Yes, you read that right. Creator Ian Sharman has published a link to illegally download his work.
"Shocking,
eh?" challenges Ian, Managing Editor of Orang Utan comics, on his tumblr. "But, hey, you have Google, you could find it anyway, if you really
wanted. And if it persuades just one of you to pre-order the new book
then I think it’ll be more than worth it. And, hey, maybe some of you
will love it so much you’ll want to own a copy."
So, once you’ve read the first book, how can you pre-order the new book?
Well, you have until 18th May to pre-order Hero: 9 to 5 - Quietus from your local comic shop.
If you want a copy then please don’t just assume your retailer will
order it in and you’ll just be able to pick it up when you see it on the
shelf in July, because odds are that you probably won’t. If you want
it, pre-order it.
To aid you in this, here’s a handy form that you can print out
and take along to your local comic shop. It includes all the details
that they need to order the book for you. It’s as easy as that.
Alternatively, order it from your regular online retailer, such as:
In a panel discussion recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON, the London International festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, guest presenter Matt Badham talks to comic creators David Hine, Al Davison, Tom Humberstone and Tony Lee about starting their careers in independent comics and how that influenced their style and choices when breaking into the 'mainstream' industry. (Edited by Alex Fitch)
• 8.30am, Monday 22nd April, repeated 3pm, Thursday 25th April, Resonance 104.4 FM / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after first broadcast at panelborders.wordpress.com
• Last week's episode featuring interview with Louis Roskosch about The Adventures of Leeroy and Popo, and Matt Fitch and Mark Lewis about Frogman is available online now.
A new title highlighting British comics talent is currently in pre-production, and set to launch later this year.
Announced last November, the British Showcase Comic from Markosia, dedicated to promoting
the best indie British Talent working in Comics and Graphic Novels, will launch in Cardiff in October
The line up will include the work by creators such as Cy Dethan, Amrit Birdi, Graeme Howard, Russ Leach, Peter Mason, Cheuk Po,Pete Rogers, Matthew Soffe and Nic Wilkinson.
We can no longer protect you. Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours is coming... and the creative tram is now accepting pre-orders for the book before its official launch in November.
If you order now, you're also in with a chance to win a framed piece of art by the book's artist, Graeme Howard.
Set six months after the events of the indie comics horror hit Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth, Vince Morley is
a dangerously sick man. Bugf**k is in a psychiatric hospital, sticky fingers
picking through the darkest corners of the mind that brought Cancertown into
existence. The crossing points between Morley’s two realities are wearing thin
and all the rules are changing.
Within Cancertown, something new has appeared – a creature of horrific violence
and limitless rage. The foundations are shaking and the old powers are falling,
one by one. Papercut, deadliest of the Cancertown players, seeks out Morley to
claim the favour he owes her – a favour that could cost him more than just his
life.
Written by Cy Dethan, with pencils by Graeme Howard, colour by Peter Mason and lettered by Nic Wilkinson, Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours is set for a November 2012 from Markosia - so get one ordered now before it gets drowned in the latest Marvel/DC crossover melee and never makes it to your local comic shop.
In May 2009, an unknown team unleashed their first creator-owned
work, Cancertown, on an unsuspecting world. As the scrappy indie outsider flew
off the stands at Bristol Con at its astounding launch weekend, it earned high praise from the likes of comic book
legend Bryan Talbot and others, including myself.
Suitably encouraged, Cy and company are now back with a second helping of Cancertown and if the art they've shown off on their blog and via MyEBook is anything to go by, this sequel is even more disturbing but enthralling as the first, and it's likely to be a smash hit when it launches at the Thought Bubble
Sequential Arts Festival in Leeds in November.
The Cancer Cell has grown and mutated to include the talents
of Graeme (Dick Turpin and the Crimson Plague) Howard on pencils and amazing
new discovery Peter Mason on colours.
The book is the focus of a Pre-order Offer prior to its Thought Bubble debut:
£12 Cancertown 2 (prepaid, pre-order
for posting or collection)
£15 Cancertown 2 (buy from the table
at Thought Bubble Launch)
£20 Cancertown 1 and 2 (pre-order or from the table for posting or
collection)
Everybody who pre-orders will be entered into a draw to win a framed original
sketch of the Cancertown characters by Graeme Howard.
Every pre-order will also have a DVD containing the following:
Scripts for all six chapters
Script for a previously unseen Crosshair origin
short story
Cover concepts
Full chapter in inks Full chapter in colours
Postage:
£2.50 UK, £4.00 Rest of World. Payment
must be received for pre-orders by 1st November 2012 to qualify for pre-order
price, competition and extras DVD. Normal cover price of the book is £16.99 (180 pages, colour). You can pay by cheque or Paypal.
Stref', who is also known as Stephen White, has a diverse amount of work to his credit with strips in The Beano and The Dandy, his hardback anthology Milk and the violent X. Raising Amy, published by Markosia, is a collection of humorous newspaper strip cartoons featuring an out-of-control youngster.
Amy strains the nerves of her long suffering mother and father who only get a rest when they can persuade, cajole or over-pay baby-sitter Flower to give them the night off, while Flower in turn has to cope with the unwanted attentions of Dick who wants to be her boyfriend but, in reality, is effectively her stalker. As for what happens in the house, well Amy's toys aren't safe from her attentions, she manages to bring zoo animals home as pets, nothing seems to prevent her accessing her father's tool box for all sorts of nefarious schemes and, perhaps worst of all, she has developed a taste for earth worms - live earth worms.
Stref's previous work, X, definitely put the graphic into graphic novel and Raising Amy couldn't be more different - unless you happen to love cuddly toys which, as the cover suggests, take a lot of abuse from this precocious child.
There are 250 colour cartoon strips in the book which begin by breaking the reader in gently to what is going on in Amy's home with single strips telling each incident before moving on to themed sets telling of longer on-going events. Stref' also manages to show his taste in cinema with strips featuring references to films such as The Shining, The Godfather, The Wicker Man and Psycho.
Perhaps though my favourite strips are those in which Amy talks to her artist, telling him off and even threatening him enough for him to take his revenge. Indeed some of these strips even have the artist's hand and pen included Beano-style and, inevitably, even he has problems controlling her. These hypertextual moments raise the book beyond the norm as Stref' plays with the format of Amy's world for his, and our, entertainment.
With Raising Amy Stref' has created a glossy, colourful and delightfully enjoyable Minnie The Minx for the 21st century.
• There are more details, preview strips and ordering information on Raising Amy on the Markosia website.
• There are more details of the book on the Raising AmyFacebook page.
• Stref'/Stephen White will be at the Glasgow Comic Con on Saturday 30 June and Sunday 1 July where he will have copies of Raising Amy, along with X and Milk+, for sale.
On sale at the London SuperCon next weekend is The Chili, a new trade paperback from UK indie publisher Markosia, featuring the talents of ace British creator Nigel Dobbyn as colourist.
Created by Christian Rodríguez, like many comic book fans, young
Mike Alvarez dreams of one day drawing his favourite heroes and working
with legends like Stan “The Man” Lee. Those dreams change rapidly when
Mike accidentally illustrates the blank pages of a magical compendium,
thus transforming him into the mighty Chili!
Join Mike,
his sidekick Skip and the most bizarre villains you’ve ever
encountered, as our unlikely hero fights for all of humanity against the
diabolical Taco Bravo!
This mix of comedy and action will dare you to ask: Do you believe in comics?
• The Chili written by: Christian Rodríguez and Chris Campanozzi - Art by: Marcelo Salaza - Inks: Kal J. Moon - Colours/Letters: Nigel Dobbyn - Cover artist: Marcelo Salaza 96 pages - Full Colour - £10.99 ISBN: 978-1-905692-72-9
"She’s armed, she’s dangerous, and she’s a proper Scottish ginger nutcase! Just be thankful she’s not yours!" is how Markosia describe Stref's child character Amy who is about to appear in her first book Raising Amy: Born To Be Wild!
To help promote the release of the book by Markosia in December 2011, Stref (or Stephen White to his friends) will be signing and sketching at the book's launch in the Blackwell's book shop on Edinburgh's South Bridge, just up from the Forbidden Planet International shop, on Tuesday 6 December 2011 beginning at 6pm and running for 1.5 hours.
Having previously worked on the Dandy and Beano, in Amy Stref has created a Minnie The Minx for the 21st century in a three panel format. The new book has 250 Raising Amy strips in its 100 pages featuring Amy, her long suffering Mum and Dad plus her babysitter Flower and her suitor/stalker (Love Sick) Dick. With Amy holding a chainsaw and the head of a decapitated teddy bear on the front cover this is definitely a book for the older readers of humour comics. There are more details of Raising Amy: Born To Be Wild! on the Markosia website.
There are more details of the book launch on the events's Facebook page.
There are more details of the shop and its location on the Blackwell's Edinburgh South Bridge shop's website.
Orang Utan Comics co-founder Peter Rogers’ first graphic novel The Interactives, hits shelves this August from Markosia Enterprises.
scallywag is a guru in the geek community, having developed a very loyal and active online following. When creatures from mythical fantasy fiction start to attack Britain, scallywag has to call on his friends and followers to help keep them at bay. But does having the cult of personality online mean you’ve got what it takes to be a true leader? And are five geeks really ready to take on hordes of angry dragons, elves, orcs, goblins and giants?
"For those missing Captain Britain And MI:13, don't fret," says Rob Williams (Ghost Rider, Low Life) of the new tale. "Your new favourite British superteam are here."
Rogers (Fame: Beckham, Eleventh Hour, FTL) is joined on The Interactives by two rising stars, artist Luciano Vecchio (Cartoon Network Action Pack, Cruel Things) and colourist Yel Zamor (Hero 9 to 5, Alpha Gods).
“Setting the book here in the UK was really liberating” Rogers said. “Knowing the locations so well meant I had more scope to up the ante turning all my wildest ideas and most interesting daydreams into a very modern fantasy adventure”.
“The public are obsessed with reality and the creatures from fantasy fiction fear extinction," says Orang Utan's Managing Editor Ian Sharman. "Dragons, giants, orcs, goblins and trolls one by one they’re all breaking through from The Realm to The Real. War is coming to Britain and only geek blogger scallywag and his online followers stand in their way. Let your imagination run wild and get ready for some inter action….”
The 100 page graphic novel includes superhero back-up strip Seniors, reuniting Rogers with long time collaborator and Eagle Award nominee Azim Akberali.
The first half of the fully painted superhero story appeared in critically acclaimed anthology title Eleventh Hour in 2008.
The foreword to The Interactives is written by Marvel and 2000AD writer Rob Williams.
- To order from your local comic shop, quote Diamond order code JUN11 0783 from the June Previews catalogue. Find out more, follow scallywag on twitter and read the first 15 pages at www.theinteractives.com
We don't always get the goods we bargain for in this sham old world! Arnold Taylor @ Bamforth Cards Ltd.
‘Marriage,’ as Elizabeth Taylor commented, ‘is a great institution’ - and she had more experience than most! As Prince William and Kate Middeleton prepare to tie the knot, London's Cartoon Museum is presenting a bouquet of barbed wit on the state of matrimony today and yesterday, with a new exhibition - Marriage à la Mode: Royals and Commoners in and out of Love.
The highs and - more often - the lows of marriage have provided a wealth of material for cartoonists over the last 250 years. The exhibition, which opens next week (Wednesday 23rd March) includes over 100 cartoons on many familiar themes: the hen-pecked husband, the all powerful mother-in-law, the irritating personal habits and the battles of the bedroom.
Since the 1960s, the divorce rate has climbed steadily and remarriage and ‘blended’ families have become more common. Royal marriages of the past have ranged from George, the Prince of Wales’s ‘illegal’ marriage to Mrs Fitzherbert in 1785 to Victoria’s idyllically happy marriage to Prince Albert. For almost 150 years cartoonists shied away from any hint of scandal and it was really only with the marriage of Charles and Diana in 1981 that the private lives of the royals became public once again. The ‘fairytale wedding’ excited unprecedented media interest, which lasted throughout the marriage, its intrigues and its dramatic demise.
When Kate Middleton weds their son William on 29 April 2011, she will become the first ‘commoner’ to marry a royal close to the throne since 1660. Their relationship has inspired a number of cartoons, including Markosia's forthcoming book Kate and William: A Very Public Love Story, a graphic telling of the couple’s modern-day romance (see our news story), which is also featured in the exhibition.
The show also includes Posy Simmonds’ telling observations on the complexities of marriages both modern and historical; Andy Capp and Flo’s ups and downs; comic postcards by Donald McGill and Arnold Taylor; William Hogarth’s revealing commentary Marriage A la Mode (1745), as well as cartoons by Steve Bell, Grizelda, Mel Calman, James Gillray, and over thirty other artists.
• Marriage à la Mode: Royals and Commoners in and out of Love Wednesday 23 March – 22 May 2011
The Cartoon Museum is open Tue – Sat, 10.30 – 17.30; Sun 12.00 – 17.30 Tel: 020 7580 8155
Markosia Enterprises have just announced their new graphic novel, Slaughterman’s Creed - a surreal London gangland thriller which combines the vicious intensity of British crime fiction with the structure and spirit of a Samurai revenge drama in a nightmarishly compelling urban fantasy.
The book re-unites writer Cy Dethan with artist Stephen Downey, the creators of the 2009 indie hit, Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth. Set in a world where an ethical knife-edge is all that separates hero from villain, the story combines a strong British crime aesthetic with mythological overtones and a distinctive noir edge.
“What you will find is a nasty, dark tale which cuts into the underbelly of gangland London," enthuses Laurence “The Punisher” Campbell in the album's foreword. "Think The Long Good Friday meets No Country For Old Men.
"... Cy Dethan pushes the boundaries. No, not pushes them - casually disregards them and walks right over them.”
Definitely not a book for the squeamish, as you'll gather from this free 12-page preview, the story centres on Sidney, a professional killer working for Big Lenny Addison, a London ganglord specialising in human trafficking. He is almost completely uneducated except in his family’s trade at which he is an unparalleled expert. When he's called upon to breach his code and bring a pregnant woman to slaughter, Sidney's world is changed forever. Betrayed by those he has served his whole life, the Slaughterman embarks on a bloody vendetta - determined to put Addison's entire monstrous empire to the blade.”
Described by writer Cy Dethan as “a story of the fall and rise of monsters”, the book is already carving a name a name for itself on the independent comic scene.
"My plan was to take my time and read Slaughterman’s Creed over a few days, but pretty much by page five I was in for the long haul and ended up reading the whole thing in a single sitting," says Barry Nugent of The Geek Syndicate, while over at Sci-Fi Pulse, it gave reviewer Wayne Hall a case of the night terrors - although, strangely, he seems to have enjoyed them. "If Mr. Dethan keeps delivering this kind of novel perspective on the world, I’ll have trouble sleeping at night, says Wayne. "... But I was gripped from the first page, so please keep it up!"
Slaughterman’s Creed is published by Markosia Enterprises and will launch on 14th May at the Bristol Comic and Small Press Expo, as part of the Markosia Madness event, which will include signing, sketching and facepainting.
A limited signed edition, costing £10 (RRP Price £12.99), is available to pre-order, which also includes entry into a draw to win a piece of original art by Stephen Downey and Vicky Stonebridge.
• Pre-order details can be found at Cy Dethan’s blog. The book can be ordered through the March edition of Diamond Previews in the usual way using order code MAR11 0811.
• Slaughterman’s Creed is also available digitally on the Sony Playstation Network with audio commentary by Cy Dethan, and will be available on Comixology and Graphic.ly, with other formats to follow.
Slaughterman's Creed - Credits
Writer: Cy Dethan
Pencils & colours chapters 1-2: Stephen Downey
Inks: Andy Brown
Colours: Vicky Stonebridge
Letters: Nic Wilkinson
Cover: Ryan Brown
Foreword: Laurence Campbell
(via ECBT2000AD and Cy Dethan): Markosia will be publishing Broadcast, The TV Doodles of Henry Flint later this year.
The book will contain about 100 pieces of all new artwork from Henry, best known for his work on 2000AD, Vertigo and Dark Horse, along with text and commentary co-written by Cy Dethan, author of Cancertown and just-launched Slaughterman’s Creed.
"It's Henry's personal work and will take a look at the stories behind the art, Henry's creative process, and, perhaps more scarily, explore the receiving equipment inside his head!" notes Cy.
"The book will be published by Markosia, and it's their first art book, but when Harry Markos heard about that the book was looking for a new publisher he leapt at it, being a big fan of Henry's work himself."
Posting a couple of examples of Henry's work on the Everything Comes Back to 2000AD blog, Rich Mcauliffe says " the scans I’ve posted here are doing the peices and their insane levels of detail no justice whatsover so I’m really looking forward to checking out these previews and of course the finished book."
• Broadcast, The TV Doodles of Henry Flint is due to be published in time for the 2011 Birmingham International Comic Expo but expect to see previews on the Markosia stand at this year's Bristol Con. Web: www.markosia.com
One of the upcoming titles from Markosia thrust into my eager paws over the past couple of months was The Indifference Engine, written by Cy Dethan (writer of Cancertown) with pencils by Robert Carey.
It's a great timeline-spanning four-part mini-series, centring on one Alan Blake, a distinctly ordinary 20-something suburban slacker responding to a strange job advertisement who finds himself in the middle of an inter-dimensional task force staffed entirely by superhuman alternate versions of himself.
Struggling to fit in, he uncovers a conspiracy that strikes at the very heart of the organisation – a conspiracy that only he can stop.
There's some good news for people intirgued by this premise, because the book has been bumped up Markosia Publications’ release schedule and has made its way to the Playstation Network Comic Store just in time for Christmas.
You might recall I enthused about this book a while back, and now you can find out about the title for yourselves, which should make Rob Carey very happy as this his first full length graphic novel.
Meanwhile, over on the PSN blog, Pauline Martyn, the Publishing Manager at PSN Digital Comics posted: “Cancertown was one of the highlights of our early offerings – a great series which steadily grew a loyal cult following during its time on the store."
“You’re going to be freaked out," enthuses publisher Harry Markos of the book. "I warned you, a while ago, that The Indifference Engine would blow your minds. Well, as promised, issue one is here to do just that..."
• Read a free preview of the first 14 pages over on the website along with a sneak peak at art from later episodes. • For those who don't have a PSP, look out for other formats next year - and there is already a sequel in the works!
Cy Dethan and Robert Carey's new project, The Indifference Engine, is set to be released soon by publishers Markosia. The team on the book have kindly sent us a review copy of this tightly-written multi-universe-spanning adventure tale -- and it's definitely a book to look out for if you're a fan of alternate timelines and other such SF themes.
Responding to a strangely specific job advertisement, Alan Blake, a distinctly ordinary 20-something suburban slacker finds himself in the middle of an inter-dimensional task force staffed entirely by superhuman alternate versions of himself. Struggling to fit in, he uncovers a conspiracy that strikes at the very heart of the organisation – a conspiracy that only he can stop.
Alan, by any credible standard, is a waste of good skin - a directionless and ambitionless slacker whose single most notable characteristic is that he makes other people feel good about themselves in comparison to him.
Alan considers himself a good listener, but it’s more complex than that. It’s almost like he absorbs other people’s problems and somehow unburdens them. If he weren’t such a loser, that one character trait alone could have made him immensely popular. Still, at least he serves a purpose of sorts. Whatever your own personal flaws or failings, hey – it could be worse. You could be Alan Blake.
Cy Dethan's script is superb on this book, with Robert Carey bringing what the team describe as "just the right combination of subtlety and power that the book needs in the art", with Mel Cook on colours and Nic Wilkinson on lettering.
Speaking at the British International Comic Show last weekend, Markosia's head honcho Harry Markos told the audience of a panel about British comics that he had some 60-plus books in development at present. The Indifference Engine looks set to be one to look out for.
Cancertown - one of the books published by now defunct publisher Insomnia - has found a new home with Markosia.
Written by Cy Dethan with art from Stephen Downey, with colour by Melanie Cook and lettering by Nic Wilkinson, Cancertown was well received on publication (downthetubes enthused about it here). It had a very successful launch weekend at the 2009 Bristol Comic Expo; a the string of bookshop signings followed and earned consistent top-ten status on the PSP download charts.
"Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth was always a book with a much higher profile than we had any right to expect," notes Cy Dethan in a recent blog post. With the echoes of the apocalyptic Insomnia Incident still ringing in our ears, the Cancer Cell (that is, Nic, Stephen, Mel and I) started trying to work out precisely where the book now stood. It was at this point that Markosia stepped in and saved the day once again.
"Right from my first steps in comics, Markosia has been nothing but good luck for me," Cy enthuses, "so when Harry Markos signed Cancertown up it was a significant, even hazardous amount of joy to dump on me all at once. Right now we're looking at getting the book back up on the PSP store as soon as possible, with other formats to follow."
• The Cancertown team will be at the British International Comic Show next weekend - catch them there to find out about the plans for the future
British publisher Markosia's new comic Hero 9-5, written by Ian Sharman with art from David Gray focuses on a world where being a super hero is just another job.
A world where only the rich can afford the comprehensive hero protection policies that ensure that the best heroes will come to their aid in an emergency. The poor, however, have to make-do with protection from government sponsored agencies with limited resources whose staff are…shall we say… a little less heroic.
Jacob Reilly, aka Flame-O, is just one such hero, an everyday guy who just happens to be able to shoot flames from his hands. He didn’t want to be a super hero, he wanted to be a musician, but he wasn’t good enough to make a living at it. So he ended up getting a job at “Heroes For Zeros,” a government sponsored hero agency. So, Jacob clocks on, works nine to five (unless he’s short on cash and does overtime or, worse, a night shift) and fights z-list villains for a pathetic pay cheque.
Despite being a super hero, Jacob has all the problems of regular folk – an irritating boss, bills to pay, professional jealousy, and also certain problems that are unique to his profession…like the fact that his girlfriend is also his alter-ego’s nemesis, Frostica (and she’s insanely jealous of his teenaged sidekick, Pink Girl).
Written by Ian Sharman (Alpha Gods, Eleventh Hour) with art by David Gray and colours by Yel Zamor, Hero 9-5 offers a fresh, funny take on the idea of real world super heroes.
Ian is perhaps best known as Managing Editor of Orang Utan Comics, and the writer of Alpha Gods and has been working professionally in comics for several years now. His professional inking credits include the Contraband OGN from Slave Labour; work on the Eagle Award nominated antholgy Eleventh Hour from Orang Utan Comics Studio and AAM/Markosia; and work on Marvel's UK comics, Spectacular Spider-Man and Marvel Heroes, published by Panini.
• Available in the UK via specialist comic shops, you can find it in Diamond's August Previews catalogue under publisher AAM/Markosia, where the Diamond order code is - AUG10 0726
• All of Markosia's publications are or will be available from their Markosia Store. You can purchase everything that the company has released, including special editions, signed copies, variants, and merchandise.
This month Britain's Comic Book Alliance will be joining with the 'Support Our Soldiers' charity to send thousands of comic books and graphic novels to troops stationed around the world and many miles from home.
The CBA spoke to troops before Christmas and were told that one of the biggest problems facing service personnel was boredom when they are not deployed in the field. Comic books have always been a favourite with the troops because they are light, entertaining; easy to carry, share and read.
Passing on that information on to its members, the CBA were instantly inundated with offers from publishers and retailers wishing to help. "There were so many offers that it was impossible to arrange for shipments before Christmas," says CBA spokesperson and co-founder GM Jordan. "Plus, the CBA simply did not have the expertise to send out the parcels themselves.
"Thankfully the problem was solved when Support Our Soldiers, who have been sending goodwill parcels to members of the armed forces since 2003, agreed to take the donations to ensure they reached the people who needed them the most.'
With the S.O.S partnership in place there was a further complication: the donors were spread out across the UK. The comics needed to be collected and then delivered to a central point for distribution and with time running out; it looked like they were in danger of failing to meet their March deadline.
Luckily the Post Office was at hand and, thanks to their logistical skills, they were able to collect all the donations into a central depot in the South East before shipping them north to be delivered to S.O.S.
"We owe a great deal of thanks to the Post Office, when we explained the difficulties facing us the managers and staff understood the difficulties involved and found the right solution to help us. Without the Post Office we would have been in serious trouble," GM Jordan explained.
The CBA is especially grateful to help from independent comics publisher Markosia Enterprises and comics retail chain Forbidden Planet, who were amongst the first to pledge their support and been a great supporters of the CBA.
Titles distributed to the troops include Markosia's King Kong of Skull Island, Starship Troopers, Harker and the critically acclaimed Hope Falls by Tony Lee.
“Thank you for doing a great job on our behalf and we wish you well” said Harry Markos, head of Markosia, before adding, "If our small token goes any way towards cheering up the troops then we are all very happy."
The CBA was founded in 2009 to represent the comic book industry in the UK, working with retailers, publishers, creators, educators and fans to ensure a bright future for the industry.
(Before any hardcore fans of this blog get hugely excited, we should point out that Freeman is the name of one of the books due soon from Markosia, not the name of one of its creators...)
March will see the introduction of two new original Graphic Novels from publisher AAM/Markosia, following hot on the heels of recent successes From the Pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Harker, Serpent Wars and Kong: King of Skull Island.
The Dark, written and created by Chris Lynch with art by Rick Lundeen, is a super-hero sci-fi thriller that challenges the reader’s very perceptions of reality versus fiction. It's the story of Daniel Abbot, a brilliant young scientist on the fringes of the establishment and the creator of Memetech - a technology that encodes information and memories into a liquid form, allowing anyone to literally "drink" the encoded knowledge.
Terrified that his invention will be used for military purposes he decides to destroy his research, but not before he takes one last trip... with disastrous results.
Two years on and the genie is out of the bottle. Abbot, having perfected his own version of the technology, fights a one-man war against the spread of his own invention and the collapse of our information culture in the guise of ‘The Dark’.
“We've hidden lots of coded messages throughout the book,” explains Lynch, “Both in the dialogue and in the artwork. From the symbol on The Dark's chest to adverts in the background, everything is there for a reason. Hopefully people will get a kick out of trying to solve the mystery, or at least from looking back after they've read the book for the first time to find all the clues they missed.
"Either way, we wanted to create something with enough depth to bring people back to re-read the story time and again.”
Also shipping in the same month is Freeman of the Armed Services, written and drawn by industry veteran Huw-J. Freeman is a true archetypal British hero of old, a cross between James Bond, Doc Savage and Captain Britain without the spandex, from the artist perhaps best known for re-iventing Garth for the Mirror newspaper - to mixed reviews.
This new book is packed with action and adventure throughout as Freeman takes readers back to the good old days, where the spirit of adventure and good old-fashioned action reigned supreme. You join Captain Freeman in his search of a mysterious Viking treasure in the frozen north (a re-working of the Garth story published online by the Mirror) and battling an evil Chinese drug lord alongside Irish gangs in prohibitionist era New York, in a non-stop action-packed adventure akin to the old Saturday morning pulp shows.
“When I decided to take the successful Garth strip down from the Mirror website it was with both sadness and excitement,” explains Huw-J. "Re-branding the character as 'Freeman' was easy as I wanted the character to be 'a homage' to all the creators who went before me, so buckle up and enjoy the ride!”
• Here's the trailer for Chris Lynch's new cyberpunk/superhero comic The Dark, which is being published by Markosia (see news story on the downthetubes mobile blog). Written by Chris and with art by Rick Lundeen, it will be released later this month as an iTunes application and as an original graphic novel.
• There will be full reviews later, but just to say that having received review copies of Bryan Talbot's Grandeville (due in October) and Posy Simmonds' Tamara Drewe (out now in paperback) last Friday, I couldn't have wanted for better weekend reading material. Those eagerly awaiting Bryan's Nutwood-meets-Quention-Tarrantino romp will not be disappointed!• Comics artist and Concept Artist Lee Carter has been plugging Com.X superhero project in a video interview for CG Artist Daily. View the full interview here.
Responsible for the death of millions, the mysterious 'Tegel Project' threatens the very core of civilisation. Betrayed by MI5, the Fat Man finds himself caught between the blazing guns of would-be assassins and the blood-red lips of silent movie star Louise Brooks.
Unable to trust anyone and faced with a series of unpalatable choices, he careers madly along the arch of time on the seemingly impossible mission of keeping himself and his lover alive...
• London's Orbital Comics is to host an exhibition of portrait photographs by fab designer Steve Cook next month, featuring behind the scenes photographs of comics creators from the early days of Marvel UK to 2000AD and beyond. Witness Mark Millar driving a tank; Peter Milligan as Lawrence of Arabia and see what happened when Grant Morrison posed for a photograph at Land's End in Cornwall, during the Solar Eclipse of 1999. More info here on Facebook or check out the Orbital Comics web site
• Insomnia Publications has just revealed the foreword of the upcoming graphic novel Burke and Hare by Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering has been penned by comic supremo Alan Grant. Alan's enthused by the book, saying "there’s a moment in life that I savour: that delicious, perplexing instant when you realise that something you’ve ‘known’ for years is actually a crock of nonsense. Like discovering there’s no Santa Claus. Or realising your parents can’t read your mind when you think about sex. The Universe ripples like Predator shimmying through the jungle…and when it rights itself, reality has taken on a slightly different hue.
• Congratulations to former 2000AD editor and flat mate David Bishop, who has script, The Woman Who Screamed Butterflies, is through to the semi-finals of the 2009 Page International Screenwriting Awards. "That sounds more impressive than it is, since there are 25 semi-finalists in ten different categories, chosen from nearly 4400 entries in total," he says, modestly. "I'm in Short Film, a section I won two years ago for my animation project Danny's Toys." Finalist will be announced on 1st September, the winners a month later. Best of luck to him.
• A quick reminder that Antony Johnson's Skeleton Key, the third Alex Rider graphic novel, is out next month (7th September) in the UK. As with the previous books in the series, the 176 page adventure is ably illustrated by sisters Kanako and Yuzuru. "If events follow past form, readers in the US should be able to get hold of an edition a few months afterward," says Antony.
• Writer Cy Dethan has posted some pages from his current project, Harlan Falk, on his blog. "Most of the activity taking place below the waterline and several key things I'm not allowed to talk about yet. Scott James's work on this book has been phenomenal, and Jason Millet's colours are consistently amazing." In addition to the previews on Cy's site, you can check out the cover to Falk on Scott's blog here.
• Cinebooks, the UK publisher of English language editions of various bande dessines collections and more, has several titles out now which may be of interest to downthetubes readers, including Volume 2 of Orbital. (The first volume was published back in May).
In the story, human Caleb and an alien, Mezoke, are paired up and trained as special agents to keep the intergalactic peace.This is a controversial and historic alliance given their races’ longstanding enmity, and a lot of people are watching them. Their first mission is to keep war from breaking out between humans and Javlodes on the planet Senestam.
• And finally... Orang Utan Comics has teamed up with DriveThru Comics to offer all of their new titles in a digital format. The UK indie's new anthology, FTL #1 and the Alpha Gods OGN are now both available to download in PDF format from the popular digital comics site. Orang also report their next release on DriveThru will be FTL #2 which will be simultaneously available in print format via IndyPlanet and in digital format via DriveThru.
"This is a really exciting time for comic books and we intend to continue to explore new ways of delivering our comics to readers," says the company. "We will have many exciting announcements about new digital comics projects in the near future, including our first big step into the world of comics for mobile devices."
British indie publisher Markosia Enterprises have teamed up with Chris Lynch (Monkeys with Machineguns, Photonic Graffiti) and Rick Lundeen (100 Covers, Epoch) to publish The Dark -- a four-issue, cyberpunk-styled comic series.
With nods toward the novels of authors such as Neal Stephenson and William Gibson, and films such as The Matrix, The Dark is the story of Daniel Abbot, a brilliant young scientist on the fringes of the establishment and the creator of Memetech - a technology that encodes information and memories into a liquid form, allowing anyone to “drink” the information. Terrified that his invention will be used for military purposes he decides to destroy his research, but not before he takes one last trip... with disastrous results.
Two years on, and the Memetech genie is out of the bottle. Abbot, having perfected his own version of the technology, fights a one-man war against the spread of his own invention and the collapse of our information culture in the guise of “The Dark”. Aided by an artificial intelligence nicknamed Howard Hughes, Abbott creates “The Baffler” – a coat made of Memetech that gives his the edge over his enemies. Capable of injecting information directly into this brain and firing Memetech flechettes to hit others with bursts of pure information, The Baffler is both weapon and disguise in Daniel Abbot's war against his own creation.
When The Dark uncovers a plot to set off Memetech bombs across the whole of the city Dante, filling the air with liquid information and creating a new society of his enemy's devising, he's plunged into a desperate race against time. But, not everything is what is seems. Who is the new and mysterious enemy who seems to know The Dark's every move? How did the Memetech, thought destroyed, reappear? Why can't Daniel wake his wife and son? And why is everyone in Dante named after an English poet?
Markosia kindly sent us an advance copy of the first issue and we're pleased to report it's some of Chris Lynch's best work to date, complemented by some suitably moody art from Lundeen. The story is complex but well realized, with plenty to get you thinking and wondering just what will happen next.
"I've been a big fan of Chris Lynch for a while now," says publisher Harry Markos on securing the property for Markosia, "and asked him to pitch a couple of new projects that we could look at for the digital market, with a view to releasing it as a graphic novel later.
"He's come up trumps with The Dark. Coupled with Rick’s fantastically atmospheric art, Chris’s story takes you to a very believable but disturbing world, not unlike the one we are living in at the moment! I am confident that we have a hit in the making."
• The first issue of The Dark will be released in August of this year as a digital comic book, via iTunes, with three more issues in the pipeline. A graphic novel is planned for later in the year. There's a free 8-page preview at www.thedarkcomicbook.com
In addition to publication of Ex Astris on ROK Comics and Clickwheel.net, a web version Ex: Astris Homecoming, a 10-page strip which first appeared in the British comic in Bulletproof Comics #2, is now available via myebook. Click on the image on the right to view the comic or follow this link.
This standalone story, written by John Freeman and drawn by Mike Nicoll, links with the strips published on ROK Comics and Clickwheel.net.
Included in this myebook is a one page article with some background on the origins of the strip, recently commissioned for an ongoing run in Spaceship Away for 2010.
myebook aims to revolutionise the way you can create, publish and share ebook content online. Built on a feature-rich social platform, complete with free-to-use powerful, browser-based, builder software, and a slick reader environment, it's an easy way for anyone and everyone to 'get it out there', and several independent publishers are using the platform to promote their projects. You'll find books such as new Garth by Huw-J, The Fat Man by Thomas Cochrane, previews of Marksoia titles, and comics from Orang Utan Comics, Insomnia Publications, Unico Comics and many others.
If you want to read Ex Astris: Homecoming in print, then head over to the Bulletproof web site and order a copy of #2, an 80-page anthology which also features strips such as Slumbertown by Rik Hoskin & Thomas Crielly, Simba Khan by Paul Birch & Jon Haward, Love Hurts by David Hailwood & Stuart Giddings, Sideburns by Jim Alexander & Jon Haward and Redstitch by Lee Langford & Klaus Belarski.
Panel Borders: From small press to mainstream
(Before any hardcore fans of this blog get hugely excited, we should point out that Freeman is the name of one of the books due soon from Markosia, not the name of one of its creators...)
Also shipping in the same month is Freeman of the Armed Services, written and drawn by industry veteran Huw-J. Freeman is a true archetypal British hero of old, a cross between James Bond, Doc Savage and Captain Britain without the spandex, from the artist perhaps best known for re-iventing Garth for the Mirror newspaper - to mixed reviews.
• Part Nine of Thomas Cochrane's ongoing time-travelling graphic novel The Fat Man, drawn by veteran illustrator and designer Alan Tanner (whose credits include covers for Time Out and the infamous Oz magazine), is now online at 
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British indie publisher Markosia Enterprises have teamed up with Chris Lynch (Monkeys with Machineguns, Photonic Graffiti) and Rick Lundeen (100 Covers, Epoch) to publish The Dark -- a four-issue, cyberpunk-styled comic series. 
