Tube Surfing: Kapow Comic convention, War Comix and Mag, Scientist

Kapow! Comic Con Trailer from kapowcomiccon on Vimeo

• Mark Millar has announced a new London-based comics convention, Kapow (9-10th April 2011) which will host the first Stan Lee Awards ceremony (see Newsarama and Bleeding Cool for more news). The guest line up includes John Romita Jr., Andy Diggle, Jock, Steve Dillon, Duncan Fegredo, David Hine, Simon Furman, John McCrea and Kieron Gillen, plus Frank Quitely, Lenil Francis Yu and Dave Gibbons.
If you buy your ticket before 31st December 2010 you'll be entered into a prize draw for your name and likeness to appear in an issue of Kick-Ass 2. More information at: www.kapowcomiccon.com

• Along with titles such as Luke Pearson's beautiful-looking story Hildafolk, London-based publishers NoBrow recently released A Graphic Cosmogony for sale online, and it's now on sale in all good book shops. Paul Gravett, organiser of Comica festival describes it as "their most ambitious publication yet, the story of creation retold by 24 international artists."
Contributing artists include Brecht Vandenbroucke, Ben Newman, Jon McNaught, Stuart Kolakovic, Mike Bertino, Mikkel Sommers, Jack Teagle, Andrew Rae and many others. More info here

•  As part of ongoing promotion for his War Comix project, Sean Duffield sent us this fun Rom Spaceknight cartoon. We suspect there's a tip of the hats to the latest Wikileaks revelations, too...

• Ace artist Rian Hughes has been interviewed by Comic Book Resources about the US edition of Yesterday's Tomorrows, which is being published by Image Comics in December. The collection includes his and Grant Morrision's take on Dan Dare, published in Revolver and Crisis in the 1980s.
"Grant plays on this nostalgia for a simpler, less politically complicated age," Hughes says of the story he and Morrison strove to tell with Dare, "while mirroring the fate of his original creator, Frank Hampson, who lost control of the copyright and made very little money from the merchandising success of the property, living in reduced circumstances in later life. A sad story."

• Lancaster comics artist David Hughes (no relation to the above) has written a computer game for the Sinclair Spectrum (no, really, the Sinclair Spectrum - I had no idea it was still being used!) based around his Norman character on his blog, details can be found at www.stonechatproductions.blogspot.com on how to play.  "It's linked to comics in that there is a prize for the first person to complete it before Christmas will get a selection of my comics," says David. Reader will recall David's book Thomas Wogan is Dead has been released for iPad by Tabella so he's no stranger to eComics.

• A unique Ron Embleton painting of actor David McCallum as Man from U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin has been relisted on eBay after it failed to meet its £250 reserve on first offering. As we previously reported, the painting was a prize offered in Lady Penelope comic in the 1960s. View the auction here

• Ace cartoonist Malcolm Kirk recently launched a new web comic, Mag, Scientist, which he tells us he hopes to update at least once a week on his blog. Check out the first episode here

• Fans of free gifts given away with British comics are sure to enjoy Lew Stringer's three-part series of articles about such items on his blog (Part 1 here). Lew traces the giveaways back to the 1930s, noting that many were more refined than the cheap plastic toys given away today.

• And finally... the winner of our recent Grandville Mon Amour competition is Michael Charlton from Lancaster, England. We asked you who was the right wing French Prime Minister in Bryan Talbot's Grandville? The answer is Jean-Marie Lapin. Congratulations to Michael - the book is on its way. Read our review of Grandville Mon Amour here

Unique Ron Embleton Man from U.N.C.L.E. art offered on eBay

Illya in Oils by Ron Embleton

A one off oil painting by much-admired TV Century 21 and Wulf the Briton comics artist Ron Embleton of David McCallum as Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s Illya Kuryakin is currently being offered on eBay.

The Complete Gerry Anderson Comics history site, sourcing information from a 1966 issue of Retail Newsagent, notes the art was specially commissioned for a competition for TV Century 21's sister comic Lady Penelope, and was won by 10-year-old Lynda Barlow of Woolton, Liverpool (below).

Competition winner
Lynda Barlow

The competition, which ran in Issue 7 of the best-selling comic in March 1966, challenged readers to match the mood of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. star with six photographs of him from the smash hit spy show.

Ron Embleton, who died in 1988, was not the regular artist on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. strip in the comic and is perhaps better known for strips such as Stingray (for TV Century 21) and Wicked Wanda (for Penthouse). His much-admired strip work also featured in titles such as Express Weekly,  Princess, Boy's World and Look and Learn.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. strip was drawn by Juan González Alacreu, an artist now better known for his fine art, who Bear Alley notes also worked on The Avengers for the girls comic Diana and many war library titles.

The Lady Penelope comic itself was a hugely successful title, less reliant on stories set in the future with lead character Lady Penelope more of an "action person" than she had been in her TV Century 21 strips, according to editor Gillian Allan, to make the stories more geared to her, and more interesting. "She was the heroine of the magazine, after all."

Other strips in the comic during its run included The Monkees, Daktari, Marina, Girl from the Sea and Bewitched.

The competition was part of ongoing promotions by publisher City Magazines to promote the comic, along with the publisher's other titles, and serves to illustrates how much effort was put into ensuring continued high sales. That hard work paid off: even in 1968, two years after the title launch, records show the comic was selling 315,662 copies a week.

• The auction closes on 22nd November 2010.

• View the item on eBay (£250 reserve)

• The story Lady Penelope comic on the Complete Gerry Anderson Comic History

• Lady Penelope comic: Wikipedia Entry


• The Man from U.N.C.L.E. art by Juan González Alacreu on Peter Rice's Art Gallery

• Art by Juan González Alacreu