Lazarus Lemming is the top special secret agent of Department X, the
covert government agency that investigates eXtraordinary happenings
worldwide.
When the world's cows are kidnapped to steal their farts, or all the
citizens of Transylvania are turned into mindless zombies, it's up to
Lazarus Lemming to solve the mystery and save the day!
The title is the work of John Gatehouse and Dave Windett, both long time comic creators for an assortment of publishers, with Dave's art featuring in The Dandy and Simpsons Comics.
John has written over 100 books and
annuals, over 300 television shows and thousands of comic strips and
short stories for children.
He has produced stories for legendary characters such as Inspector
Gadget, Pokemon, Scooby Doo, Garfield, Dracula, Spider-Man, Ace Ventura
Pet Detective, The Hurricanes, Digimon, Rugrats, Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles and hundreds of other intellectual properties.
Dave is a professional comics artist and illustrator, his
work has been published in Britain, Europe and America.
He has drawn comics featuring numerous licensed characters, including
Inspector Gadget, Eek the Cat, Ace Ventura, Daffy Duck and Korky the Cat
.
For the Scandinavian market he has illustrated educational books,
business manuals and comics.
He has also designed original characters for a variety of publications
and provided illustrations for everything from magazines and websites to
mobile phones, games, and children's shoes.
A quick plug, courtesy of digital comics distributor Comixology, to remind folk here that Paul Grist's wonderful Jack Staff is available on iPhone and more.
Out now are Issue 9 and 10, with Issue 9 offering "Titanic team-up action as Britain's Greatest Hero, Jack Staff, and Castletown's Cast Iron Champrion, Tom Tom the Robot Man, join forces in the hunt for superhero-hating Detective Inspector Maveryk!
You'll also learn the full details of the Freedom Fighters' battle to halt the Nazi invasion of Castletown in 1942.
In Issue 10, it's time for more action from Karl Stringer, a man who was just a thief until he stole the Claw, a strange metal glove that bonded with his own hand and gave him the power of invisibility! He became the mysterious Super Villain known as The Claw - until the police caught up with him.
Right now he's called Ben Kurmer and he's part of Q, the enigmatic investigators of the Question Mark Crimes – only when he gets caught up in a diamond robbery, he has to decide if he's really a hero or a villain!
The prices and release date details for the most hyped and anticipated gadget this year, the Apple iPad, which features a number of digital comic products were announced for the UK this week. The device has been much touted as an ideal comic reader and, indeed, Apple itself is promoting the device as a comics reader in its promotional pages for the UK launch.
The iPad will be sold through the Apple Online Store, Apple retail outlets and via approved resellers from Friday 28th May 2010.
Pre-ordering began this week from the Apple online store where, you can order all the iPad Wi-Fi models, together with all the iPad WiFi + 3G models, in time for delivery on the 28th May.
Compared to the US, where the iPad is already on general release and selling in huge numbers, as usual for Britian, the prices do appear rather high. A basic model will set yo u back £429 (for the 16GB Wi-Fi iPad model), with a top of the range product priced at £699 (64GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad).
But is it any good for reading comics? (Assuming, of course, you're a fan of digital comics - I'm fully expecting the usual comments from folk who prefer paper, which they're entitled to have).
Reaction has been mixed but fairly positive.
"If the screen were about 20% bigger, this would be the best comic book reader yet, feels Gizmodo's Jason Chen of the iPad. "You wouldn't need to pan, to zoom, to scroll or to pinch. You could just read."
How many comics are available? Well, there are plenty of companies vying for your App loyalty, including PanelFly, Comixology and Marvel's reader, the latter of which is just Comixology, but only delivers Marvel Comics.
Earlier this month, technology site BoingBoing reported the Marvel Comics app would launch offering more than 500 titles through the application, including all the Marvel classics are here: Avengers, X-Men, Hulk, Spider Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and a number of newer titles. To navigate, you simply 'finger swipe' the page to get to the next one, or single click on the left or right edge to go back or forward. You can also scroll through the thumbnail bar at the bottom for faster, jump navigation. The app also enables you to 'zoom in' on the artwork using a double-click or two-finger 'pinching', which iPhone users will be used to
When you've zoomed in on a single frame, finger swipes or single clicks also navigate frame to frame rather than page to page.
"Scrolling is intuitive, brisk, and elegant," enthuses BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin. "I'm amazed at how smooth. The store interface makes sense to anyone familiar with iTunes and App store. Flipping and reading, one luminous full-colour page at a time, I do not miss paper." You can view a video review from BoingBoing below.
"You'd be a fool not to run screaming to the App Store and download this comic reader," feels EnGadgets' Joshua Topolsky. "Not only is the app built in a clear and cleanly laid-out manner, but you get access to tons of great Marvel titles to purchase and lots of free books to download off the bat, but it features a guided view which is about as close as you can get to a motion comic without... reading a motion comic. Our only complaint here is that they don't offer more of the Marvel catalogue."
Of course, given that this is a British comics blog, you might be interested in supporting a British comic app - albeit one with significant overseas investment. Graphic.ly recently launched it AIR app for desktops which includes a digital comic reader, store, and social activity feed and Apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android, and Windows 7 are coming soon. It will also be delivered as native Web app.
With an emphasis on material from independent publishers - although mainstream ones are on board - Grpahic.ly has taken a 'social' approach to digital comics reading, launching with an activity feed showing all the comics your friends are reading and their comments. This serves as a discovery mechanism.
If you get your comics elsewhere and then import them to your iPad, then you need Comic Zeal or Comic Reader. (The Comic Reader app itself went through a painful gestation period for the developer, which is documented here on the ComicReader forum).
There's also a iPad version of iVerse, and iVerse Comics founder Michael Murphey is enthusiastic about the device's potential to attract new comic readers. The latest version of their app, demo'd here, adds much requested features like ZOOM for both iPad and iPhone in this update, but overall iVerse hope that the application fades into the background and you can just enjoy reading your comics.
"The things the iPad does it does so very well that it's going to be like the iPhone – once people have their hands on it, they're not going to want to not have that device," he told Comic Book Resources back in January. "It's very slick and very well made, and it's going to allow us to be able to present comics in the best possible way on one of the best devices to do this on."
Most importantly, will comics on the iPad - as well as other digital devices - increase comics readership? Many think so. Making strips available for consumers to download on a tablet could change "the mentality that comics are just meant to be collected," artist Dave Dorman, who has drawn for issues of Batman, Star Wars, and numerous additional comics told Bloomberg Business Week last month.
"Forty years from when I grew up, comics could potentially make a big breakthrough to a new generation," he feels.
The prices and release date details for the most hyped and anticipated gadget this year, the Apple iPad, which features a number of digital comic products were announced for the UK this week. The device has been much touted as an ideal comic reader and, indeed, Apple itself 
