Charting the Marvelman saga

Comics expert Pádraig Ó Méalóid has posted story about the complicated story of Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane's ongoing disputes, presented as a timeline, which you can see here.

"On the 27th January, Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane finally settled their long-running legal dispute over Gaiman's share of various Spawn properties," he explains. "And when I say ‘long-running,’ this is very nearly an enormous understatement.

"Although Gaiman and McFarlane’s first meeting in court was on the 1st October, 2002, nearly ten years ago now, the cause of their dispute goes back nearly ten years before that, with roots set in place some years before that, again. So, in an attempt to put it all into some sort of context, I’m listing what I see as the main points of their dispute, in chronological order, as exactly as I can, along with some earlier events, to put it all into context."

The ongoing debate continyues to intrigue comic fans across the globe: when Pádraig posted a link to the story on Facebook, where it got 'Shared' by Neil Gaiman's fan page, it caused his blog hit-counter to go ka-BLOOEY!

"I still go and look at where he [Neil] said 'Astonishingly well-researched timeline to the Miracleman and Spawn/McFarlane legal case...' and my inner fanboy does a little dance," he tells us.

The story also touches on the complex matter of Marvelman's ownership, a debate which is almost guaranteed to send make your eyes bleed in confusion.

• View the post at: http://slovobooks.blogspot.com/2012/03/neil-gaiman-and-todd-mcfarlane-story-so.html.

The Strange Attractions of Alan Moore

(with thanks to Pádraig Ó Méalóid): The most recent issue of Strange Attractor Journal contains, amongst much else, the text for Alan Moore's unfinished John Dee opera, focusing on the life of the well known English mage, which he was originally meant to be developing alongside Damon Albarn and Gorillaz, before they went their seperate ways on this.

"I believe that, besides the complete unfinished text for the opera - if you see what I mean - there are also notes on staging and other aspects of the project," Pádraig Ó Méalóid tells us.

"In some ways, the most fascinating of Alan's works are the unfinished ones, as the potential they represent will always be just outside our reach," feels Pádraig. "However, more information is coming about about some of these: for my own part, I was thrilled to be able to publish the pages from Big Numbers #3 online (here on Padraig's LiveJournal), and Gary Spencer Millidge's upcoming biography of Alan contains a copy of the legendary Big Numbers wall chart, so much that was once unknown will now be revealed.

"Alan also spoke to me recently about how Halo Jones would have finished up, and now we have this piece about his John Dee opera.

Who knows? The 1963 annual might be next. OK, maybe not..."

As well as its Alan Moore conetnt, the eagerly awaited fourth edition of the acclaimed anthology series, featuring nearly 20 new articles exploring the outer shores of culture, history and experience.

First appearing in 2004, Strange Attractor Journal has been described as "one of the most weirdly beautiful, beautifully weird magazines of the past hundred-odd years" (by the Independent on Sunday) and "what you get when poetic archaeologists of the imagination gather their finest jewels" (by Erik Davis).

• Strange Attractor Journal Four is edited by Mark Pilkington
320pp, A5 paperback, £14.99. ISBN 9780954805463
Available now from Strange Attractor Press, publishers of Medical London, Welcome to Mars and Austin Osman Spare.


• You can buy Strange Attractor Journal #4 via: http://strangeattractor.co.uk/books/strange-attractor-journal-four

• Read Big Numbers #3 on Padraig's LiveJournal 

Tube Surfing: Lunartik Toys, Lunatic Comiket and Divine Comedy!

• Matt JOnes has confirmed his new Lunartik Mini Teas figures will be Launching at the Forbidden Planet Mega Store on the 20th November (see news story). He'll be on hand to sign my new Lunartik Mini Teas and fill fans faces full of cake!

• A quick reminder that Frames of Mind: Comica Conversations with Brick and Darryl Cunningham takes place this Saturday (6th November) between 2.30-3.30pm in London. More info here.
Talking of ComICA, you may also be interested in Comics of the Living Dead: Comica Conversations with Charlie Adlard and Alex Fitch, later on Saturday (4.30-5.30pm). Tickets for both are £4 each bookable online - it's best to pre-book though, but some may also be available on the day on the door.

• Also this weekend is the Comica Comiket with the new Drawing Parade event featuring 10 artists drawing live before your very eyes on a giant plasma screen. Admission free, on Sunday 7th Novmber, 12-5.00pm at Royal National Hotel, Bloomsbury. Full details here on the ComICA site. Paul Gravett has posted a list of titles on sale at the event here on his web site

• Bloomsbury have just sent us a copy of the recently-released Dante’s Divine Comedy by Seymour Chwast. His fab book, which we'll review soon, is a wonderful retelling of Dante’s work, infused with humour, irony and satire, depicting the journey through the 100 cantos in Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Each page includes startling noir-ish graphics, as the dark allegorical tale is combined with one of the most striking visual art mediums of the twenty first century.

Bloomsbury also published Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou – a very successful book based on the life and work of Bertrand Russell – and they tells us they're hoping Dante’s Divine Comedy will have similar broad appeal.


One of the most influential artists of contemporary times, Seymour Chwast’s work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  He co-founded Push Pin studio in 1954, which became known for its playful representations of popular culture and which continues to flourish to this day. 

Chwast remains a hugely influential figure and a source of inspiration for many young artists. 

There's more information on the book on the Bloomsbury web site here and Push Pin’s website is found at www.pushpininc.com, which includes various details on the artist himself and his work.

• Fossil Angels was written by Alan Moore in December 2002, and was to appear in KAOS #15. KAOS #15 never actually appeared, and the piece has been without a home since then. Pádraig Ó Méalóid was lucky enough to be given a number of  the scripts by Alan himself a few years ago, and this was amongst them. He asked if he could publish it and, when another publication which it was slated to appear in folded, Alan told me I was free to go ahead: so here's the story, published in two parts here and here on Padraig's Glycon site – the first time it's ever been seen  anywhere.

Eddie Campbell Interviewed

The Forbidden Planet International blog has just published a smashing interview by Pádraig Ó Méalóid with Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Alec and much more), just as Top Shelf’s big Alec: the Years Have Pants collection is announced in Previews, due this autumn in both hard cover and paperback.

The interview covers 2009 Eisner Award nominee Eddie's career from his earliest, self published work to DC, Marvel, the First Second work, From Hell and some upcoming work like The Playwright.

Top Shelf's Alec: the Years Have Pants is a 640-page compendium which Eddie describes as "undoubtedly my single most important publication to date.

"It collects the work that has always been the principal strain of my oeuvre, and it allows me the opportunity to add a new ‘book’ to the set," he reveals. "The thing I enjoyed in seeing it all together was a sense of sweeping through time, of characters ageing, without that being a conscious plan, since after all I drew it all over a course of nearly thirty years."

The collection includes work such as 'The King Canute Crowd', 'Graffiti Kitchen', 'How to be an Artist' and the new book, The Years have Pants. There are also a couple of sections of short things and fragmentary works, appearing in their proper sequence.

• Read the interview here

• The Years Have Pants will be published by Top Shelf on 29 September in both hardcover and paperback. Buy it from amazon.co.uk

• If you want to keep up to date on what Eddie's up to, read his daily blog at: http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/

Image © Eddie Campbell

Major Alan Moore Interview Published

Alan Moore and interviewer Pádraig Ó Méalóid. Picture via Forbidden Planet International

The Forbidden Planet International blog - earlier this week announced as one of the Top 50 blogs in the UK and the only comics blog in the list - have been hinting at it for a while but the first part of Pádraig Ó Méalóid's new and "smegging huge" interview with top award-winning writer Alan Moore has just been published, with the following two parts due to appear in the next few days.

As you’d expect from Alan the subjects and references are many, from Threepenny Opera to Monty Python and the Clangers (and the especially nice thing is you just know he’ll attach as much importance to a Clangers reference as he would to a classical literary reference). This part also includes more background on Alan and Kevin O'Neill's latest book, Century: 1910, and some of his past music work. Will he perform again? Read the interview to find out.

When we say huge, we mean it by the way. "The interview ran to two hours long, all of which I then had to type up, with the exception of a very small personal piece that got left out," says Padraig. "The whole thing was 27 pages and nearly 15,000 words long." Not quite as long as one of Mr Moore's famous comic scripts, then.

• Read Part One of the Alan Moore Interview Here
• Find out more about FPI's Top 50 Ranking in the UK's Top Blogs

Alan Moore's Unpublished Big Numbers #3 Discovered on eBay

Comics collector Pádraig Ó Méalóid and documenter of Alan Moore's prestigious career has turned up a remarkable find -- art for Big Numbers #3 -- on eBay.

Big Numbers is an unfinished comic book series by Moore and artist Bill Sienkiewicz, described by Moore as a potential magnum opus. Two issues, of a planned 12, were published in 1990 by Moore's short-lived imprint Mad Love. However, the detail involved in the series was so intense that Sienkiewicz had problems keeping up the workload, and withdrew from the project after two issues, replaced by his assistant, the teenage Al Columbia. After working on the artwork for the next two issues, Columbia also withdrew from the series for reasons that remain unclear. Big Numbers #3 and #4 were never published, and the series remains unfinished to this day.

In January 2009 Padraig bought Issues 1 and 2 and a "Rare Unpublished Xerox Alan Moore" on eBay for the princely sum of $49.99, the lot described as "a set of black-and-white Xeroxes of the unpublished third issue of Big Numbers, with art by Al Columbia, Sinkiewicz's assistant, who had been scheduled to take over the project... This is a MUST for Moore fans."

"I decided that it was at least worth investigating, and bought the item," says Padraig. "If the worst came to the worst, I thought, it would at least be an interesting thing to have, whatever it turned out to be."

To his surprize the lot did indeed prove to be art for the unpublished third issue, whose script has been part of the 4ColorHeroes archive for some time. He's now posted the work in full on his livejournal, together more background to the find.

"Everything I know leads me to believe that this is a copy of the unpublished third issue of Big Numbers, and I genuinely didn't believe it existed, and certainly never expected to actually see a copy, led alone own one," he says. "Even Alan Moore doesn't have a copy, to the very best of my knowledge, which in this case is considerable, as I decided to specifically ask his permission before I posted this here. He is happy for it to be made available to the world, so here it is."

• Read Big Numbers #3 on Padraig's LiveJournal