst others, has posted
a small little article on 'breaking into comics' over at his blog, which is definitely worth a butchers for any aspiring creators. And, talking of good posts, Michael Alan Nelson has also posted this excellent piece,
"Put Your Armor On", on dealing with criticism in the Internet Age over on Kung Fu Monkey. "I think the trick to dealing with criticism (aside from growing a very thick, impenetrable skin) is to learn which criticisms to take to heart, which to accept with a grain of salt, and which to just simply ignore," he advises. "At first, my default rubric for accepting or dismissing criticism was usually binary. If the criticism praised me and my work, I accepted it. If it didn't, I dismissed it. That approach made sleeping at night a bit easier, but it didn't help me use those criticisms to better my writing."
Read the post• Congratulations to Tony Lee, who has won the award for 'Best Writer' by Regie Rigby in his incredibly coveted 'Jester Awards' at his
Fool Britannia column on Comics Buletin, an award that in the past has been given to luminaries that include Garth Ennis, Bill Willingham and Warren Ellis.
• Despite the gloom and doom circulating in the media,
Starship Troopers writer
Cy Dethan reports that 2009 is shaping up pretty well for him so far. "
Cancertown's into 'coming soon' territory now, and there may even be a very exciting extra announcement to make about it before release,"
he reveals on his blog. "
Harlan Falk and
Slaughterman's Creed are also developing nicely, and I see that Insomnia have just announced both
Cancertown Volume 2 and another graphic novel of mine
on their blog, so expect an announcement about
The Ragged Man fairly soon.
"As always, there are a few other projects at earlier stages of development, but I'll get to them when there's anything concrete to tell."
What is the least popular of the current batch of Doctor Who action figures? If the closing down sales in Woolworths were anything to go by it was the Destroyed Cassandra, a toy which rather looks like the sprue left over when you have finished an Airfix kit.
is estimated to have sold 200 million copies and been translated into over 50 languages, and has a huge following in the UK.
