Comics documentary maker faces funding threat

The Invisible Artist from Northern Visions NvTv on Vimeo.

(with thanks to Andrew Luke): Northern Visions TV (NVTV), Greater Belfast's community TV station which backed the comics-related film The Invisible Artist last year, is under threat of closure because of controvrsial funding cuts.

Northern Visions is a non-profit organisation originally formed in 1986, originally serving as a training ground for Belfast's local journalists and technicians wanting to make in-roads to working for Channel 4. Sometime after they metamorphisised into a sort-of public access station, giving an air to community voices in Northern Ireland's capital as it left the Troubles behind it.

"Beneath all the gloss of the birthplace of the Titanic and the MTV awards, NVTV gave voice to real Belfast," feels viewer and comic creator Andrew Luke, who made The Invisible Artist documenatry with the support of the station. "And if you wanted to make a documentary, you'd get professional mentoring and assistance to write, film and edit. Post-production, the pieces were screened on local television and then made available for free on NVTV's spaces on Vimeo and Youtube."

Sadly, one of the stations's main funding bodies has decided it no longer qualifies for ther financial support.

During the 1990s NVTV were funded by the Arts Council NI, and from 2007 by film and digital body, NI Screen. Last month NVTV and the Arts Council were informed NVTV no longer fit NI Screen's criteria. The Arts Council had delegated their lottery funding to NI Screen, essentially blocking the station out of the revenue stream. Without this funding, there is no access for paid staff or volunteers to a central location, editing suite, or the other production costs.

An emergency meet with the Arts Council last week for core funding ranked NVTV high with artistic Quality, Financial/Project Management, Preserve Frontline Services in the Arts, Key Components of Artform/Sector(non- duplication of Service/Provision) and in Innovation. However, the Arts Council disagreed with the Moderator's recommendation that NVTV is digital media and not the arts.

"No funding streams (exist) for any form of activity based around access to and participation in film, new media arts for communities," notes Marilyn Hyndman of NVTV. "The central question remains which is -  where do the communities Northern Visions work with fit within the arts, film and digital media – community groups, young people, older people, ethnic minorities, interface groups, local heritage groups, women, people with disabilities, victims of the Troubles, disadvantaged communities?"

Andrew Luke tells us talks with the Arts Council are ongoing, for "without core funding NVTV will close, but in the meantime, he's urging fans of The Invisible Artist to join hundreds of others and drop a note to support the work of NVTV at http://www.northernvisions.org/index/commentsfromsupporters.html

"I realise many of you have seen my own film," he says, "which would not have happened without station staff who kept the project turning. While my disabilities played up, producer Carl Boyle took over the final production in the editing suite. You no doubt found it an educational and representative piece, so please just drop a line and tell them what it meant to you."

The campaign to reinstate funding is backed by North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds. "At a time when the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure is advocating community based work in disadvantaged areas, it is a tragedy that an organisation of nearly 30 years standing, which has pioneered community digital media and community arts with hundreds of groups in socially disadvantaged areas or at risk of social exclusion should find that they too, are excluded," he said in a letter to Northern Ireland's First Minister. "I count on your leadership to preserve the only community digital media and arts resource of its kind in Northern Ireland."

Over 100 groups each year benefit from Northern Visions services within the voluntary and community sector, the arts, film, music, vulnerable minorities, older people, victims of the Troubles, people with disabilities and minority ethnic groups. Its volunteer scheme involves over 125 active citizens and its seems to me that this is a service which has promoted the comics form – and will surely do so again – and deserves support.

• Northern Visions TV web site

• If you doubt, or would like to see more on NVTV's impressive work, here's a proportionately tiny list of Andrew's recommendations:

• Giro's (20m version), (54m version)
Charting the tales of those who ran Belfast's infamous grass-roots community club during the punk and new wave scenes of the 1980s. Vibrant, engaging, refreshing, fascinating.

• Market Memories (60m)
Valuable narratives, rare interviews and footage across four generations of families and friends at the city's beloved central market, St. George's.

• Sailortown (13m)
Before the machines and the tourists, labourers worked the Belfast dock-side and build up a community. This film reflects on another near forgotten age; those who remember the stories tell them.

• Paint for Peace (40m)
Documenting the relationships of two A graffiti artists, one from the Protestant Falls Road and the other, from the Catholic Shankhill. This film examines their friendship and collaborations in one another's areas as well as at John Lennon Roundabout, Liverpool.

• SeaWorthy (22m) 
Lough Neagh boat enthusiasts talk about their development of traditional methods of building and sailing their craft.

• The Invisible Artist (34m) An expertly informed history of contemporary Belfast comic book and cartooning culture, co-produced by Andrew Luke and NVTV

The Invisible Artist? film released

The Invisible Artist from Northern Visions/NvTv on Vimeo.

The comic booklet: once a mass market media form, some would argue it has all but disappeared from newsagents shelves in the last 20 years - but comic creation continues apace across the UK, including Northern Ireland.

A new film released via Vimeo online, featuring comic artists such as 2000AD and STRIP Magazine artist PJ Holden, explores the hidden heritage of Belfast-centric cartooning that goes back centuries.

More recently, the vibrant underground publishing scene there, from The Belfast People's Comic (1977) to Patrick Brown's The Cattle Raid of Cooley (2011), has begun to attract attention from establishment arts bodies. The Invisible Artist look at the stories of committed creators in this black sheep media and how they have informed our contemporary culture.

The Invisible Artist was written by Andrew Luke and filmed and edited by Carl Boyle of Greater Belfast community group Northern Visions TV. Once a training ground for Channel 4 film-makers, NVTV is free-to-view, and hosts its programmes on Channel 62/799.276MHz in Belfast, with a weekly and omnibus edition, before joining the archive screenings looped rotation.

Shows also appear online in the months after airing. NVTV are hoping to raise their broadcasts to appear on Freeview next year. This film was originally screened on 7 November at 4:30pm, and again on 12th, at approximately 12:30.

"I'm indebted to Carl Boyle for stepping in to cover the editing and production when my workload became too heavy to cope," says Andrew of the production. "The documentary was shot in a short space of time in early 2011 and captures the vibrancy of the time.

"In many ways, The Invisible Artist? is also the story of Davy Francis, a man at the crossroads of four decades of comics creation in Belfast. I'd like to thank Carl, Davy, Paddy Brown, PJ Holden (who called by at the last minute to help out), and everyone who gave their time to make this film happen."

• View the film on Vimeo here

Absence comic offers insights on epilepsy

Writer Andy Luke and artist Stephen Downey have recently released Absence, a comic book based on Andy's experiences over 30 years adapting to a life with epilepsies: puberty, first jobs, college and “sorting it out”.

10,000 copies of the booklet have been produced and distributed with funding from the UnLtd Millennium Award Scheme and the strip has also been adapted as a digital application free-of-charge by OxiComics.com and can also be read online at www.absencecomic.com

Andy Luke is a Belfast resident, a writer who draws. He mostly self-publishes with works including Bob’s, TRS2, Gran, Optimus and Me and Don’t Get Lost, and sells his comics direct to the public at locations around the UK.

Stephen Downey is a Belfast based comicbook artist and illustrator who has worked with Titan Publishing, AAM/Markosia, Atomic Diner, Heske Horror, Comic a Gael, Insomnia Publications and Beserker to bring his comics and artwork to the masses. He's the co-creator of Cancertown and the recently-released Slaughterman’s Creed, both with Cy Dethan.

Order a print edition or download a copy here

You may also wish to contact the organisation Epilepsy Action: www.epilepsy.org.uk

Don't Get Lost webcomic blog launched

Andrew Luke has launched his strip blog, Don't Get Lost, which he describes as a 300-page tale of abuse and survival through the self and friendship.

The tale begins as a man flees from potential violence at the hand of teen gang members, and the story so far reflects many of the worries and frustrations a lot of folk have in modern Britain.

"I'll be posting seven pages a week in 2010," says Andy.

• Check it out at dont-get-lost.blogspot.com

Matters of Convention: "We like original voices…"

Matthew Badham goes behind the scenes of the Caption (taking place at the East Oxford Community Centre on August 15-16th) with two of several co-organisers, Jay Eales and Selina Lock.

This is the third of a series of interviews with British comic convention organisers over the next few months, which will be cross-posted on downthetubes, the Forbidden Planet International blog, Bugpowder and Fictions. Our aim is to give the conventions themselves some well-deserved publicity and also to, hopefully, spark a wider debate about what’s good and bad about the convention circuit in the UK.

Answers have been edited only in terms of spelling, punctuation and grammar, and not for style or content. All photographs featured are © their respective creators and are used with permission. More Caption photographs can be found here on Flickr.

downthetubes: Please tell us about a little about the history of your con/event and how it's evolved over the years.

Jay: Caption is the UK’s longest running comic convention. The 2009 event will be our 18th. Started in 1992 by Oxford University students Jenni Scott, Jeremy Dennis, Damian Cugley and Adrian Cox, Caption emphasises the creative side of comics, and forms the backbone of the British small press and independent comics scene. Committees come and go, generally in a five year cycle, and venues change, (though always in Oxford), but Caption rolls on.

Above: Caption 2008 guests Rian Hughes and Paul Gravett admire Woodrow's album cover art. Photo: Damian Cugley

Jay: Each Caption has a theme, around which we build our guest list, panels and talks, and an exhibition of artwork from attendees. Some years the theme is adhered to more loosely than others. We’ve had years where we’ve had big name guests such as Bryan Talbot, Pat Mills and Rian Hughes, or guests from abroad such as Carla Speed McNeil and Aleksandar Zograf. I don’t want this to descend into a huge list, so suffice it to say that we choose an eclectic guest list each year, old masters, up-and-comers and a great many who walk their own path. A typical Caption guest is someone who is or has been a self-publisher, or an iconoclast.

We like original voices. Plucking a ‘for example’ out of the air, we’d be more likely to approach Dave McKean than Jim Lee.

downthetubes: How is your con funded, by ticket sales, the exhibitors, a grant from the council, some other means or a combination of these?

Jay: Caption is funded by ticket sales, bolstered by an auction of donated art works on the Saturday evening of the convention. We also operate a system, which I believe is unique among the UK convention circuit, where instead of selling tables to exhibitors, to enable them to sell their wares, we have “The Caption Table”. In truth, it’s several tables, which trusty Caption gophers run, selling creators’ comics for them, freeing them up to enjoy the rest of the event’s talks, panels, workshops and general socialising. For this service, Caption charges a 10% fee. Creators just roll up, hand over their comics for sale, and settle up when they’re ready to leave. As they say in the advert: “Simples!”

downthetubes: What are the overall aims of your con/event?

Jay: To have fun! To promote the work of self-publishers and be a venue where creators can meet up and get to know each other in a relaxed setting. With the extremely hit or miss distribution that plagues the small press, many people use Caption as their one-stop shop, and catch up on all the small press titles that they've missed in the previous twelve months.

To raise the profile of creators we like and encourage a blurring of the line between the creator and the reader. Caption creators range from those who see their comics work as a stepping stone to working for Marvel or DC, to those who produce ten photocopies of a doodled mini-comic and hand them out for free, and all points in between. We contemplated whether it would be feasible to do some sort of Caption Small Press Awards, but concluded that it was not really in keeping with the spirit of the convention. Caption is all about inclusion, and raising one comic up above the rest does not fit the Caption ethos. Not to mention how difficult a task it would be to judge!

To help those who want to read comics find the good ones and those who want to discuss ways in which they can improve their own work avoid pitfalls or find a collaborator.

To invite interesting guests who have things to say about their careers. Just in the time I have been on the committee, we've had Al Davison, one of the world's foremost practitioners in the medium of dream comics teaching a dream comics workshop, Rian Hughes talking about design and documentary film-maker Dez Vylenz giving a talk alongside a screening of his film, The Mindscape of Alan Moore.

Andy Konky Kru drawing at Caption 2008. Photo: The Glass Eye

downthetubes: Who is your con aimed at? What sort of punters do you hope to attract? Are you family-friendly?

Jay: Caption is aimed squarely at people who like to read comics and people who like to make them. We try our best to be family friendly, but, in all honesty, we get very few children, unless they come with their parents, who are generally regulars on the comics scene. The Caption sketch pads and pens dotted around the place seem to be very popular with our younger attendees and, in most cases, talks and workshops are able to be enjoyed by all ages. It makes us feel as though we might be encouraging the next generation of creators. Last year, we had a mega-panel with a host of creators from The DFC, the new childrens' comic from Random House, which had only just launched before Caption, and a workshop with Beano/2000 AD artist Nigel Dobbyn.

downthetubes: How effective have you been in getting those kind of people to attend?

Jay: Reasonably so. While every year brings some new blood attendees, the core of Caption is the repeat custom. While it would be great to have a rush of new people, there is always the thought that if we were to double or triple in size, a lot of the things that make Caption so enjoyable would be lost. It is the intimacy of the thing that makes it work.

For example, a few years back, there was a Caption tradition where attendees could put their names down for takeaway pizza and Caption gophers would go out to pick up 30 or 40 pizzas. It was a cute little quirk of the convention, but as numbers rose, it became increasingly unworkable. I think something similar would happen to the rest of the show if we were to expand to the size of a Bristol or Birmingham show. Plus, to get those sorts of numbers through the doors, we would have to compromise on the type of guests we invited. We do our utmost to make Caption better each year, but better does not necessarily mean bigger.

downthetubes: Can you give a projected (or actual) attendance figure for your event?

Jay: Caption usually attracts somewhere in the region of 100 to 150 punters, depending on external factors like the weather, or who happens to be on the guest list that year. The majority of attendees are regulars, although we go to great lengths to make sure that Caption newbies don’t feel left out. After all, there’s nothing worse than showing up at a convention when you don’t know anyone there and seeing tables full of people who’ve probably known each other for years, deep in conversation. Working up the courage to join in can be a major hurdle, and lead to a disappointing con experience. Caption-goers are a really friendly lot, happy for anyone to just pull up a chair and join in.

downthetubes: What lessons have you learned during your time (co-)running a con, in terms of marketing and advertising your event?

Jay: That no matter how much advertising overkill you employ, Kev F Sutherland will post on some online forum or another that he didn't know about it, and why had nobody told him? (grins). In all seriousness, the Internet is your friend. It makes things so much easier to get the word out about events, as long as you cover all the bases with the different social networking sites and groups out there. But the absolute best form of marketing, for Caption, at least, is when attendees talk about the show to their friends. Strong word of mouth is what sells Caption to most newbies.

downrhthetubes: Do you use emerging technologies to spread the word about your con? Do you have a website or blog, or use email mailing lists?

(Jay hands over to Selina Lock, who currently sits at the heart of the Caption web promotion hub...)

Selina : ‘We use email lists (Caption Announce), have a Livejournal community (community.livejournal.com/caption/), have a Facebook Event page, and of course the convention website (www.caption.org). When we have something new to announce I update interested parties via the email lists, Livejournal and Facebook, and then the website is updated at a later date. Members of the committee also tend to post on their own blogs, forward the information on to other relevant lists and forums, and I've recently started twittering about Caption (Twitter ID Girlycomic, Tag: #caption2009).’

downthetubes: What about print? Do you use print advertising, have a newsletter, anything like that?

Selina: We print flyers to promote Caption, which we take along to various other shows, and have been known to plug the show in the pages of small press titles such as The Girly Comic and Violent! (both published by yours truly, funnily enough), but otherwise, we concentrate our promotion to the online and word of mouth.

downthetubes: What's the mix in terms of exhibitors at your con? Do you even have exhibitors?

Selina: It depends on how you class exhibitors. While the Caption Table does away with the need for a sea of creators sitting behind tables, the ratio of creators to readers is quite high on the creative side. And creators are also among the biggest readers too, don't forget.

Caption predominantly caters to self-publishers, some who use professional printing services, and others who control every aspect of the production of their work, bearing the scars of many years' folding and stapling wounds. But it's not all black and white autobiographical mini-comics. I don't need to tell you that the small press is a far broader church than its bigger brothers. Whoever it was who coined the term “the real mainstream” was right on the money. And yet, there's little or no snobbery on show. Every year, Tony Hitchman runs a popular quiz drawing on the lunacy of comics' history and when we had 2000AD's Betelgeusian editor Tharg as a guest, his interview panel caused the bar to completely empty, which has to be some sort of Caption record.



Last year's event produced two comics from the same lyrics, one dreamy and one nightmarish. Photo: Damian Cugley

downthetubes: What are your thoughts on the small press comics scene in this country? How do you try and support it (do you try and support it)?

Jay: Darling, Caption pretty much is the small press scene! It's a great place to take the temperature of the scene as a whole. I can't speak for Caption prior to the first one I attended in 2001, but when things are really cooking with gas, the atmosphere at Caption is electric (he said, mixing his metaphors with wild abandon...)

downthetubes: How much are the tickets for your event? How did you arrive at that price? Please tell us about any concessions.


Jay: Caption is a two-day event, with a straightforward £5 per day ticket, £10 the weekend arrangement. We've managed to hold the price for several years, and the entry price gets each attendee a copy of the Caption Programme, which contains as many pages of illustrations, comic strips and articles on the theme of the show as we can prise out of the comics community ahead of the show. As with most UK comic shows, we want to keep the entry charge as low as we can, to get as many people through the door as we can manage, and leave them with more money to buy comics, of course!

downthetubes: How much are exhibitor tables for your event (if you have any)? Again, how did you arrive at that figure?

Jay: As mentioned above, the Caption Table defeats the need for exhibitors to have their own table. We do occasionally make exceptions, when people insist on having a table to hand-sell their comics. But that usually happens with creators who’ve not been to Caption before, and have yet to experience the freedom that comes with not having to man a table all weekend and miss out on the rest of the convention!

downthetubes: Do you run workshops/events/panels at your con? Please tell us about those and how they are organised.

Jay: All of the above. They have always been an integral part of Caption. Without them, it would just be a glorified mart. We try to link the programme of events around the theme of the show, as much as possible, although we also have to work with what we are offered.

When people offer to run workshops for us or are able to give a talk on an appropriate subject, we often bite their hands off. We look at what we've done before, to avoid repeating ourselves too much, or if something went down particularly well in a previous year, we might arrange to do it again. We listen to feedback from attendees and fine-tune things where we can. If we have a particular guest in attendance, we try to find what they are most interested in doing. That might be a talk, running a workshop or being interviewed.

We also have to balance the programme across the weekend, and take into account whether a given creator might only be able to attend on one of the days.

downthetubes: Are there any external events connected to Caption? Educational stuff, talks, workshops, comics promoting, that kind of thing?

Jay: Occasionally, Caption has done other things outside of the main show, such as financing a trip to a convention in Serbia for Lee Kennedy, who then did a talk at the next Caption about her experiences. Last year, there was a Caption Comics Collective exhibition elsewhere in Oxford, which ran across the whole of August, and showcased the work of several Caption regulars, such as Terry Wiley, Jeremy Dennis and Andy Luke. We have done some cross-promotion with similar events, such as the UK Web & Minicomix Thing and the Blam Festival, organised by Leicestershire Libraries.

downthetubes: As you've been kind enough to answer these questions, please feel free to big your con up a bit. Tell us what you do well, what your event's main attractions are and why our readers should attend the next one.

Jay: In précis form, then: Caption is an intimate and relaxed convention in Sunny Oxford, where attendees can participate in workshops, listen to talks and panel discussions on a variety of comic-related subjects, buy small press comics or ignore all that and camp out in the bar, holding forth on whatever...

Caption 2009 (aka Caption Is Away With The Fairies) takes place on August 15th-16th 2009 at the East Oxford Community Centre, 44b Princes Street, Cowley OX4 1DD. We are currently still confirming guests and the programme, but, subject to work commitments, we anticipate Garen Ewing giving a talk about how his Rainbow Orchid series went from the small press to a high-profile book launch from Egmont at the beginning of August.

Also down to attend are Sarah McIntyre, creator of The DFC strip Vern & Lettuce, talking about comics and book illustration, Mark Stafford, artist of Cherubs, (written by Bryan Talbot), rising manga star Asia Alfasi, Phonogram artist Jamie McKelvie on the upcoming sequel to Suburban Glamour and others yet to confirm.

For the latest information in the lead-up to Caption, go to www.caption.org.

Anyone who wants to submit illustrations, comic strips or articles on the subject of the theme of fairies, for consideration for the Caption Programme and/or exhibition, please get in touch with me in the first instance at: jay.eales@googlemail.com

Thanks, Jay (and Selina), for answering our questions.

In Review: Giant Clam Comics

Back in the 1980s, there was a short-lived British comics fanzine called SCAN, edited by me and designed by Matthew Bingham, who went on to work on proper magazines like FHM, but I've lost track of him these days. Its subscribers included Alan Moore and many others, and the chaps at Marvel UK were incredibly supportive of our modest efforts: Mike Collins drew stuff for it, Richard Starkings lettered several of the strips, including our Captain Babylon strip, a Captain Britain spoof... but it also gave a platform to artists such as Dave Jones, who went on to become a mainstay of Viz, and Ralph Kidson who...

-- Well, actually, what did happen to Ralph Kidson?

After 20 years plus, I recently made contact and discover he's still self publishing the kind of bizarre funny stuff that I enjoyed way back then, which included his own superhero spoof, Captain Dolphin. Lately, he's been publishing Giant Clam Comics - collections of his intense, bonkers stories featuring the likes of an envelope that's a hitman with Delta Force, Daleks and Cybermen discussing the merits of different Doctors and their companions; and plenty of what you can describe as "observed humour" with his own unique take on observation that skews the world in a totally mental way.

Over on TRs2, Andrew Luke offered this opinion of Ralph's work, just in case you think I may simply be bigging up an old mate:

Giant Clam is very keen observational comix, it gives form to some deeply trivial rants needing attention and provides relief to the reader by their minimalisation in a brief form. Ralph employs the trick of making it look like very little work has gone into his comix which suits perfectly the subject matter. When one of his characters casts a mobile phone away it serves as a powerful emoticon, rendered in non-power it creates an ease that fits the context of the subject and narrative.

Ralph has a knack for involving the everyday, the natural world and providing transition in memory of grating past. He is also very fucking funny indeed, and if you're going to be checking out one of his comics for the first time, has got some really good stuff for future.

Still not convinced? Then how about this enthused review from Cartoonist, illustrator and Panic Coordinator to Breakfast television PB Rainey for Giant Clam #3?

The third edition of the funniest object in any medium, Giant Clam, is... funnier than Harry Hill's TV Burp, funnier than Count Arthur Strong, funnier than Curb Your Enthusiasm even. In the latest issue; The Matrix Guy, more domestic adventures with Envelope and Stick, the best moral at the end of a story ever -- and Daleks.

Suffice to say, Ralph Kidson delivers something unusual in a neat little pocket-sized package - a title for adults who are not easily offended (because he likes a challenge and it is nice to see if he can offend the not-easily-offended as well).

• You can buy a single issue of Giant Clam Comics (we enjoyed #3) for just £1, including P+P from Ralph Kidson, RalphieComics, 3 Langridges Rd, Newick, Near Lewes, BN8 4LZ. Cheques, postal orders payable to Ralph Kidson, Enquiries to ralphiek@btinternet.com

In Memoriam: Adrian Kermode

Artist Terry Wiley and the late Adrian Kermode and partner. Photo courtesy of Terry.
"I'm sorry this picture is a bit gormless," says Terry. "It's just that he was the sort of chap who would always
pull a funny face in pictures; believe me, this is the least gormless one I could find..."

downthetubes regrets to report the death of British journalist and comics writer Adrian Kermode who was found dead at his home on Saturday morning, cause of death at present unknown. He was 45.

As a journalist, Adrian contributed to independent titles Vicious and Borderline Magazine and was co-creator with Terry Wiley on the much-loved Petra Etcetera, which won the National Comics Award for Best Independent British Comic in 2001, and was nominated again in 2002, and Deadman & Hyde (the latter reviewed here on comics bulletin) and writer of Doctor Sorrow, drawn by Mike Juniper.

He also contributed a number of strips to The Girly Comic such as Doctor Lovemonkey.

"We've lost someone great," notes Andrew Luke, previously saying of an issue of Petra Etcetra, drawn by Terry Wiley, "Adrian Kermode’s script captures the minute, commonly visible social and accompanying appliances with links galore. It’s quite physically facilitating, Any sweetly-sickly personal turmoil is coated with an edge from a laughter production manufacturing, which has a dual smart infection option... delicious."

"Sadly, in the last few years the demands of Ady's civil service career effectively put an end to his writing," notes 'Israeli in his tribute. "He'll be sorely missed by his many friends."

"It's going to take a long time to figure out what we're going to do without him is all I can say," says Terry Wiley.

Tube Surfing: 10 September 2008

• Catching up with comics news after a (very wet) short break, Bryan Talbot's re-released The Tale of One Bad Rat has just had a rightfully glowing review in The Times, describing it as "an incontrovertible and blazing masterpiece." There's also high praise for the new edition of Raymond Briggs' Gentleman Jim and Debbie Drechsler's Daddy's Girl.

• To celebrate 40 years of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, the most popular underground comics in the world,
Gilbert Shelton will be signing copies of the new 624 page Freak Brothers Omnibus at Gosh, 39 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3NZ this Saturday September 13th from 2pm. For more information call Gosh on 0207 636 1011.

• The Forbidden Planet International blog reports on the launch of a new anthology I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now but I’m off saving the world which will be getting its big release in Ireland this coming weekend, with contributors including Sarah McIntyre, Bridgeen Gillespie, Lee Thacker and many more.

The release party for the anthology will take place on Saturday 13th of September at 9pm, Skeahan’s pub, Liberty Sq, Thurles, Co. Tipperary. The book will be available to purchase from several locations in Ireland and via the website from the 20th September. It will also be sold at the Birmingham International Comics Show in October and in November at the Thought Bubble comics show in Leeds. (Check the anthology website in the coming weeks for a full list of sale locations).

The book contains over 90 pages of art - 30 artists contributing to 25 stories. Each artist was given the phrase “I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now but I’m off saving the world” to interpret however they wished. The result is a mixture of stories that range from the serious to the silly, the factual to the abstract but all sharing a common thread.

The book is dedicated to Conor Lyons who past away in September 2007 while working for the United Nations in Sri Lanka and all money raised from the sale of the book will be donated to GOAL in his memory.

• During a dig around looking for information on the newspaper strips he's been running recently, ove on Bear Alley Steve Holland recently came across a couple of examples of a science fiction strip, Captain Universe, that appeared in the Daily Herald back in 1952. "Judging by the numbering (it ran in issues Monday through Saturday), it began on 28 January 1952. I've no idea how long it ran for," he says. The artist was Terry Maloney who, sadly, died earlier this year. The anonymous author was Herbert James Campbell, who was at that time editing the science fiction magazine Authentic Science Fiction.

• Over on Comics Village Andrew Luke has posted up an unabridged version of his ‘State of the Union’ talk at the recent Caption small press event, discussing ways in which our small press creators can get out there and sell comics cheaply but directly, holding up the London Underground Comics model as one way of doing this.

• Artist Eddie Campbell reports that illustrator Pete Mullins has started a blog. "He's using it to showcase his work both old and new and make passing comments as he goes along," Eddie notes on his own blog. "It was great to see some of the stuff he's been up to of late. Long time readers here will recall that Pete and I worked closely together for a few years in the 1990s. You can see his work in Bacchus volumes 7-10 and From Hell. You'll probably have trouble separating his from mine back then, as we often do ourselves, and as Lambiek does, surprising given that he does work as flash as these character designs for an animated series where the characters are all constructed from old socks and stuff."

• And finally... it looks like both Rentaghost and Worzel Gummidge will follow Doctor Who to TV revival after the rights holders new owners announced plans for a comeback. Come on, will no-one pick up Sapphire and Steel or UFO?