Doctor Who artist conjures iconic Football Moment for new print

Former Doctor Who comic artist Richard Piers Rayner has produced a limited edition print recreating one of football's most iconic moments, when Pele and Bobby Moore were pictured swapping shirts.

The original photograph, taken by John Varley at the Estadio Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico, on June 7 1970, shows the players together after England's Group C defeat to Brazil.

The then world champions were effectively handing over the baton of world supremacy to the champions-elect and the world's greatest-ever player.

Stockton-born Richard, who these days is artist in residence at Middlesbrough Football Club, contributed the stunning six part tale Evening's Empire to the Doctor Who mythos in the 1990s (also set in Middlesbrough and written by TV series script editor Andrew Cartmel), but is probably best known to comics fans for his work on the graphic novel Road To Perdition, which inspired the Hollywood blockbuster starring screen legends Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.

Richard has worked with "Boro" for a number of years, producing a wide range of artwork representing historic and contemporary events at the club. Chosen from a host of quality applicants for the post, which allows him to get close to the matchday action, his drawings have become a popular feature in the club programme over recent years and several line the main stairway of the Riverside Stadium as part of the club's Artist in Residence project.

"I loved the rare and irresistible opportunity to recreate one of sports defining images," says Richard of this commission, now on sale as a limited edition print from YPF Publishing.

"In a brief moment at the end of the game opponents acknowledge the sportsmanship of their contest. There is no better reason to call it the Beautiful Game and no better challenge than to bring all that colour and drama back to life."

• Limited edition signed and numbered prints (measuring 33cm x 44cm) of the painting, titled 'Mutual Respect', are available for £175, including courier dispatch and first-class packing. These prints are not framed but come fully mounted and ready for framing on high quality art paper. A black-wooded framed version is available for £225 (inclusive of delivery).


• Visit www.yfppublishing.com for more details.

Striker Heads Into the Net

Long-running soccer strip Striker recently came to an end in The Sun - catching many fans by surprize, even though creator Pete Nash had been saying for some time he planned to end the saga. But, after 24 years of publication, both in The Sun and as a self-published nationally-distributed comic, Pete still hopes the series will enjoy new life in new forms - including the online publication of the first ever adventure on myebook.

When Striker came to a conclusion earlier this month, Pete, tells downthetubes he had a holiday, a little relived at no longer being beholden to the deadlines the strip imposed on his life. But on his return he was gobsmacked to find his inbox full of emails from anxious fans, wondering what had happened to their favourite football comic, as The Sun itself had given no indication it was coming to an end!

"I received hundreds of them and they're still arriving," says Pete, "so I hope fans will forgive me for not replying to each one personally." Instead he is posting news about the strip's post-Sun developments on www.striker3d.net, which has long been its official internet home. This includes hopes Pete's long-held dream that the Striker saga will become a blockbuster movie or TV series as well as releasing the entire archive into a volume of books available in print.

"I have been warmed by so many kind comments and somewhat surprised by the strength of feelings expressed," Pete told fans via the StrikerWorld forum (registration required), also revealing the ending of Striker was rather more rushed than he would have liked because The Sun decided to stop the Saturday pages in August, so he had to reduce the final episode he had written by five or six strips. "I left the story with an open ending to allow for the possibility of an eventual relaunch (Romeo and Todd would provide excellent scenarios) but The Sun clearly want to pursue their own ideas. Having said that, one would have thought they could have come up with a better replacement for Striker than web virals."

Explaining the strip's completion, he told fans, "Last year, I gave notice to The Sun that I felt the time was approaching to end Striker as it was becoming increasingly difficult to create fresh storylines for the characters and I did not want to run the risk of it becoming stale.

"There was always the possibility of re-launching it in the future and to this end I offered to create a replacement strip for The Sun or to rerun earlier adventures showing how Warbury Warriors were formed when Nick and Eric first got together. Sadly, The Sun did not wish to discuss this possibility.

"I ended the strip with a scenario that both wrapped up the storyline and left it open to the possibility of being restarted at a later date. I had no idea The Sun would leave their readers in the dark by failing to announce the strip was ending."

This, of course, is not the first time The Sun has decided to leave fans in the dark about the strip's future. Back in 2003, when Pete decided to launch his own weekly Striker comic, The Sun gave readers every impression the strip was over for good, even featuring the Warbury Warriors team being killed in a plane crash in its replacement strip, The Premier.

Behind the scenes, as the Press Gazette reported, the paper also accepted £85,000 for a series of adverts to mark the end of the comic strip appearing in The Sun and to tell readers it was launching as a comic in its own right - then refused to run them. The paper also touted replacement strip The Premier in a news item, only mentioning the new Striker comic toward the end, declaring it would be "The most exciting and innovative strip to be launched in a British newspaper for decades". (It wasn't).

Despite this - and the unfortunate demise of Pete's Striker comic after 87 impressive issues, which even offered shares to readers to try to keep going, with huge success (but not enough to save it) - eventually Striker returned to The Sun, ousting The Premier, reaching a finale this month, much to the dismay of many fans of the strip, which has been created in digital form using Maya software for over 10 years. But even though the strip has ended its daily newspaper appearances, Pete still has plans for its future now he is back in full control, owning all rights to the saga.

"For a long time now I have wanted to publish the entire Striker archive as a series of books and develop it into a movie or TV series," he says. "I now have the time to explore those possibilities."

• Striker fans wanting to keep up to date on Striker developments should visit www.striker3d.net where you can also read some of the earlier Striker adventures free online.

Shoot Shot Down

IPC Media has announced the closure of Shoot! after 40 years, a victim of stiff competition from rivals.

The Guardian reports the cancellation of the IPC Media title, which once rubbed shoulders with sports-dominated comics such as Roy of the Rovers and Tiger, has been unable to compete with rivals such as market leader Match, BBC Magazines' Match of the Day (which launched in March and features a popular comic strip drawn by Martin Baines) and new challenger Kick!.

The closure comes four months after Shoot! relaunched it as a weekly, a status it had enjoyed from its launch in 1969 and was a weekly until 2000.

In addition to stiff competition in the sector, Shoot!'s higher cover price (£1.80 compared to 95p for top rival Match) also appear not to have done the title any favours.

"It is with great regret that we have had to make this decision," said Paul Williams, the managing director of IPC Inspire, the Guardian reports. IPC are now in exclusive negotiations to sell the Shoot! trademark to Pedigree Books, which publishes the Shoot! Christmas annual and other books.

Shoot! sales figures were around 35,000 an issue, still much higher than those of the last football comic, Striker, which sold some 29,000 copies on launch but whose sales declined slowly over 87 issues -- still an impressive run for an independent title (as Striker owner Pete Nash recounts here on the official site).

Ironically given the cancellation of Shoot!, potential investors advised Pete to make his title more of a magazine to raise its profile and opportunities for investment. (Striker now runs in The Sun where it began back in 1985).