Hi-Ex 2011 Cancelled

Bad news from Scotland this evening: the organisers of the popular annual Highlands comics convention Hi-Ex have announced that there will not be one in 2011.

"There's no easy way of saying this, so we'll just come right out with it: there isn't going to be a HiEx in 2011," co-organisers Richmond Clements, editor of Futurequake, and artist Vicky Stonebridge announced in a joint statement earlier today.

"We know, it's terrible! But at the moment, we simply don't have the spare time available over the next few months to get things ready on time and to do it justice and give you the event you deserve."

Vicky and Rich, who are clearly downhearted at having to make the decision, also revealed they have been struggling with finding sponsorship for the event - which should come as no surprise as arts funding cuts begin to bite across the UK.

"We fully intend to return in 2012 (the End of the World not withstanding!)," the pair also announced, "and hopefully that extra time will give us more room to find sponsorship and/or grant money and get things organised!

"...It really is the last thing we're wanting to do, but we have to be realistic with the amount of work required compared to the number of hours we have available to do it."

We're sure this is disappointing news for the event's growing legion of fans, including those who even organised their own "Hell-Trek" to get to Inverness in a mini-bus from southern England last year. Let's hope 2012 proves more receptive to comics events beyond the Cairngorms...

• Hi-Ex web site: www.hi-ex.co.uk

Aces High! Commando celebrates the Battle of Britain

The latest batch of titles from DC Thomson features the first three books in Commando’s six-book 'Aces High' salute to the RAF on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Editor Calum Laird commissioned two brand new stories and also scoured the Commando archives for four cracking air stories which haven’t seen the light of day for decades.

Included in the reprints is Mustang Ace, John Ridgway’s first ever Commando book, first published in 1971. At the time he had a day job and it took about four months of evening and weekend work to complete. He used very think board back then and the stack of art stands about six inches high! John has gone on to establish himself as a fixture in the British comics world and the Commando team like to think that DC Thomson gave him a helping hand in the beginning.

The remaining three books in the 'Aces High' series will be released on the 16th September.

Commando 4323: Island Ambush
Story: Sean Blair Art and cover: Mike White

The SOS came through weak and distorted by static. An American survivor of one of the many battles of the Pacific war, calling for help from a lonely island.

Radio operator Eric Aburto aboard PT Boat 1101 heard the message and knew he had to go to the man’s aid -- not only was he a fellow US serviceman…Eric was sure he recognised a voice from his past!

Commando 4324: One-Eyed Ace ('Aces High' story)
Story: Alan Hebden Art and Cover: Keith Page

Newly-commissioned Pilot Officer Johnny Dangerfield dreamed of racking up the five kills needed to call himself an ace -- and was determined to face anything the Nazis threw at him to do it.
However, it was to be the actions of one of his own squadron’s pilots that would cause him to lose an eye and Johnny’s dreams of being an ace would be over... Or were they?

Commando 4325: Mustang Ace ('Aces High' story)
Story: Mac Macdonald Art: John Ridgway Cover: Ken Barr
Originally No 546 from 1971

An ace... that’s what Joe Jennings was, one of the few gifted pilots who could make his kite do anything but talk. Nobody believed there was a Jerry alive who could match Joe in combat.

Yet the day did dawn when Joe was shot down in flames. And how it came about makes a fantastic story.

Commando 4326: Clash of Aces ('Aces High' story)
Story: Peter Newark Art: Amador Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally No 465 from 1970

When Squadron-Leader Alec Scott in his old, lumbering Gloster Gladiator was set about by a flashing Messerchmitt 109, it was David and Goliath all over again.

This time David needed more than a sling to down Goliath -- but the big ’un was cut down to size just the same!

• Official Commando web site: www.commandomag.com

• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

• You can read interviews with former Commando editor George Low, current editor Calum Laird and writer Ferg Handley on the downthetubes main site.

Morecambe-based Comic published for iPad

We're pleased to report that Lancaster cartoonist David Hughes comic story Thomas Wogan is Dead, first reviewed on downthetubes last year, is now available to read on Apple's iPad.

This is British publishers Tabella Publishing's first ebook on Apple's iPad platform, the result of what they say comes after reading many books on iphone development, doing tutorials, submitting forum posts and more.

Tabella picked up reprint rights to the quirky tale set in Morecambe (and the hereafter - although is there a difference?) partly after reading the downthetubes review.

• Buy Thomas Wogan is Dead for the iPad

• Thomas Wogan is Dead is still available in print from Tabella Publishing for £5.99: more details here.

Space Robots and Zombie Robots take over Peter Scott Gallery

As a comic artist, games designer and animator, it’s logical that when Lancaster-based Adam York Gregory was given some gallery space at Lancaster University's Peter Scott Gallery, he'd dissect and reanimate a dead computer as part of an interactive installation. 'iBleed/Peter 2.1' seeks to examine the emotional relationships between people and computers.

Adam's work is part of a wider exhibition, Eventual, combining the work of four artists, which seeks to examine transient connections, the tensions between function and dysfunction and the role of technology in arts practice, through sculpture, installation, animation and performance.

Why do we get angry at them when they don’t work? Why do we sometimes feel grief when they stop functioning? Adam invites you to play the role of psychiatrist with an updated and digitised Rorschach test where your patient, the computer, will respond visually to your psychological enquiries.

Also in the exhibition are Aliki Chapple (exhibiting 'I’m Listening, Sales Pitch, Explorers') who has been exploring the relationship between live performance and technology. For Eventual, she's made three performances integrating elements of both. Two of the performances are based on the science fiction stories of Philip K Dick, which are popular sources for perfectly polished mass-market films; in contrast, Aliki’s stagings invite you to fill in the gap yourselves, with the best special effects department in the world, the human imagination. The third, a one-on-one performance staged in the Peter Scott Gallery, is also an invitation to fill in what’s missing; this time with stories of your own.

Through the use of installation titled 'People Matter', Anne Hewitt explores an emerging dysfunction in social connections and communication which are shown to straddle worlds of both intimacy and isolation. By showing her perceived effects on our physical connection with our surroundings, Anne hopes to highlight the hidden intimacies interlaced with our connection to strangers in our day to day existence.

Finally 'A Spectral Layer' is full of connections, from Michael Turner. Can we hear connections? Can we see them? Are we engulfed by them? And at what level, the conscious or the subconscious? Using piano, computer, projector screen, and eight channels of surround sound, this piece combines audio, video and space to form a new conceptual layer that makes use of the composer's latest research into spectral processing and mapping.

• Eventual runs at the Peter Scott Gallery, Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University from Thursday 16th - 23rd September. Web: http://eventual.org.uk

2011 British Comic Events Update

As the British International Comic Show and London MCM Expo draw ever nearer, a quick reminder that Britain's longest-running comics event - the Bristol International Comic and Small Press Expo - has also started to promote its next gathering.

Again organised by Fallen Angel Media, next year's show will be on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th May 2011. Guests are already being signed, events are being finalised and the show is now larger than ever, this time covering the entire floor of the venue with three extra exhibitor and trading spaces and eight extra event areas. making it the largest independent and small press show in the country.

Fallen Angel were delighted with this year's event, which attracted visitor numbers double that of 2009 and they tell us they're working hard to double them again for 2011.

In addition, following the unfortunate demise of the London Thing, Team SPExpo announced last month that they will be running a London Comic and Small Press Expo, to be held on the 12th March 2011, offering all the best in the Indie, Small Press and Web Comix world as well as events, special guests and a whole lot more.For more info, visit: www.spexpo.co.uk

• Visit the Bristol International Comic and Small Press Expo web site

Dutch Don Lawrence Art Exhibition Announced

Nothing is more beautiful than the original, and the art of Trigan Empire artist Don Lawrence is certainly that. Now, there's a rare chance to view a huge range of his work, all offered for sale, coming up - but the catch is, it's in Holland.

Organised by the Don Lawrence Collection team, the publishers of a series of stunning hardcover Trigan Empire collections in Dutch and English, on display will be Lawrence's art for his European strip, Storm, alongside art by Romano Molenaar and Jorg de Vos.

Running from 16th-18th September 2010 at a carefully-guarded and, it seems, secret location in Oosterhout, Holland, admission is free but viewing is by appointment only. The opening hours on Thursday 16th and Friday 17th September are from 7- 10.00pm and Saturday 18th September 18th from 12.00 to 5.00pm. Artist Romano Molenaar will be at the exhibition on Friday and Jorg de Vos on Saturday.

If you would like to visit the exhibition please register via infoATstorm.nl, giving a clear indication of what day and what time you want to vist. After registration you will receive the invitation with more information such as location in Oosterhout.

• More about Don Lawrence on the Collection web site

Panel Borders Live: Gleaming the Silver Surfer

As part of a fund raising night to support London radio station Resonance FM, themed around the subject of silver, Alex Fitch will be talking to comic book writer and novelist Simon Spurrier about the Marvel comics character the Silver Surfer, who he penned in a recent mini-series called 'In Thy Name'.

Alex and Simon will be discussing the character's origins at London's Vortex Club, on and off the page and aspects of space opera and eschatology in his appearances.

Simon is a regular contributor to 2000AD and has written several licensed works for the Black Library and Abaddon Press. More recently he's written scripts for both Marvel and DC Comics and has launched Gutsville through Image. His first non-licensed prose work, Contract, was published by Hodder's Headline Review in 2007.

Other guests on the night will include representatives of the V&A's silver collection on the socio-economic and historical role silver played in British Imperialism; the BBC's central Asia correspondent on the geo-politics of silver; London's Pétanque society; a panel of art critics discussing Belgian surrealist René Magritte's portrayal of silver and Mark Pilkinson on silver in relation to contemporary mythology and sci-fi.

• Panel Borders Live: Gleaming the Silver Surfer - 8.30pm Tuesday 7th September, The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London N16 8AZ (London Overground Dalston stations). Web Link: www.vortexjazz.co.uk

Violent Reaches 18 - and is still kicking

Issue 18 of Longtime indie comics publisher Jay Eales anthology Violent! is now available to download here for absolutely nothing.

"There are no celebrities on the cover, I'm afraid," warns Jay, "Unless you count artist Kev Levell's homage to Carlos Ezquerra's notorious cover that helped to get Action banned back in the Seventies..."

Violent! was born as something of an Action homage zine back in 1999, launching at the first Bristol Festival. "It seems only fitting that we should pay tribute to Grandaddy Action now Violent! is entering its second decade of life," says Jay, "albeit in a new PDF format incarnation."

For a free comic with no ads to cover costs, this issue features an impressive array of talent, not least of which is some truly stunning work for the humour-adventure strip Space Dude by Darren Douglas. (Collections of Space Dude strips are available from lulu.com). It's a strip that may offend some but very tongue in cheek and Darren's art continues to astonish.

Other creators in the issue, whose work also shouldn't be sniffed at include Jay, Chris Askham, Paul McCaffrey, Curt Sibling and many other fine talents. So what have you got to lose (except, perhaps, your very sanity...) by downloading this free comic now and checking it out for yourself?

• More about Violent! Issue 18 (or download the PDF direct from here)

• If you missed Violent! #17, go here.

Panel Borders Pins down Chris Claremont on creating Captain Britain

Comic book creator Chris Claremont
at the November 2008 Big Apple
Convention in Manhattan.
Photo: Luigi Novi

Starting a new series of the UK's only weekly radio show about comics, now under a new (old) name, Panel Borders has a month of shows looking at the 'British Invasion' of UK creators who have worked on American and American-style superhero titles.

In this week's show, Alex Fitch talks to Chris Claremont, a veteran comics writer born in London who became one of the most prolific and popular American comic book writers of the 20th century, most famous for a 16 year sojourn writing the Uncanny X-Men from 1975 - 1991, with his last few issues selling in the region of eight million copies each.

In the interview, the team focus on a superhero Chris created for the UK market - Captain Britain - in 1976, his relocation to America via the monthly comic Excalibur in 1988 and his more experimental X-Men spin off - New Mutants - which he created in 1982 and returned to writing last month.

Also, in a 60 second (!) interview recorded at the premiere of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in London, Alex talks to British director Edgar Wright about bringing a different kind of superhero to the screen.

• Panel Borders - eXpat Heroes broadcasts at 5.00pm, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / www.resonancefm.com, Thursday 2nd September 2010. More info at http://panelborders.wordpress.com/

STRIP Magazine publishers at British International Comic Show

Print Media Productions, publishers of the upcoming monthly STRIP Magazine, have confirmed they will be exhibiting at the British International Comic Show.

Publisher Ivo Milicevic, whose Bosnian comic titles include Strip, Metal Hurlant and science fiction title Plavi, will be at the event, as will STRIP Magazine editor John Freeman, who is also owner of downthetubes.net.

PJ Holden, one of the creators working STRIP Magazine, will be on the PMP stand at the weekend, as will screen writer Stephen Walsh and Commando artist Keith Page, signing copies of their new steampunk-inspired graphic album - The Iron Moon, the first PMP graphic album.

John Freeman will be appearing on a panel organised by the Comic Book Alliance on Saturday, talking about the British comics industry.

PMP has a range of graphic albums planned through 2011 and a special preview of these and STRIP Magazine will be available at the event.

New originated stories planned for the range include The Quest, drawn by 2000AD and Interzone artist SMS; Age of Heroes by James Hudnall and John Ridgway; and a selection of European albums published in English for the first time, including L' Heritage du Diable (The Devil's Heritage) by Gastine & Felix.

Creators whose work features in PMP titles include PJ Holden, John Ridgway, Keith Page, Jim Campbell, Michael Penick, Jon Rusby, Dean Deckard, Nick Spender, Mauricet and Gary Caldwell. More creators will be announced soon.

Charlotte Corday is briefed by Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington
about the mysterious Iron Moon. Art © 2010 Keith Page

THE IRON MOON

A Charlotte Corday adventure...

RULE BRITANNIA! BRITANNIA RULES THE STARS!

The twentieth century is just around the corner and Queen Victoria is hale and hearty as she heads into the second century of her reign. The British Empire stretches from the white cliffs of Dover to the red skies of Mars. Go-getting men and women of the imperial dominions flock to the colours, eager to make reputations and fortunes in the wilds of high space.

Take lieutenant Charlotte Corday, for instance. Born in what used to be known as France, she has risen to prominence through the ranks of the Royal Space Navy and now finds herself up to her neck in her greatest escapade yet. Watch as she travels to the mysterious Iron Moon! Marvel as she grapples with a conspiracy that may see the galaxy plunged into war! Goggle as she meets new and strange races, both mechanical and biological! Ponder how she manages to put away so many cups of tea! And prepare to have your brain scrambled as she scoops us up and carries us to the very limits of this universe... and into the next!

Iron Moon writer Stephen Walsh has written multiple volumes of DC Thomson's Commando Picture Library, as well as the graphic novel The Acid Bath Case (illustrated by Kellie Strom). He co-wrote the feature films How Harry Became A Tree, released in 2001, directed by Goran Paskaljevic and the upcoming Where The Sea Used To Be, directed by Paul Farren. He's currently working on a documentary about John Ford with the director Sé Merry Doyle, as well as preparing further adventures of Charlotte Corday with Keith Page.

Inspired by the great British comics artists of the past such as Frank Hampson, Don Lawrence and Joe Colquhoun, Keith Page has worked full-time in comics and illustration for some 17 years.  Subjects have ranged from television-related material such as Thunderbirds, science fiction, and his current war stories of all periods for Commando. A variety of Keith's work can be seen on www.keithpageukcomicsartist.blogspot.com.

• If you would like to know when The Iron Moon is available, drop PMP a line at the dedicated email address for this project - johnfreeman6-ironmoon@yahoo.co.uk

Tube Surfing: 2000 AD, Posy Simmonds, Radio 4 and comics events too!

To celebrate the release of Prog 1700 of 2000AD, fan Jason Garrattley is posting '...a week of rare bits and pieces from the archives (well, some old fanzines from the loft) from some of the cornerstone creators of the magazines' early years...' over at his blog.

He's started with (excellent) posts on Brian Bolland and Ian Gibson.

• Speaking of 2000AD, over at the Forbidden Planet International blog Joe Gordon has posted an insightful article about the early Judge Dredd strips.

• Meanwhile, Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool makes us aware of the second season of Pilgrim on Radio 4. He says that the series is the closest thing to Hellblazer you'll get on the radio...

• Acclaimed artist Declan Shalvey (who's currently working on Marvel's Thunderbolts) will be signing at Forbidden Planet International in Dublin on September 16th.

• Paul Gravett is chatting to comics legend Trina Robbins in London on September 21st:

For the first time, Comica Festival and Laydeez Do Comics are thrilled to be teaming up to invite to London the important comic artist and writer, from the seminal underground comix of the Seventies to such icons as Wonder Woman, Barbie, Powerpuff Girls and her own GoGirl!, lecturer, curator and America’s foremost comics ‘herstorian’, Trina Robbins. She is coming over to present a paper at the academic conference Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford on Monday 13 September and has kindly agreed to visit London for this special extra event on Tuesday 21 September.


• Hey, the Guardian interviewed cartoonist Posy Simmonds on Saturday.

Here's a brief excerpt:

She says the current state of newspaper illustration is encouraging in that "there is more of it, because papers are bigger and reproduction is so much better". But she worries that computer generated work is becoming "samey", and about the decline of political cartoons. "It is very sad, although the great Steve Bell and a few others are notable exceptions. But maybe it's a sign of the times. How interested are people in politics? Are they getting their satire on jokey emails?"

Anyway, that's all for now, folks. See you at my next Tube Surf!