Vintage British Star Trek pages sold on eBay

Two pages of vintage Star Trek art by veteran British comic artist John Stokes created for British publication have just been sold on eBay.

Published in August 1972 in Valiant and TV21, John Stokes was one of several artists to work on the property, which first featured in the weekly comic Joe 90: Top Secret in January 1969, six months before the TV show itself began to air in the UK on BBC1, coinciding with the first moon landing.

Star Trek transferred to TV21 when the two titles merged in September 1969, becoming TV21 and Joe 90.

TV21, a pale shadow of its former 1960s self, was eventually merged with Valiant in late 1971, with Star Trek one of the strips that survived the merger.

Artists who worked on the strip - which proved an instant hit from its first appearance in Joe 90 - included Harry Lindfield, Mike Noble, Ron Turner, Harold Johns, Carlos Pino and Vicente Alcazar and, finally, John Stokes, who drew 13 untitled stories in total.

The strip appeared in colour, his art often falling prey to the vagaries of Valiant's letterpress printing, running until 29 December 1973.

This artwork was part of a huge deal between IPC and collector Peter Hansen and Blase Books, run by Phil Clark, regularly offer items via eBay, sold as from the Peter Hansen Five Star IPC Archive Collection.

While the British Star Trek comic is riddled with continuity errors, especially in early stories where the artists and writers had no idea of the show's format or how its vehicles looked, aside from what we can only assume would have been a few reference photographs, there is still plenty of interest in this curious spin-off from the hit SF franchise, which included one of the first attempts to visualize the Romulan homeworld and a story set on Earth - a setting never realized on the original TV series itself.

Perhaps there may yet be interest in a print collection of the material at some point.

• Written by pop-culture historian Alan J. Porter, author of the bestselling James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007, Star Trek: A Comic Book History, published last year, should be of interest to people interested in the story above, offering a complete history of the Star Trek universe in comic books and newspaper strips all over the world.

It features nine information-packed chapters detailing the history of Star Trek in comic books and newspaper strips from the first Gold Key comic book, the British Star Trek strips to Marvel and DC's titles, and up to the present day. Covering all publications of the entire Star Trek universe it includes creator interviews, unpublished artwork, and a detailed checklist.

Liam Sharp, Gary Erskine and Tim Perkins to attend Malta ComicCon 2010

(via Tim Perkins): The second Maltese Comic Convention has announced its first guests for this year’s line up, who include Liam Sharp (left), Gary Erskine and Tim Perkins (below).

Taking place 16th-17th October, the convention will take place in the Saint James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in Valetta.

The convention is organised by Wicked Comics, a non-profit voluntary organization aimed at promoting the comic culture both in Malta and abroad.

Wicked Comics was conceived in 2005 when a bunch of proud-to-be-geeks with a penchant for writing, drawing and organizing events decided that it was time to kick start the local comic scene, and held their first annual Comic Convention in Malta last year. "The road to the Comic Con wasn’t easy," they say. "In fact, one day, we might just write a comic book about it!

The intention behind the convention is to place Malta in the heart of the International Comic World and Wicked Comics hope the Malta Comic Con will become a yearly event which will grow bigger each year.

The venue looks impressive: housed in a 16th Century fort, the centre is home to a small theatre-in-the-round, an arthouse cinema, a chamber music room and gallaries.

Now celebrating its 10th year, the the Saint James Cavalier Centre has welcomed both local and foreign artists, writers, singers and actors, dancers, musicians as well as thinkers, scientists and other creators. It has staged operas and premiered plays, held major exhibitions of contemporary pieces as well as past masters.

It runs courses for adults and children and has been enjoyed for over a million vsiitors in the past 10 years.

More info:

• Malta ComicCon2


• Malta ComiCon on Facebook

• Wicked Comics – Malta Comic Web Hub

• Tim Perkins 1st Annual Malta Comic Con Report Part 1; Part 2; Part 3

Dudley D. Watkins gallery launched as Courier revamps web site

(with thanks to Lew Stringer and the Forbidden Planet International blogs who spotted this first): DC Thomson has just revamped its web site for its Scottish newspaper The Courier -  and  included a fantastic gallery of comic work by Dudley D. Watkins.

Considered an icon of Scottish culture, Watkins amazing talents are forever linked with DC Thomson, working on comics, newspapers, books and more from 1925 right up until his death in 1969, gving life to unforgettable characters such as The Broons, Oor Wullie and Desperate Dan.

The paper presents a gallery of his work, drawn from the huge DC Thomson comics archive, much of it not been seen since it was first printed, so many decades ago, including strips from annuals, religious images from a 1957 Beezer book (Watkins was a devout Christian and it's thought he was given rein to create these images in order to persuade him to do other work).

Offering some fine examples of the artist's range and offers the chance to see different versions of some of the most famous characters "Watty" created, with very familiar faces from the Sunday Post.

• View the gallery on The Courier web site 

Desperate Dan © 2010 DC Thomson

Frank's Fantastic Send Off - thanks to his fans

We're pleased to report that the late comedian and comic creator Chris Sievey, aka Frank Sidebottom had the fantastic send off he would have wanted thanks to his fans last week - rather than a pauper's funeral.

The comedian's financial affairs when he died mean that his family were struggling to do him and his memory the justice it deserves - but as we previously reported, Frank's many fans banded together via the Internet to contribute to the costs of his funeral, raising thousands to give him a good send-off.

As well as his world-famous comedy show, a Frank Sidebottom comic strip ran in Oink! in the 1980s, written and drawn by Chris himself (as Frank, of course).

Family friend and Frank fan James Malach reports the funeral was a robust show of love and support as the day progressed - and the donations of many fans of proved that human kindness still exists in abundance.

"The funeral for Chris Sievey was held on Friday 2nd July at Altrincham crematorium and was attended by the family and friends of the man behind the papier mache mask," James reported to fans. "The occasion, whilst tinged with sadness, was also a fitting tribute to a man who has brought so much happiness to so many others."

Because of the sheer amount of love and goodwill, the family have also agreed to host another seperate send-off for Frank Sidebottom which will be held tomorrow, 8th July, at Castlefield Arena between 7.00 and 10.00pm. The event is totally free and will feature the likes of Badly Drawn Boy, Charlie Chuck and others. More details can be found at www.radiotimperley.com/franks-fantastic-send-off-information/

The send off appeal has now closed and money has been transferred from the Paypal account and has been paid as a cheque to Stirling Sievey, Chris's eldest son. Given the funds raised - well over the amount needed to pay the funeral costs - there have been many great suggestions made by donors, all of which have been duly noted and passed on to Stirling who (with the input of Chris's immediate family and friends) will decide the
best future for the remaining funds.

"The intention and aim of Frank’s Fantastic Funeral Fund has always been to support and help the Sievey family in this extremely difficult time," says James, "and with the expense of an unexpected funeral for a loving father, friend and entertainer."

If anyone is unhappy with the fund’s direction, James says they are happy to return any contributions immediately in good faith. "If this is the case, please do email us back now and your donation can be reversed from Paypal.

"Thank you... You are all Top Fantastic and Ace!"

Frank fans who made donations will be kept informed directly regarding the deployment of the fund via the website at www.radiotimperley.com and any further ideas they have will be passed on to Chris' family.

• Frank Sidebottom's Official web site: www.franksworld.co.uk and Blog

First 2000AD Dredd cover to go under the hammer

Veteran comics artist Barrie Mitchell, perhaps best known for his work on Roy of the Rovers, is selling some of his art - including the 2000AD cover that was the first to feature Judge Dredd.

Featuring on Issue 5 of 2000AD, published in March 1977, the cover sees Dredd in action against a giant robot, Krong, inspired by the story in the same issue, which was drawn by Carlos Ezquerra.

Despite having the honour of being the first Judge Dredd cover artist, Barrie's 2000AD career is quite scant in comparison with the huge amount of work he has done for a slew of publishers down the years. His credits include work for girls titles such as Bunty, Mandy and Diana, as well as action titles like Look-In, Pow and Wham, and various Marvel UK titles. He was the final artist on the Roy of the Rovers comic, drawing the strip from October 1992 until its cancelalion in March 1993, returning the character in 1997. He also worked on the The Mirror's Scorer strip in 1989-1990. (More info here on this downthtetubes comic artists page)

The cover will be auctioned by Island Auctions at Cowes Masonic Lodge on the Isle of Wight on 5th August 2010, as part of a larger sale of special auction of Fine Art & Maritime Collectables during Cowes Week.

In addition to this 2000AD art, Barrie told downthetubes he is selling some other pieces of art, some by other artists, in the auction. These include some pages of his own Doctor Who strip for Doctor Who Magazine, featuring Third Doctor Jon Pertwee, two pages of his Roy of the Rovers work, a signed page of the Penthouse strip Wicked Wanda by Ron Embleton, bought some years ago at a Society of Strip Illustrators event, two examples of John M. Burns Seekers and a page of Dan Dare from the Eagle, drawn by Keith Watson in the late 1960s. (Barrie wasn't able to tell us which story this art was from).

• Island Auctions web site: www.shanklinauctionrooms.co.uk or telephone 0198386

• Barrie Mitchell's 2000AD Credits

In Review: The Scorpion - The Holy Valley

Adventurer, womaniser, swordsman, thief, swindler, arrogantly self assured of his own survival, with blood ties to one of the most important people on the planet, and a woman whom he both hates and desires, and who appears to reciprocate those same feelings back at him - The Scorpion could quite easily be 2000AD's Nikolai Dante. Yet there is one big difference - instead of being set in the 27th century, The Scorpion is set in the 18th century.

In the Vatican the old Pope has been murdered and Cardinal Trebaldi, the Prefect for the Propagation of the Faith, which he propagates with warrior monks, has been elected in his place after showing the other Cardinals in the Conclave what he claims to be the true Cross of Saint Peter, the first Pope. Yet there is more to the deceit since the new Pope does not believe in God and is considerably more Roman than Catholic. The Scorpion is on a quest to find the true Cross of St Peter, a quest that takes him, his sidekick, a former Hussar, and the beautifully dangerous Egyptian woman, Mejai, to Cappadocia pursued by the leader of Tebaldi's warrior monks Rochnan and the new Pope's own treasure hunter, Ansea Latal.

The Holy Valley is reminiscent of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade with the Scorpion treasure hunting up an enclosed valley for a religious artifact hotly pursued by those who want the treasure for more nefarious means, yet to suggest the connection almost does the book an injustice. Written by Stephen Desberg, The Scorpion is a major departure from his other Cinebook series, IR$, which is built around international banking intrigue. The Scorpion is an historical swash buckling adventure with a dizzying array of double and triple crosses as the story progresses. Indeed the only person that the Scorpion seems to be able to trust thus far is Hussar.

The artist for the series is Enrico Marini who doesn't feature in any other Cinebook series which is a pity because of all the adventure artists that Cinebook publish Marini is my favourite. From his well defined and charismatic characters to his scene setting panels with their unusual angles, from the dynamism of his fight scenes to his use of colour, The Scorpion books look sumptuous whether the action is set inside the opulence of the Vatican or in an arid sun baked valley. I would certainly like to see Cinebook publish other series with Marini's art.

So is there a drawback? Sort of because The Scorpion isn't a series, it is a serial. The Holy Valley is the third English language Scorpion book which translates La Vallee Sacree, the fifth French language album originally published in 2004. Now since the previous two Cinebook titles, The Devil's Mark and The Devil In The Vatican, were both double length books no albums have been missed but you shouldn't really miss out on them either otherwise you will have missed a big chunk of the story, despite the short textual update at the start of each book.

The Scorpion is great fun, a well written and beautifully illustrated series that deserves to be read from the beginning and you will appreciate The Holy Valley much more for doing so. If you like Nikolai Dante, you should try it.

There are more details of The Scorpion books on the Cinebook website.

There are more details of the French Scorpion books on the Le Scorpion website (in French).

The next Scorpion book, The Treasure Of The Templars, is due to be published by Cinebook in August 2010.

Bosnian publisher announces Strip magazine for the UK

Bosnian-based comics publisher PrintMedia has announced plans to move into the UK market with a new comic magazine later in 2010.

The title, which is still in development, will include new strips by creators such as PJ Holden (2000AD, Battlefields, Judge Dredd: The Megazine), Michael Pennick, John Ridgway, James Hudnall, Jon Rushby and former Marvel UK and Titan Magazine editor John Freeman, who will also be the title's UK editor.

The magazine will feature a mix of action, science fiction and humour.

The line-up of the title is still being finalized, but PrintMedia, which publishes three comics-related magazines including Strip Magazine and a localized edition of Metal Hurlant, plans to preview the magazine at the British International Comic Show in October.

"I am really excited about this project," says publisher Ivo Milicevic. "There is no certain formula for success, but the Magazine will have some good stories and really great art, I can promise that.

"I am hoping that we could fill the gap between 2000AD and superhero stuff," he added. "I grew up with the Steel Claw and The Spider, but as kid I also like Black Archer and Jet Ace Logan. Later, I was blown away with the work of Frank Hampson, Don Lawrence and Jim Holdaway. I never liked superhero stuff, but really appreciate old US newspaper strips and authors."

Ivo has been working in publishing for 20 years. After college, he worked as journalist, and later as a publisher. Printmedia's business centres on print for the comic industry.

Complementing the new magazine will be a series of UK comics albums. One title is already in development, a creator-owned steampunk adventure, Iron Moon, by Commando artist Keith Page, and PrintMedia has secured rights to James Hudnall and John Ridgway's fantasy tale Age of Heroes, which will be published in colour for the first time.

• The magazine is not accepting submissions or story pitches at this time as the initial line-up is now almost completed. However, interested creators should send samples of their work to the magazine's UK editor John Freeman via johnfreeman6-comicsamples@yahoo.co.uk. (Anyone who has recently sent samples need not re-send)

• An English web site for the new title is in development. Visit PrintMedia's Bosnian website at: www.stripmagazin.com.

• Follow Strip Magazine UK on Twitter at twitter.com/StripMagazineUK

All images © PrintMedia except art by John Ridgway.

Madame Tussauds Marvel Superheroes 4D Winners

The winners of our Marvel Superheroes 4D competition, run in partnership with SciFiPulse.net, were Yvonne Clark from Bridgend and Andrew Dommett from Tividale, who each won a pair of tickets to the new exhibition at Madame Tussauds in London.

Congratulations to them both who correctly told us Tony Stark was the name of the billionaire who is also the Marvel superhero, Iron Man.

Two of the world's leading entertainment brands - Madame Tussauds and Marvel Entertainment - have joined forces to create a unique new visitor experience at the leading London attraction - MARVEL SUPERHEROES 4D. As we previously reported, the stunning Marvel Super Heroes 4D features a mix of 4D animation, interactive themed areas and startlingly realistic Madame Tussauds wax figures over three floors of the attraction, featuring characters such as the Hulk, Iron Man, Nick Fury, Spider-Man and many others. There's even a specially-shot film that forms part of the exhibition.

• For more information about Marvel Super Heroes 4D go to: www.madame-tussauds.co.uk/4d

Tripwire returns with Futurama, Straczynski, Cornell and Michael Moorcock goodness

Ace media magazine Tripwire is back with another info-packed issue! The Eagle Award-nominated British-American magazine about comics and genre culture returns this July bringing even more of the quality features you’d expect from their previous issues.

Beneath an exclusive Futurama cover featuring everyone’s favorite robot Bender, they chat to Matt Groening and David X Cohen about plans for their new run of the animated sci fi series on Comedy Central, and go behind the scenes at the Henson Company.

Movie fans are sure to enjoy an interview with veteran movie poster artist Drew Struzan, revealing all about his work on the most iconic movie images in the history of cinema and why he's decided to move on to do more personal work. The magazine also probes the special effects of megahit Iron Man 2 with SFX house Double Negative.

Author Glen David Gold talks about his novels in an exclusive interview and fantasy grand master Michael Moorcock offers a glimpse into his early career and growing up in post-War London.

Finally, there's comics: Dave McKean discusses three decades creating his own niche as an artist, illustrator and director; J. Michael Straczynski and Paul Cornell talk about their takes on Superman, Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor respectively; Mark Schultz discusses bringing his Xenozoic Tales back into print; and the magazine also covers the various anniversaries of Captain America and DC Comics and talk to Titmouse about their new magazine and book. Last, but by means least, there's a giant helping of original strips from some of the usual suspects like Roger Langridge and Kev Mullins.

• Tripwire #54 ships the last week of July and comes in at 124 pages with a new lower price of £6.95 UK, $9.99 US and $10.95 Canadian. It's available from Barnes & Noble and Borders in the US, Chapters and Indigo in Canada and via Diamond UK and Forbidden Planet and Forbidden Planet International in Britain as well as selected West End and West London newsagents and the Gosh and Orbital comic stores in London. You can order it directly from: www.tripwire-magazine.com

Questionable Elephantmen hits comic stores

The latest issue of Elephantmen, written by former Marvel UK staffer Richard Starkings (whose career has simply spiraled upwards ever since) is now on sale, with art by Marian Churchland, Axel Medellin, Moritat & André Szymanowicz.

In Issue 26 - Questionable Things Part Three - Blackthorne is assigned to assist Hip and Ebony in tracking down the MAPPO agents loose in Los Angeles. Miki reluctantly agrees to help.

The issue also features the debut of 'Charely Loves Robots' a new series by J.G., André Szymanowicz and Gabriel Bautista. On the first day of summer vacation in 2020, 13 year-old Charley Moore can't wait to get to the mall and be the first to buy a brand new ThrowBot! But Charley's parents are about to seriously hack
into his plans...

With a cover by Boo Cook, Elephantmen is available in the UK from comic shops, Diamond code JAN10 0459

• More info here on the official Elephantmen web site

• Read a five-page preview at Comic Book Resources

StripGenerator Revamped, now includes social network features

Slovenia-based ThirdFrameStudios has just released Stripgenerator 1.6, the latest version of its hugely popular online software that enables users to easily create comic strips, share them with friends, rate, comment them and more.

The new Stripgenerator brings many useful new features, including the ability to post your strips to social network sites, a gorgeous design and what the creators describe as "a vastly improved experience for the users".

Stripgenerator, which was one of the first online comics creation tools I used and has been bought in adapted by a range of media companies including funnytimes.com and the Big Brother show - was great at inception. It's even better now and includes new theme packs with strip characters and items, community based creating strips on topic, better creation tools, detailed statistics for Stripgenerator artists and all-round improvements.

Check it out at: www.stripgenerator.com

In Review: The Art of Pho

By Julian Hanshaw
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
ISBN: 9780224089845
Out: 1st July 2010


The Book: The noodle soup called pho is the national dish of Vietnam. When Little Blue - having been dropped by a mysterious man with a red car and being told to count to 500 - finds himself in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's baffling, daunting capital,his salvation is his own mobile pho stand. Little Blue's relationship with the city and its food brings an understanding to what it means to never want to return home and the fact that everyone goes away in the end.

The Review: Comics fans should already be familiar with Julian Hanshaw, an animator, cartoonist and illustrator who won the Cape Observer Comica Graphic Short Story Prize in 2008 (the 2010 prize has just launched, details here on the ComICA site). The Art of Pho is his first graphic novel, an eclectic, quirky love story of the strange entity Little Blue - an alien in a strange land, just like Hanshaw was when he visited Vietnam. The story - complete with Pho recipes, a pleasant bonus, comes across as a love story not just with Blue and some of the characters but Ho Chi Min city, too, which reflects Hanshaw's own links with the subject matter.

Crammed with strange, bizarre images, weaving a peculiar and occasionally impenetrable tale of estrangement and romance, The Art of Pho won't be everyone's cup of tea. It's the kind of graphic novel Guardian reviewers and the literati will (and indeed, have) enthused about: working on levels beyond many action-adventure or humour titles that secure larger readership but are dismissed by the chattering classes as beneath their attention.

This isn't to dismiss Hanshaw's work as some intellectual curiosity: there are some genuinely moving scenes in the story, as Blue's romantic nature clashes with the realities of the world he's plunged into. When, at one point, Blue finds himself a plaything rather than a person, having misinterpreted the attentions of a customer at his pho stand, there is plenty of resonance with the way relationships sometimes develop beyond the pages of this challenging graphic novel. Art-wise, crammed with the kind stunning imagery that earned Hanshaw his Short Story Prize for 'Sand Dunes and Sonic Boom' back in 2008 (published in the Observer Review), it's sure to capture the imaginations of many, but in terms of story, it perhaps needed to be a little less labyrinthine.

• Buy The Art of Pho from amazon.co.uk

Web Links

• Julian Hanshaw's Official web site: www.julianhanshaw.co.uk


• For those of you impressed by Hanshaw's thought-provoking art, there's an exhibition of some of the pages at the Arts... Exhibition Space and Bar in Camberwell, London until the end of the month - more details here on ArtSlant. Some of Julian's work is also on permanent display at the Pho Restaurant in Clerkenwell.

• The Guardian: Graphic novelist Julian Hanshaw on the Art of Pho
When Julian Hanshaw went to Vietnam in 2006 he was bowled over by the sights and sounds of another world. Here the Observer/Cape graphic prize-winning artist talks us through the transformation of his experiences, from early sketches into the finished pages of his first graphic novel

• Guardian Podcast: Graphic Fiction (18 June 2010)
In the week that the 2010 Observer/Cape prize for graphic short stories launches, Ned Beauman and Rachel Cooke discuss the best in the genre, and Julian Hanshaw gives us the backstory to his new book, The Art of Pho

More Reviews...

• BookMunch
"Something of an oddity... a ragbag of glorious art and either mixed-up or inconsequential narrative hamstrings what perhaps should have been an interesting, loosely linked art installation. Graphic yes – novel, not so much..."

Photo Review: Dundee Comics Day 2010

Now in its fourth year, the Dundee Comics Day treads the fine line between the accessibility of a public lit fest, as it is part of the Dundee Literary Festival, and the sensibilities of an academic conference since it is located in Dundee university and run by academics. This year it hit the balance perfectly.

Run by Dr Chris Murray of the University's Humanities department, each Comics Day has a theme and this year's was Creating Comics, from writing and illustrating, via editing and designing, through to publishing. As well as organising the Comics Day, Chris is co-editor, along with Julia Round of Bournemouth University, of the new academic journal Studies In Comics and free copies of the first issue of this 186 page, oversized A5, landscape magazine were available to those attendees who were interested. The first issue is also available free online from its publishers, Intellect Books. Those of us who have been to many of Chris' events in the past are aware of his line in sartorial elegance and this year he didn't disappoint with a day-glo green tie against a red shirt.

The day began at 11am in the university's spacious and well equipped D'Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre with a one hour workshop on drawing manga run by Manga Shakespeare artist Nana Li who went on to join the signing sessions later on in the afternoon. Dundee University runs a popular annual manga/anime convention called D-Con so it was surprising that this manga workshop wasn't better attended but then the Dundee Comics Day is normally a small, intimate affair and it would perhaps lose some of its friendliness if it had a much bigger turnout.



As well as the friendliness, the other plus point for Dundee is that the cost for the entire day was £10, which included an ongoing supply of refreshments. While this is a fairly standard price for a single day at a comics convention, for a literary festival it is a bargain. The Edinburgh International Book Festival this year would charge £54 plus booking fees for five guest talks and an art workshop, with refreshments extra and the guests escorted to and from their talks leaving the only chance to talk to them being at any post talk signing sessions. Things are rather different in Dundee.

The main afternoon session began with artist and designer Rian Hughes. While Rian has various comic strips to his credit, including Grant Morrison's Dare, 2000AD's Robo-Hunter and The Science Service by downthetubes' own John Freeman, he spends most of his time as a graphic designer so his talk had the potential to be perhaps the least interesting of the day. However as he took us through the type of work he does, including advertising posters for The Body Shop, point of sale illustrations for Clark's Shoes, designs for Swatch Watches, and a multitude of book illustrations including those for Geri Halliwell's children's books, his ability to articulate his design choices and his enthusiasm for what he does shone through and made for a very interesting talk.



Marvelman and Excalibur artist Alan Davis was next with a heavily illustrated talk on how he creates a page of comic art from the initial thumb nail sketches, through pencilling and inking to the final coloured product. He explained how he saw some pages as being 'silent' despite them having text boxes and speech balloons because the artwork was enough to explain the story of the page, compared to those pages that needed the text for the reader to understand what was happening. As a superhero artist he explained why he believed in "swoosh" lines to indicate movement and how they could be incorporated without being overly distracting by drawing the character's anatomy around the movement lines. Since Alan chose to sit at the lecturers desk at the front of the large lecture theatre there was no distraction of him walking around as he presented page after page of his superb art to the rapt audience and I'm sure that I wasn't the only one with a pang of disappointment when he announced that he had reached his final page. Questions for Alan followed before a break during which there was a signing session in the Tower Building's reception area by Rian and Alan.



Also in the reception area, along with sales tables from the local comics shop, Black Hole, and local comics merchandiser, Fine and Dandy, was an exhibition of the late Willie Richie's work. Sadly this DC Thomson artist, who was a great comics fan and collector, passed away earlier this year and the exhibition showed the range of his talent using original artwork from the DC Thomson archives. This ranged from his minimalist art for Baby Crockett to the rather more detailed art for Simple Spyman, both from Beezer, as well as covers for Sparky, designed to be coloured as part of the production process, and full colour pages from the nursery comic Bimbo. This free exhibition will remain open until 21 August 2010.


After the refreshment and signing break, former DC Thomson editor Bill Graham gave a talk on Willie's work for DC Thomson concentrating on the work that both men had done for what Thomson's refer to as "Pony Stories", the comic strips they produce for the European Egmont comic Wendy. This explained one of the pages in the exhibition which no one seemed to recognise, a humorous horse strip called Snooty and Scamp. This was created for Wendy with Bill writing and Willie illustrating some 800 pages of the strip over the years which was then translated into German and Swedish amongst other languages. The exhibition, along with Bill's fond memories and amusing anecdotes, were a fitting tribute to his friend and colleague.



The afternoon then continued with a talk from Dez Skinn. Writer, editor, manager, publisher, Dez has had such a varied career that the choice of what he was going to talk about had prompted some discussion between attendees earlier in the day. His decision to tell us the history of fan favourite magazine House Of Hammer was a popular choice with his animated and amusing talk covering artists as diverse as Brian Lewis, Dave Gibbons, Joe Colquhoun, Paul Neary and John Bolton as well as the early concepts for the magazine that we all refer to as HoH but which Dez had originally planned to call Chiller. Dez's recollections on HoH and his other work can also be read on his new website, dezskinn.com.



The final talk of the day was from writer and editor Pat Mills. With a career spanning DC Thomson as well as IPC titles such as Battle, Action and 2000AD, Pat chose to focus on his French bande dessinee series Requiem: Chevalier Vampire. This series with Giger-esque painted art by Olivier Ledroit has reached nine albums in France along with four albums of the spin-off series Claudia: Chevalier Vampire with art by Franck Tacito. The first two Requiem albums have just been released in English by Panini as Requiem: Vampire Knight and Pat took the audience through the creation of the albums and his relationship with its foreign artist. He also emphasised the point that British creators should not just be looking to America to get their work published but to France as well. In addition to allowing creators to retain the rights to their work, French publishers deal with a considerably greater range of titles and styles as well as a much greater volume of published copies. He pointed out that sales in the French language of the first album of Requiem alone were in the region of 100,000 which, while an order of magnitude less than say a Jean Van Hamme title, is easily an order of magnitude more than any UK graphic novel print run. Pat's interesting and thoughtful talk left more than one creator in the audience with the realisation that they should be looking across the Channel as well as the Atlantic with their work.



The day closed with a popular signing session in the reception area from Pat, Dez and Nana. One of the strengths of Dundee is the friendly atmosphere that exists outside the main lecture theatre with sales tables, exhibitions and refreshments all in the same area and the willingness of the guests to stand and chat to the attendees as well as to sign items outside of the slightly more formal signing sessions. Indeed where else could you talk to the editor of Warlord having just spoken to the editor of Battle or, as below, see the current Tharg's newest artdroid, Graeme Neil Reid, share a joke with the original Tharg, Pat Mills.


Fans of older British comics who despair at the dearth of titles on newsagents shelves compared to what there used to be for readers any older than junior primary, or who find the obsession that much of British comics fandom has with imported American superhero product strange, especially given its minuscule UK sales, have long found that mainstream UK comics conventions do not cater for them. These fans are as interested in what has gone before as in what they can get now and they have often bemoaned the fact that there are no "old comics" conventions. This year's Dundee Comics Day was as close to an "old comics" convention that I have come across, yet with a selection of creators with such impressively diverse careers that any mainstream comics convention would have been proud to have had them on their guest list.

The Dundee Comics Day has been the highlight of my comics year so far and I look forward in anticipation to what Chris Murray and his team have in store for next year.

The Dundee Courier newspaper covered the Dundee Comics Day here.