Radio interviews with Warren Pleece, Denise Mina, Garen Ewing and Simon Barnard

I'm ready for my close-up: The Scarifyers

As we enter Doctor Who's 50th anniversary year, I'm ready for my close-up investigates a radio drama series tangentally connected to the franchise. The Scarifyers is a horror / black comedy series, with new installments broadcast each year on BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC 7) and released on CD and concern the adventures of an elderly horror writer and his retired police sidekick as they investigate supernatural crimes and occurances in 1950s Britain. The cast includes Terry Molloy (Doctor Who's Davros), Nicholas Courtney (Doctor Who's Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart) and David Warner (Time Bandits et al.) with supporting cast including actors famous for roles in Doctor Who and other Sci-Fi dramas such as Gabriel Woolf, Philip Madoc, Gareth David-Lloyd and Brian Blessed.

Alex Fitch talks to series writer and producer Simon Barnard and CD cover artist Garen Ewing about the genre crossing narrative, their love of old SF and horror and the use of iconic actors in new serialised roles.

5pm, Friday 25th January 2013, repeated 8am, Tuesday 29th January, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Panel Borders: Around the country with Constantine

In the third of our trilogy of shows looking at the 25th anniversary of John Constantine: Hellblazer, Alex Fitch talks to creators of the comic book from opposite ends of the UK. Scots novelist and playwright Denise Mina discusses her year long tenure as writer of the title from 2006-07 and remembers the challenges of penning her first comic book scripts; Brighton based artist Warren Pleece talks about pencilling and inking 9 issues of the comic in 1997 and '98, plus collaborating with Philip Bond for SF spin-off Bad Blood at the turn of the century.

6pm, Sunday 27th January, repeated at 4.30pm, Tuesday 29th January, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Radio show on 25 years of Hellblazer featuring Delano, Diggle, Lloyd and Milligan

Panel Borders - 25 years of John Constantine: Hellblazer

Panel Borders returns after the Christmas break for a new series in an earlier slot on Sunday evenings. Starting a series of shows about the 25th anniversary of the occult detective John Constantine's first appearance in his own solo comic book, Alex Fitch talks to writers Jamie Delano, Andy Diggle and Peter Milligan, and artist David Lloyd, about creating issues of Hellblazer from its first issue to the present day. 

Jamie and David discuss the early days of the comic, launched as a spin off from Alan Moore's acclaimed run on Swamp Thing while Andy and Peter talk about bringing the character into the 21st Century.

(Recorded in front of a live audience at SCI-FI-LONDON, Apollo Piccadilly Cinema, April 2011)

6pm, Sunday 13th January 2013, repeated at 4.30pm, Tuesday 15th January, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Hellblazing! 25 Years of John Constantine

Hellblazer writer Jamie Delano will be making a rare public appearance in the UK this weekend at in London.

For those who don't already know, John Constantine: Hellblazer, published by DC Comics, centres on a magus who investigates occult crimes, hauntings and disasters. Originally a secondary character introduced during Alan Moore's revolutionary Swamp Thing run, Delano was the title's original writer, chosen by Alan to continue John's adventures, and established the character in his own right, fleshing out what had been, in Moore's hands, a more shadowy, wisecracking sort of figure.

It was also Delano who set the character firmly in London, Moore (and, later, Rick Veitch) preferring to present him travelling virtually anywhere at will. Delano's Constantine is very much flesh and blood, never using magic when a con will do, frequently drunk, down and out, and haunted by his accidental condemning of a little girl named Astra to hell.

Joining Jamie on stage are artist David Lloyd, who contributed to the comic and illustrated the Constantine graphic novel, The Horrorist; and two of the most recent contributors, Andy Diggle and Peter Milligan.

"As far as I know this is Jamie Delano's first appearance at a British comics festival in many years," says event organiser Alex Fitch, "and apart from a last minute addition to the Kapow! line-up, the first that Peter Milligan has done in a long time also. No-one else has put both of them and David Lloyd and Andy Diggle on the same panel."

The discussion will be followed by a screening of the film adaptation of the comic, Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves.

The event is just part of Comics@Sci-Fi London, curated by Alex Fitch from Panel Borders, the UK’s only radio show about comics, celebrating British comic creators from the last 30 years in The Blue Room at BFI Southbank, which includes appearances by creators such as Lee O'Connor, Ian Edginton, Al Davison, Tom Humberstone and many more.


• 25 Years of John Contstantine is at 5.00pm on Saturday 23rd April at the BFI. Full event details here and tickets on sale here:

BFI Comics@SciFi London Weekend:
• Day One details: www.sci-fi-london.com/festival/2011/programme/event/comics-sci-fi-london-day-one
• Day Two details: www.sci-fi-london.com/festival/2011/programme/event/comics-sci-fi-london-day-two

• Jamie Delano's official web site: www.jamiedelano.co.uk

Ian Rankin's Comics Debut

International bestselling crime writer and recipient of an OBE for his services to literature, acclaimed Scottish author Ian Rankin makes his comics debut with the tense and twisting tale inspired by reality TV, Dark Entries - on sale from Titan Books in the UK from 2nd October.

Finding the perfect protagonist for his dark and gritty style, Rankin takes on comics’ grim antihero of the hugely popular Hellblazer series, occult detective John Constantine.

Constantine has seen his share of strange things in his career, but nothing could prepare him for the horrors of... reality television! Haunted Mansion is currently the hottest show on TV, but when the macabre house actually starts attacking the contestants, Constantine is hired to be the ultimate mole. Locked inside with a cast of wannabe-celebrities, his every move being monitored by a deadly figure from his past, Constantine must figure out who (or what) is pulling the strings before he gets cancelled – permanently.

Illustrated by Werther Dell’Edera, whose work Publishers Weekly calls "as stylized and chiaroscuro-laden as a vintage noir movie," Rankin takes a classic "locked room" scenario and gives it a bloody nose and a cigarette, keeping readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.