Most Bizarre British Comics Tie-In 2009

And the 2009 downthetubes award for the most bizarre British comics tie-in merchandise of the year goes to...

Firstly let's remember that our favourite piece of bizarre British comics tie-in merchandise to date has been the Jackie Knitting Set. DC Thomson have licenced a lot of different Jackie products over the last few years on the back of the success of the original Best Of Jackie hardback book published by Carlton/Prion in 2005. These have included mugs and key rings with the Jackie compilation music CDs being perhaps the most successful of the recent batch with the fourth album, Jackie The Annual 2010, being released last week. Despite these the Jackie Knitting Set still takes the biscuit and when we spoke to DCT editor Bill McLoughlin, who now works for the company's licencing department, about it he described it as "probably the most unusual and I'd be hard pushed to come up with something more quirky!"

In the meantime Ron Grosset and his team at Waverley Books have had a lot of success with their Broons tie-in books beginning with Maw Broon's Cookbook in 2007. These have always been lovingly compiled, beautifully produced and competitively priced. One reason for the competitive price is Waverley Books' deliberate policy that they are not sold for a big reduction in shops such as Bargain Books or as a loss leader in supermarkets.

The selection of Broons tie-in books from Waverley now include both the Maw Broon's Cookbook and Maw Broon's But An' Ben Cookbook as well as the Broon's Burns Night, Broon's Book Of Gairdening Wisdoms and the recent Maw Broon's Remedies An' Suchlike. Earlier this year Waverley branched out with Maw Broon's But An' Ben Apron which is exactly what it sounds like, an apron, even if Amazon confusingly list it as a 1 page paperback box set. The latest item from Waverley is Maw Broon's But An' Ben Spoon.

Comics @ Wigtown Book Festival

Wigtown in Dumfries and Galloway is Scotland's National Book Town and advertises itself as "a book lover's haven" with over a quarter of a million books in twenty book-related businesses. It is not surprising therefore that it has its own book festival.

This year the Wigtown Book Festival programme has more than 170 events over 10 days at the end of September and the start of October with authors such as Iain Banks, Roddy Doyle and Nick Nairn appearing. Also in the programme are two comics related events featuring writers Alan Grant and David Donaldson.

On Saturday 3 October at 1:30 pm Alan Grant will be interviewed by Stuart Kelly on the subject of his work on Batman and Judge Dredd as well as adapting Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped for the One Book-One Edinburgh reading campaign. The event will take place in the Stena Line Marquee in the town's main square and tickets cost £8 for adults and £4 for children.

The next day on Sunday 4 October, DC Thomson editor and writer David Donaldson will give An Audience with the Broons at 3 pm. Donaldson has been the scriptwriter for the Sunday Post's comic strips The Broons and Oor Wullie on and off since 1962, during which time he's been party to all the Broon family secrets, such as Pa Broon's flutters on the horses and his need for ample supplies of baccy. The event will also take place in the Stena Line Marquee and all tickets cost £8.

More details of the Wigtown Book Festival and its events including on-line ticket purchasing can be found on the festival website.

Tube Surfing: Beano, Broons, Bunty and Bombers

• It is that time of year when next year's calendars are hitting the stores and the one to look out for at the moment is the Beano Retro Comic Art Calendar. With the weekly Beano falling into line with the new CBBC TV series Dennis and Gnasher series, older Beano fans should be pleased to see that the calendar features vintage Beano art selected by former Beano and BeanoMAX editor, Euan Kerr. For those readers north of the Border, it is the Brown clan's turn to be featured in DCT's softcover annual this year and they are of course also featured on the new Broons calendar for 2010.
  
  
• From humour to adventure and good news for the girls - after all the Jackie compilation books from Carlton, DC Thomson have finally decided to publish a Bunty compilation book this year. Bunty For Girls: Golden Age Classic Stories costs £8.99 and includes the first adventure of Bunty favourites The Four Marys amongst many other strips.
  
  
• All the DC Thomson items mentioned here are available via the DC Thomson website and postage is included on all the website's prices. Also still available from last year is the slipcased reprint of the 1966 Hotspur annual which has been reduced in price to £8.49.
  
  
• Away from DC Thomson and over (almost) to Look and Learn. Regular Look and Learn aircraft artist Wilf Hardy has produced many painted covers for UK air show brochures, as can be seen on Jeremy Briggs' piece on him over on Bear Alley. A selection of these paintings for the annual air show at RAF Waddington have now been produced as special limited edition packs with proceeds going to the RAF Benevolent Fund and the RAF Association. The set of 14 A5 prints feature 10 paintings by Wilf Hardy, 2 by his replacement on the Waddington brochures Tim O'Brien, and two joint efforts. Price is £5 plus £1.50 UK P&P and they are available by sending a cheque payable to "Timothy O'Brien" to 15 Angelica Court, Bingham, Nottingham, NG13 8SU. There are more details about the packs on Tim's website. If you like Hardy's aircraft illustrations in Look and Learn then these are well worth purchasing.
  
  
• And finally for now back to DC Thomson and their Waverley Books imprint which has had great success in the past few years selling Broons spin off books beginning with the high quality Maw Broon's Cook Book. This year the new Broon's books from Waverley have included The Broon's Days Oot! and Maw Broon's Remedies An' Suchlike while October will bring The Broons' Book of Gairdenin' Wisdoms in time for Christmas. For those messy cooks who have been using both the Cook Book and its follow up the But An'Ben Cook Book, then Maw Broon's But An'Ben Apron is also now available to buy from Waverley Books - "It keeps ye braw and clean!"

Maw, Paw an' PM Broon

While the UK comics community, and the national newspapers, may have made much of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's appearance in the first issue of Marvel's Captain Britain and MI13, it is unlikely to have raised much interest in Number 10 or in the Brown family home in Scotland. However the Prime Minister's appearance in The Broons in today's issue of DC Thomson's Sunday Post newspaper is much more likely to capture his attention.

As tonight is Burns Night, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns, and the beginning of the Scottish tourism promotion of Homecoming Scotland, Maw and Paw Broon have invited Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond to join them at their Burns Supper in their Number 10 - Glebe Street that is.

Maw Broon, of course, is Scotland's latest celebrity chef with 2007's Maw Broon's Cookbook and 2008's follow up Maw Broon's But An' Ben Cookbook. Last year at this time the Sunday Post issued the 32 page Broon's Burns Night magazine, which combined Burns Supper recipes and other Burns Night traditions, as a free giveaway. This magazine proved so popular that it was expanded and issued as a 48 page softcover book towards the end of last year by Waverley Books who had so successfully published Maw's other titles.

In today's Broons tale, artist Peter Davidson has included Gordon Brown's wife Sarah as well as singer Dougie MacLean whose song, Caledonia, is the official anthem of the Homecoming promotion. The story ends with Gordon Brown and Alex Salmond sharing a drink together, which will no doubt amuse many as in reality there is no political love lost between the two men.

However there are no politics to be had in the story. Indeed Maw is quoted in the Sunday Post as saying, "The only political wranglin' goin' on in oor hame is when Daphne and Maggie want tae use yon hairdryer at the same time. Mebbe we could get some other politicians round to solve the problem. A'body knows there's plenty o' them that specialise in blowin' hot air."

The Broons (c) DC Thomson and Co Ltd

Scotland's Celebrity Chef

The latest cookbook from Scotland's newest celebrity chef, Maw Broon, has just been released. Last year's offering, simply entitled Maw Broon's Cookbook, sold over 170000 copies and so Mrs Brown has released a second this time entitled Maw Broon's But An' Ben Cookbook featuring recipes from their holiday cottage in the country.

Last year BBC Scotland viewers were treated to the sight of DC Thomson managing editor David Donaldson putting on his pinny and chef's hat to cook one of the recipes when Maw was unable to make an appearance.

Some of the recipes from the first book can be found on Scotland.org and it did take some criticism for the perceived unhealthiness of some of the recipes, so this year there is a push to emphasise the healthier recipes. This such a large family to cook for Mrs Brown was unable to come to the BBC Radio Scotland studio this year and so her publisher, Ron Grosset, appeared on her behalf.

To tie in with the release of the first book, the newspaper that The Broons appear in, The Sunday Post, published a Burns Supper supplement and a version of this is now being made available to the wider public as a paperback entitled The Broons' Burns Night.

Both of the Maw Broon's Cookbooks are currently available from Amazon and the The Broons' Burns Night is due to be released on 9 October 2008.

Tube Surfing : 7 June 2008

Gerry Anderson fanzine Andersonic, which is currently on issue 5, now has a related website. The site details the current and back issues and will eventually have a shop to allow the issues to be purchased direct.

Issue 6 of Andersonic is due to be released towards the end of the summer.

The Prestonpandemonium 3 comic mart, held in Prestonpans near Edinburgh at the end of May, proved to be a popular part of the Three Harbours Arts Festival. A silent auction was held in aid of the DEC Burma Cyclone Appeal which raised an impressive £176. Paul Scott reviewed the event on his Omnivistascope blog.

Photos from the event are available on the Prestonpandemonium website.

Scotland's newest celebrity chef will be following up her best selling cookbook from last year with a second volume for Christmas 2008. Maw Broon's Cookbook was the surprise hit of the Scottish book charts in the run up to Christmas 2007 and DC Thomson and Waverley Books are looking to repeat that success again this year with Maw Broon's But An' Ben Cookbook due to be published in September 2008. For those readers of doonthatubes of a slightly too Sasenach persuasion, "But An' Ben" is Scottish for a holiday cottage, a "hame fae hame".

Maw Broon's Cookbook and But An'Ben Cookbook are available from Amazon.