Tube Surfing: Weekend Comic events, another Royal Wedding Comic and Phoenix Comic

• The final cover art for another Royal Wedding comic has been revealed. The Geek Files, which also has some interior art, reports Bluewater Productions biography comic, Fame: The Royals, will be released next month in time for the wedding on 29th April, pitting it against Markosia's wedding comic whose contributors include Gary Erskine and Mike Collins (see news story).
Bluewater's cover is by Michal Szyksznian and there will be no alternative covers.

• This Saturday, the 26th March 2011, Dan Abnett will be at Forbidden Planet's London Megastore signing an exclusive Forbidden Planet Limited Edition of his new Angry Robot novel Embedded. Details here on the Forbidden Planet web site between 1 and 2.00pm. This is in advance of general publication, so don't miss out.

• Talking of events, Speech Balloon reminds us the cream of Midlands comic talent is taking part in the Memorabilia Show at Birmingham NEC this weekend. The London MCM Expo's famous Comic Village is taking comics around the country and the first stage of the tour is Memorabilia on 26-27 March.
Comic creators attending this weekend's Memorabilia include Lee Bradley; John McCrea; Kat Nicholson; Jason Cardy; Laura Howell; Liam Shalloo; Al Davison; Keith Burns; MC2; Matthew Craig; Lizz Lunney; Philippa Rice; Dylan Cook; Tony McGee; Markosia; Alice De Ste Croix; Ian Sharman; Josh Clarke; Linh Ha; Scot Stanford; Lyndon White; Ty Wilson; Sean Azzopardi; Lily Mitchell; Howard Hardiman; Toonikun and Minyi.

• The 2011 Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival is almost upon us and visitors can expect a packed weekend of activities in the heart of the medieval town. The main event weekend is April 16th-17th but many shows and exhibitions open in advance and ace British cartoonists blog Bloghorn has published details along with a handy map.

• A little more on the new 'DFC' (or 'Not DFC'). The new comic is expected to launch in early 2012 and you get more information by signing up for their mailing list at http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/, or by following editor Ben Sharpe on Twitter.

• And finally, because the journalist probably had nothing better to do, the Daily Telegraph let William Langley wheel out the trite "comics aren't as good as they used to be" line, this time marking Dennis the Menace's 60th birthday. "In these over-sensitive times, the Beano's greatest creation, the rascally schoolboy Dennis the Menace - who has just turned 60 - is not as much fun as he used to be," he moaned. Did he actually read last week's ace celebratory issue? I thought it was great fun seeing the modern Menace alongside his yesteryear counterpart - and still menacing, for all his modern updating.

In Review: Good Dog, Bad Dog

It was the first of the DFC Library books to be released and Good Dog, Bad Dog is perhaps the most complete book of the three released so far. Written and illustrated by Dave Shelton, this is a fun ride through a Hollywood gangster world inhabited by anthropomorphic dogs, and the odd cat.

Containing three different tales - Dog Meets Dog, The Golden Bone Of Alexandria and The Dog's Dinner - it sets up the situation of grizzled Detective Bergman and his enthusiastic but naive partner Detective McBoo of the the Muttropolis police department. Dog Meets Dog tells of them meeting for the first time as well as setting up the world that they inhabit before the book moves on to the more substantial Golden Bone Of Alexandria with its many film noir overtones as they attempt to relocate the antique of the title. It concludes with The Dog's Dinner which is a slightly more over the top tale of hidden identities, kidnappings and lemon cake.

Dave Shelton shows off his love of old movies as well as some wild puns through the three stories. His choices of breeds of dogs for his characters are amusing and while the femme fatale is inevitably a French Poodle and the goons are bulldogs the "most dangerous dog in the city" looks anything but.

Of the three DFC Library books released so far this is the one that shows off best what the DFC comic was like. Unlike Spider Moon, which needs a follow-up to progress the story, or Mezolith, with its more mature themes, here is a book that will suit the adult purchaser either for themselves or their children but also can be given as a standalone present for young or old that doesn't require prior knowledge of the story or for the recipient to have to buy more to find out what happens.





Yet with its fun artwork, twisty plotlines and often groan inducing puns, while Good Dog, Bad Dog doesn't need a sequel, it certainly deserves one.

• There are more details of Good Dog, Bad Dog including sample pages on the DFC Library website.

• There is more information about Good Dog, Bad Dog on Dave Shelton's website.

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.

Mirabalis Continues Online

New episodes of Mirabilis, which ran in the dead-but-just-resting The DFC, have just been posted online: www.mirabilis-yearofwonders.com/Episodes.html

The creation of Dave Morris and Leo Hartas, Mirabilis was originally intended to appear in episodic form in Random House's weekly comic, before being collected for publication in book form. As the DFC has gone (although it may resurface next year), you'll now have to wait for the graphic novels – the first of which, Winter, is planned to be 160 pages long.

The creators will announce the release date for that as soon as they know it.

"We're hoping to get all the earlier episodes up online eventually, but for contractual reasons that isn't possible just yet," says Dave. You can read the first four episodes, and episode 1, “Stung!” in both English and French.

DFC readers who were left on tenterhooks with Estelle plummeting through the train window at the end of episode 10 (“Outside Looking In”) can now find out what happened. Those further two episodes, “Murders to Dissect” and “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” may only be online for a limited time, however, so read them while you can!

Incidentally, of the many Flash readers for online comics I've used, the engine for Mirabilis is excellent, if a little requiring of instinctive clicking on first use. There's no clutter of uneccessary bells and whistles to help read the strip. Check it out.

• www.mirabilis-yearofwonders.com/Episodes.html

Tube Surfing: 11 April 2009

• ComX publisher Eddie Deighton has just been interviewed for a new article, published here on comicon, giving a little insight into the company and his thoughts on the industry, offering advice for small publishers and comments on viral marketing. He also talks about the 90-page graphic novel Path, which sailed under most people's radar.
The terrific Cla$$war and John Higgins' Razorjack - we hope to post reviews of both next week - are available this month as hardcover and softcover collected editions, respectively.
Somewhat chastened, perhaps by the problems that beset ComX in the past - most beyond the company's control, not least the theft of their equipment, Eddie says that, "this time ‘round, we’re not going to rush projects just to maintain a presence in the public eye.
"From both a financial and timing perspective, we need to make sure all aspects of the publishing model are working efficiently before we solicit them for release," he continues. "We are still self-publishing, indie-publishing, whatever people want to call us, so we still have to count the pennies back at base.
"..Our publishing model, at least for the time being, is going to focus on graphic novel format, collected editions, complete story-arcs, etc. That was one of the big lessons we learned from our last foray into the comics industry. Read the ful interview here on comicon
Watch out also for another interview with Eddie in an upcoming issue of Judge Dredd: The Megazine.

• Talking of interviews, Insomnia Publications publisher Crawford Coutts has been talking to the Edinburgh Evening News, commenting on the recently announced news that the publisher is getting support from Business Gateway as part of Scottish Enterprise's Growth Pipeline. ""We see enormous potential in the USA and Canada," he told the paper. "...We are now working further with Business Gateway to look at how we expand further in the industry and link with other industries such as TV, film and merchandising."

• (via Forbidden Planet International): Will The DFC return? The good news is, publisher David Fickling say it will, next year as an independent title. "We are going to come back next year independently,” publisher David Fickling told the Federation of Children’s Book Groups in Sussex, journalist Jayne Howarth reports. He also revealed that when Philip Pullman, who wrote The Adventures of John Blake for the comic, heard of the closure he told David that the “story must continue.
“Don’t let the closure of your comic stop your great enterprise,” he said.
Steve Holland also notes a news item published in The Bookseller (5 April) noting that the growth in sales of graphic novels could see the title relaunched reportng David was exploring different options for the comic's future. "It's a special creation that should come back and needs to come back in some way," he said. Steve offers some comment on the graphic novel model.

• Robert Downey Jr. is officially back in the superhero business. Production started Wednesday on Iron Man 2, the sequel to his 2008 blockbuster about the Marvel Comics character. Meanwhile, PA News reports Scottish actor Alan Cumming says he would be interested in returning to the X-Men franchise. "Nobody's said anything about it, but it might be quite fun to go back," he commented. "I was supposed to do it again and they didn't pick up my option for a third one. It was sort of 'superhero interruptus'."

• Former Punch cartoonist Noel Ford has been talking to the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation website Bloghorn about how he became an artist. "I didn’t have much choice," Noel, who is editorial cartoonist for half a dozen national UK publications andproduces work for calendars, greeting card and book illustration (including the Grumpy Old Men series of books). "Brainwashed by having Film Fun and Radio Fun read to me from the age of two, bombarded with my Uncle’s and Auntie’s huge backlog of Beanos and Dandys, I drew my first cartoon around the age of five (Child to mother, “Why are bananas nice?” Mother to child, “Because you like them.”) Okay, okay, I was only five, remember." He's Bloghorn's Artist of the Month, which has also been promoting the new edition of Foghorn Magazine.

• Steve Holland reports he is hard at work on The Art of Ron Embleton book, reprinting some of Ron's finest work from the pages of Look and Learn. "With about 600 pages to choose from, it's going to be a cracking book," he enthuses, posting some examples of Ron's wor on Bear Alley.

• Over on the Birmingham Mails' Speech Balloons column, Paul Birch plugs the return of revamped (sorry) and reinvigorated fanzine From the Tomb. The story is a .jpg, so you'll just have to exercise your fingers and click the link!

• If you're a fan of the Robin Hood legend, you may get a kick from these designs for an animated Robin Hood movie by Jon Haward. "In 2004 a writer friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in drawing designs for a Robin Hood animated movie... sadly like a lot of things, they didn't get the funding."

• Talking of design work, there's a smashing post on long-time 2000AD contributor D'Isreaeli's blog on how a selection of Dredd artists have portayed the architecture of Mega-City One over the years.

Happy Easter!

DFC Strips Continue Online

Sadly, today, Friday 27 March 2009, sees the last issue of David Fickling's innovative weekly subscription-only comic - The DFC - at least in its current form.

Despite its demise -- unless Random House have found a buyer -- there is some good news. First, with The DFC ending at Issue 43, the editorial team are well aware some of the strips have been cut off in their prime, much to the dismay of loyal readers. Luckily the remaining episodes of Monkey Nuts, Bodkin & the Bear, Donny Digits and Spider Moon have been put online for all to read and enjoy. View them at The DFC website.

The DFC web site, confirming Issue 43 is, for now, the last issue, also suggests that award-winning author Philip Pullman's strip, John Blake, will return in some form. "The Mary Alice and her crew has vanished into the mist again for now, but we’re sure she’ll reappear somewhere soon, so keep your eyes peeled"

SciFi strip Spectrum Black by Robert Deas, which started in Issue 38, is appearing online at www.spectrumblack.com and Dave Morris and Leo Hartas have started a blog to complement online promotion for their beautiful-looking Mirabilis adventure (more info at www.mirabilis-yearofwonders.com).

There's more good news, too. The comic creators, writers and artists who were brought together by this exciting project have gathered together for a new venture - the Super Comics Adventure Squad!

"The DFC isn't dead," says Garen Ewing. "David Fickling and his inspiring team brought into this world something new and exciting, something that is just too good to disappear back into the ether. So until it finds its place again, the creators who found a home under the covers of The DFC (both published and nearly published) have come together under the guise of the Super Comics Adventure Squad.

"Despite the Economic Woe, it is still an exciting time for the medium of comics and this blog will act as a hub for some of the best in British graphic storytelling talent, a place where you can keep up with what they're doing, all in one place, and where they will post news, events, sketches and comics, with links back to their own websites where you can see and learn more."

The blog already features a small archive of posts to view, written over the past week as the team got ready to go live, including, for instance, some of the concepts that nearly became DFC strips (and may yet find an outlet somewhere else).

Despite this good news for keeping the DFC's talented creators in the spotlight, loyal readers will miss the title. "Molly and I are obviously really sad to see it go, since it’s introduced us to many, many great strips and many, many great writers and artists," says advocate and parent Richard Bruton. "It’s definitely succeded in making Molly a proper comics fan for which I thank it. Before the DFC she was, like many children I’d imagine, rather more interested in what piece of plastic crap was attached to the front of the comic or magazine, but the DFC changed that... it was a valiant attempt to do something different, something better." (Read his full tribute here)

• Check out this new incarnation of The DFC's spirit at: supercomicsadventuresquad.blogspot.com

• You can keep in touch with your favourite strip makers through their websites or by writing to them Care Of The DFC, 31 Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2NP. Here's some web site links: Neill Cameron (Mo-Bot High), Jim Medway (Crab Lane Crew), Dave Shelton (Good Dog, Bad Dog), Sarah McIntyre (Vern and Lettuce), Jamie Smart (Fish-Head Steve), The Etherington Brothers (Monkey Nuts), Jason Cobley (Frontier), John Welding (Will Scoggin's Skull), James Turner (Super Animal Adventure Squad), Wilbur Dawbarn (Bodkin and the Bear), Laura Howell (The Mighty M), Kate Brown (Spider Moon), Gary Northfield [Little Cutie] and Simone Lia [Sausage and Carrots]

• A group of readers are trying to raise funds to stage a 'subscriber' buy-out of the title and have launched a blog to chart the progress of the campaign at: savethedfc.blogspot.com

• Richard Bruton pays tribute to The DFC here on the Forbidden Planet International blog

Can DFC Readers Save Their Comic?

A group of readers of the Random House subscription-only comic The DFC are trying to raise funds to stage a 'subscriber' buy-out of the title and have launched a blog to chart the progress of the campaign at: savethedfc.blogspot.com

If you would like to pledge a sum to take part in the buy out please click on the blog's pledgling links to send them an email indicating the amount you would be happy to pledge.

"Save The DGC is a wholly independent bid to create a subscriber take-over / buy out of the amazing DFC weekly comic for kids," explains architect Barnaby Gunning, who is heading up the campaign, who, along with his kids, think it would be a real shame to lose the comic.

"Our aim is to build up enough pledges to be able to buy The DFC title from Random House and support it for the next 12 months.

"We are not looking for any money unless we manage to raise sufficient pledges," adds Barnaby. "We will not divulge any emails to third parties, or use your email address for anything other than confirming your pledge and keeping you informed of progress."

• Whether you're a subscriber or not, this is a brave effort on the part of its loyal fans: for more information visit: savethedfc.blogspot.com

• For more information, visit the blog or call Barnaby on 07779107365

• If you want to ctach up with some of the creators of The DFC strips, here's some links: Neill Cameron (Mo-Bot High), Jim Medway (Crab Lane Crew), Dave Shelton (Good Dog, Bad Dog), Sarah McIntyre (Vern and Lettuce), Jamie Smart (Fish-Head Steve), The Etherington Brothers (Monkey Nuts), Jason Cobley (Frontier), John Welding (Will Scoggin's Skull), James Turner (Super Animal Adventure Squad), Wilbur Dawbarn (Bodkin and the Bear), Laura Howell (The Mighty M), Kate Brown (Spider Moon), Gary Northfield [Little Cutie] and Simone Lia [Sausage and Carrots]

DFC Up For Sale

Sad news for British Comics: David Fickling's wonderful weekly subscription comic experiment, The DFC, is up for sale, following a decision by The Random House Group to cease publication.

If no buyer is found, the title will close on 27th March, ending with Issue 43.

Launched as a weekly, subscription-only comic in May last year, David Fickling and his team have every right to be proud of the comic they created with the help of a host of brilliant comic creators ranging from 'big names' such as award-wining author Phillip Pullman and Garen Ewing to lesser-known but quickly-recognized talents such as James Turner and Sarah McIntyre.

"It's been a hard couple days for everyone involved," comments Sarah on her LiveJournal, which has resulted in a huge number of responses from fellow creators and DFC readers saddened by the news. "E-mails have been flying and phones have been ringing," she reveals, "mostly contributors expressing how sad they are about it, but also saying what a wonderful thing The DFC has been, how we made some amazing comics, some great friends, and that we will always be proud of it.

"I'm not looking forward to the inevitable flock of British naysayers, those guys who sit around on internet blog sites and say 'I told you so'," she added. "Yes, David Fickling took a huge risk with this comic. But he also started up a lot of careers in comics that are going to go far and got us really excited with his enthusiasm and dedication. And I respect him so, so much for that, and want to say that I am proud of him and fond of him and I hope the rest of the comics community will be supportive to all the people who put so much of themselves into this project."

Philippa Dickinson, Managing Director of Random House Children's Books said: “We are very proud of The DFC and the reaction it received from families, schools and especially the children who have enjoyed reading it. It is an innovative concept which we have been very happy to back. There can be no successes without taking risks, after all.

"Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, we have decided that The DFC is not commercially viable within our organisation.

“David Fickling, the staff at The DFC, and all the comic’s contributors have worked tirelessly to produce what is an amazing weekly publication and we would be delighted if a buyer could be found who would like to take The DFC on as a going concern.”

Restoring the Form

Back in September last year, publisher David Fickling, in part enthused with a desire to restore British Comics to a time when they did not almost entirely depend on the latest hot license, told downthetubes he had high hopes for the project, which utilised the networking and marketing opportunities afforded by the Internet previously unavailable to comics publishers.

"By using the Internet, you can market and reach everybody, more or less, and to enable your potential audience to receive the product directly and spread word of mouth about it in a very natural and experience-based way," he said. "It's a good way to reach people.

"This doesn't mean I'm not interested in selling it The DFC in shops: far from it," he added. "I'd love to sell it in shops and it will, eventually, it's just the order in the way things have to be done to make this work. It's a more practical way of starting the comic off, in way that's sustainable.

"The DFC is also a primer for something bigger in many ways, which for me is the restoration of the form," he enthused. "It's not about being clever and being Internet only as a gimmick. It's a river down which we can flow."

Creators Praise The DFC

I'm sad but not completely surprised," says Dead Pets creator Faz Choudhury, whose comic for the title was running in The Guardian but had yet to appear in the comic itself. "It's always a big risk trying something new and different, and starting up a new children's comic in the UK is not an easy path especially if you avoid the shiny plastic toy with free comic TV tie-in mentality that is all pervasive in children's comics these days.

"I'm sad that the Dead Pets won't get to appear in the comic itself, I was looking forward to being in there along with all my fellow DFC buddies. On the positive side, I was lucky enough to get to write and draw my own twenty-four page comic strip, have it published in The Guardian and get paid for it! I'm very lucky to have had that opportunity."

"It's a real shame that it's ended so soon," says James Turner, creator of the title's Super Animal Adventure Squad which has been running in The Guardian recently, "but it's been an absolutely fantastic experience and I'm really proud of what everyone at The DFC has achieved."

"It's a very sad day," agrees Frontier artist Andrew Wildman. "Sad times but David Fickling and the team should be acknowledged for creating the most significant children's comics publication since who knows when. In spite of its relatively short run (although 43 issues of anything is amazing these days) it will be held up as an example of what is possible. Its existence and passing has created a space for amazing new possibilities.

"David stood up and demonstrated what can be achieved and I think that that is how it will be remembered," he added. "All those amazing characters are now 'real' in the world rather than just 'good ideas'. Thats the difference between those that wish for something and those that have the courage to see it through."

Paul Harrison-Davies is disappointed he may have to seek a new home for his new strip, AstroDog, which was being lined up to appear in The DFC. "It was a wonderful comic," says Paul. "Getting in from work on a Friday and seeing it on my table gave me a nice comfortable feeling that I'm really going to miss."

"A real shame, since it's the most positive comic creation to come out of the UK in the last twenty years," feels comic creator David Hailwood, one of several creators who'd been pitching to the title. "I'd hoped Random House's clever internet sales strategy would protect them from the recession, but unfortunately not. At least they've brought forth a wealth of talented creators to the public eye; let's hope they find a way to stay there!"

Indeed so: let's hope we haven't seen the last of Frontier, Mirabilis, Super Adventure Animal Squad, Mo-Bot High or any of the other wonderful comic strips The DFC has featured so far.

Crab Lane Crew creator Jim Medway would concur with that. "Maybe at some point in the future there will be collections of some of the featured strips, and possibly even a new comic in another shape or form, but as it stands now this abrupt cancellation cuts off many serialised stories, some of them only a few episodes in, so I feel for those creators particularly," he notes on his blog.

"Crab Lane Crew will be just three episodes into a planned 12 forming Season 2 - I've drawn half of these, and am sure I'll complete the set, but not at the moment."

"While really depressed that this brave venture hasn't been able to gather the momentum and subscriptions it deserved, I'm proud to have been amongst all the other creators, and feel grateful to the editorial team for the opportunity and their honorable treatment of those slaving away on the drawing boards and computers," he also says. "My own competence has come on leaps and bounds thanks to their encouragement, enthusiasm and deadlines."

Subscription Issues

While no-one doubts the quality of The DFC's content and creative team however, the title was not without some logistical problems. Longtime British comics fan and DFC subscriber Lew Stringer, reports he had several problems getting his copies of the subscription-only title, which he has not mentioned online until now because he wanted nothing but the best for the title but ultimately meant he cancelled his sub. "The first 25 issues were impressively bang on time, every Friday morning," he notes. "After that, things started to go wrong, with renewals not starting with the issues they should have, copies missing, and subscription confirmation emails not arriving. Other subscribers I've spoken to experienced similar problems, which makes me wonder just how widespread this problem was and how many subscribers it cost them.

"I would have been happy to support The DFC every issue, but when too many glitches started hitting the subs, and the momentum of the serials was lost, I decided enough was enough.

"The final straw was the 'four issue' promo over Christmas that only delivered three issues, to me at any rate. I gave up on the comic after that.

"The quality of The DFC's material was very high, and it was great to see such a diverse range of strips in one comic," he, like others, acknowledges. "Although at times I felt the material was a bit too diverse. For example, having a joyfully innocent strip such as Vern and Lettuce and a dark, creepy strip such as Mezolith in the same comic made The DFC a tad schizophrenic." (Read Lew's full analysis - comparing the title with past comics such as 1980's Oink! - here)

• We hope to have more on this as the story develops - stay tuned. Several of The DFC's creative team, including publisher David Fickling, are members of the downthetubes forum -- why not join up if you haven't already, or stop by and wish them well?
• Read the September 2008 downthetubes interview with David Fickling
• Visit The DFC web site

Frights on the Frontier!

The latest issue of the subscription-only weekly British comic The DFC features Jason Cobley and Andrew Wildman's Frontier on the cover, as heroes Mitch and Daisy find themselves cornered by werewolves in the weird Wild West.

"It's an absolute privilege to be involved in The DFC," says artist Andrew Wildman in a post on the downthetubes forum. "... It really is forging ahead in a country that offers little to younger readers other than licensed material.

"[There's] nothing wrong with licensed material, I have worked on much of it, but it is nice to think that comics can stand on their own two feet as a creative medium. We all remember those days when comics contained original material and it was ours. That sense of ownership as a reader is something that has been rekindled by The DFC and long may it continue..."

Also in the issue are Phillip Pullman and John Aggs' John Blake, in which an old scientist has an enlightening story to tell Blake; Super Animal Adventure Squad by the ever-brilliant James Turner; Wilbur Dawbarn's Bodkin and the Bear; mayhem involving a character called Countess Sheepula in John Gatehouse and Dave Windett's Lazarus Lemming; stories from the Stone Age in Ben Heggarty and Adam Brockbank's Mezolith; more fun from Pickle Rye in the talented Sarah Macintyre's Vern & Lettuce; Dave Shelton's Good Dog, Bad Dog; Mirabilis, in which hero Jack gets an astrology lesson, and we meet a "crazy" wizard!; and Simone Lia's Sausage and Carrots.

• View The DFC discussion on the downthetubes forum
• Visit The DFC web site or the The DFC Previews Site
• Visit the Frontier website

DFC Previews Site Launched

The DFC starts 2009 with a bang, with all-new Mirabilis, Frontier (see news story, below), Lazarus Lemming, and Mezolith, plus all of your other favourites!

The susbscription-only comic continues to expand its online presence with a brand new DFC Previews Site!

If you're not a DFC subscriber yet, and want to know more about the comic, or if you want to show your friends all the good stuff they're missing head over to www.thedfcpreviews.co.uk

Click on any of the strips and you can read a sample episode on screen.

In the pipeline over the coming months are several new stories, including Donny Digits, the Fixingest boy in the universe, the return of Bekka and the floating isle in The Spider Moon and a galaxy in peril in Spectrum Black!

• More info and subscription details on The DFC web site: www.thedfc.co.uk
• Mirabilis Official Site
• Frontier Official Site

New Take on the Wild West in Frontier

Frontier, the new comic strip by Jason Cobley and Andrew Wildman is now up and running in weekly subscription-only comic The DFC.

The second instalment sees heroes Mitch and Daisy dealing with the Weird and Wonderful... well, check out the picture, it doesn't get any more weird than that.

Frontier tells the tales and adventures of Mitch Seeker and Daisy Adams and is "Based on the recently discovered diaries of Daisy Adams from 1866.

"It's weird, it's wild and it all happened out west," explain the creators, who have also launched a supporting web site for the strip (www.weirdwildwest.com) with information about the strip, gallery and creator profiles.

Extracts from Daisy's diaries are also being published in blog form, the creators warning that "It is with some nervousness that we present these diaries for publications.

"Discovered in a hoard of old documents and personal items in an old shack out on the plains of North America, we have been able to study at length the journals and diaries of many early settlers of the United States. We have been able to verify the truth of most of them, such as The Diary of Willam H. Ashley, March 25 - June 27, 1825 and others that are available to view at: www.over-land.com/diaries.html"

• Click here to read an online version of Frontier Part One
• Official Frontier web site: www.weirdwildwest.com
• Facebook Fan Page

Tube Surfing: 18 December 2008

• Latest details on the subscription-only weekly comic The DFC are among the updates to our British Comics On Sale Now list on the main downthetubes site. The page has gotten quite lengthy thanks to all the information some publishers are now kindly supplying, so we've split our information on new comics over two pages!

• Talking of The DFC, Mo-Bot High artist Neill Cameron is spreading festive cheer via his blog at, posting a Santa a Day from now 'till Christmas! Our favourite so far? Probably Kung Fu Santa...

• E-Cards aren't everyone's cup of tea but they are a good way to reach a huge number of contacts especially as postal prices rise. Wizards Keep creator Tim Perkins has uploaded his to his blog: entitled “The Last Drop” it's also available as a limited edition A5 card set, which you can purchase from Wizards Keep.

• Continuing our Christmas theme, over on Bear Alley, Steve Holland has published a special treat. Franco Giacomini has very kindly sent over scans of a sequence from an early strip drawn by Tony Weare, shortly before he began the strip on which his fame rests, Matt Marriott. City Under the Sea was published in 1954 in the Daily Herald. Enjoy!

• Talking of Christmas treats, cartoonist Lew Stringer has almost completed his round up of Christmas comic covers, with a post devoted to current covers yet to be published. Read part 9 over on Blimey! It's Another Blog About Comics!

• Rod McKie has written an interesting article for the Forbidden Planet International blog, talking about cartooning today, the fewer spots open to cartoonists in newspapers and journals. Rod says it is a bit of a downer but he has a second related part coming which will be more positive.

• It's not British comics-related, but since I work on the site, a quick plug for Nicholas Yanes interview with Brahm Revel on scifipulse, who's written and drawn Guerillas is a nine part series published by Image Comics. "Guerillas takes place during the Vietnam Conflict and follows a new recruit who accidentally falls in with a platoon of experimentally trained chimpanzee soldiers," explains Revel. "The story centres on the relationships and bonds that form within a platoon during the hardships of war despite race, creed, or in this case, species."

• An appeal for help now. Over on ComicBitsOnline Terry Hooper is asking if anyone can help with scans of some British small press comics from the 1960s and 70s, including some with some fantastic titles such as Owl Jumpers and The Toad Papers.

• The Twelve artist Chris Weston is back from abraod and back in the saddle on his blog, with some samples of his The Little Guy strip for Time Out, which he says he's hoping to get polished off over christmas. No rest for The Weston.

• Someone never lost for words when it comes to Internet posting is Warren Ellis... until that is, he read this strip by Dharbin entitled Warren Ellis: King of the Internet. "I am not entirely sure what to say," Ellis responded.

• Mark Wallinger's transparent TARDIS will be part of an exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery in February before touring to Leeds and Swansea. Wallinger's work is a full-size re-creation of a traditional police box in mirrored steel. Placed in the corner of a room, the mirrored surface gives the impression that the sculpture is transparent. "In the early days of Doctor Who the Tardis always faded away and disappeared," he tells The Guardian. "I wanted to make an object that was trying not to be there," said Wallinger who is perhaps best known for his work State Britain, a recreation at Tate Britain of Brian Haw's protest display outside parliament. He won the Turner Prize in 2007.

• Talking of Doctor Who, Tony Lee has published a sneek peak of a double page spread from #6 his Doctor Who: The Forgotten story for IDW featuring all ten Doctors. Just a shame the thing isn't officially on sale in the Uk when it comes out in the New Year, eh?

• And finally for this round up, with all the doom and gloom about despite the Christmas season, is there anything to look forward to in 2009? Well, look out for some baragins in the sales and early months from retailers. UpMyStreet.com reckons that in January and beyond prices are set to get even lower as they still clamour for our money. "This could mean the less successful follow in the footsteps of Woolworths, but we might as well enjoy the bargains while we can." Not all prices are low of course, Diamond having implemented an immediate price hike on many US comics on sale in the specialist stores recently...

• (For some genuine Christmas Cheer, try here! Courtesy of the ever wonderful Etherington Brothers).

Tube Surfing: 15 December 2008

• Warren Ellis has announced he will be writing a column for Conde Nast's upcoming Wired UK magazine, edited by David Rowan, which launches next spring. "This attempt involves the services of Ben Hammersley, whose CV is twice as long as mine or yours and eighteen times as mad. And Ben Hammersley has engaged me as a monthly columnist for Wired UK, with an editorial mandate of, well, writing about anything I feel like writing about... This will be massive amounts of fun."

• Hot on the heels of the launch of a web site promoting Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, a new strip for The DFC, comes another trailing Frontier, described as a 'weird wild west' strip by Jason Cobley and Andrew Wildman.

• Talking of Mirabilis, which we plugged last week, there's now a trailer for the strip on YouTube. Just in case you can't see it below...



• Blueberry artist Colin Wilson reveals a limited selection of his earlier art for 2000AD, Blueberry, Point Blank and The Losers etc (but, as yet, no Star Wars art) is now available to buy online. "Royd Burgoyne has kindly agreed to look after this for me," he notes on his blog, "and the first selection of my work to be made available can now be seen at his online Comic Art Shop.

"I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks sorting and cataloging my artwork from the 80's and 90's," he notes. "There's a lot of it, and I've been discovering things that I can't even remember producing.... things like this."

• Cy Dethan has just posted an early version of Scott James' cover for The Case Files of Harlan Falk #3, to be published next year by Markosia. Read more about this here

• Jennifer Contino of The Pulse has just interviewed Tony Lee on the upcoming MILF Magnet from Moonstone, with five or six teasers from the comic itself.

• (With thanks to Matthew Badham): Top US writer Mark Waid has begun blogging about comics wrting on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which also features contributions from John Rogers and Michael Alan Nelson. "His first post is f****** gold," enthuses Matt Badham.

• And finally, in my only acknowledgement so far for the season, Paul Cornell has posted a number of Christmas recipes from comic creators. These include suggestions from the likes of Frazer Irving, Andy Diggle and Joe Quesada. My all-time favourite comic creator recipe was that of Martin Skidmore, once editor of Fantasy Advertiser, for a BAPA mailing. "Go to the fish and chip shop. Buy some fish and chips. Eat them..."

Dragons, Duels and Deadly Danger in The DFC!

Mirabilis: Year of Wonders is a new ongoing series that starts in Issue 30 of Random House's comic subsscription-only weekly comic The DFC on 19th December.

Written by Dave Morris and illustrated by Leo Hartas, the series tells of a lost year forgotten by history "sometime between Victorian and Edwardian times" when a green comet appears in the sky. As the comet grows brighter, the barriers between reality and fantasy begin to break down, unleashing a tide of mystery, wonder and supernatural excitement. Intrepid hero and former grocer's delivery boy Jack Ember is sent by the eccentric boffins of the Royal Mythological Society to investigate strange happenings all over the world.

Despite the constant incursions of folklore, myth, horror, fantasy and outright whimsy, Jack soon finds there is nothing in the world more perplexing than girls - in particular Estelle Meadowvane, the beautiful young amateur astronomer who discovered the green comet.

The series unfolds in five-page episodes which will later be collected in graphic novel format as the four seasons of the Mirabilis year. The whole story,written by Morris and illustrated by Hartas is planned to run to an epic 56 episodes.

The pair dreamed up the entire Mirabilis concept between them one evening as a love letter to the brilliance of human imagination and storytelling, and in particular to their creative heroes Lord Dunsany, Steve Ditko and Neil Gaiman. They spent ten years looking for the right form to tell the story, and a publisher who could really appreciate the head-on collision of witches, robots, undersea kingdoms, airships, ghosts, aliens, pterodactyls, homicidal saints and man-eating plants. Luckily, along came just the man they needed: UK publishing visionary David Fickling, who seized on Mirabilis with gusto and immediately saw that it would make a perfect ongoing series in his weekly comic The DFC.

Leo and Dave have worked together on many other projects - notably on the classic role-playing game Dragon Warriors, coincidentally reissued this month. They thrash out the overall storyline together, then Dave writes the scripts for each episode and gives them to Leo along with his own "thumbnail layouts" to show what he's got in mind. Leo then quickly works up a rough pencil version of the episode, they discuss any changes of camera angle or text that might then be needed with series producer Tom Fickling, and Leo then goes straight to finished art.

A final touch of magic is applied in Athens by internationally renowned colorist Nikos Koutsis. For the final page layout and word balloons they use Serif PagePlus, with fonts from Blambot. The covers are being painted by Martin McKenna.

• For more stunning art and information about the series visit www.mirabilis-yearofwonders.com

• The DFC is published every week by Random House and for the time being is available only by subscription - see www.thedfc.co.uk