Amanda Swan: The Hellfire Legacy From Rough Cut Comics

Glasgow based Rough Cut Comics have impressed before with their vampiric Rose Black and Rose Black: Demon Seed graphic novels. As part of the publicity for Rose Black, the company used British model Amanda Swan to portray the character of Rose but they soon realised that there was the possibility of basing a comic around the model herself. Amanda Swan: The Hellfire Legacy re-imagines her as a reality show IT girl by day and a leather-clad motorbike riding vigilante by night - a 2012 vigilante who has a strange connection with the Hellfire Club of 1858 London.

Written by Ed Murphy and Tom Campbell with art by Joel Carpenter and colours by Derek Dow, the same team as Rose Black: Demon Seed, Amanda Swan: The Hellfire Legacy is a 32 page prestige format, full colour comic and is currently only available from Amanda Swan's own website for a cover price of £4.99. The title will be released to shops on May 2012 when the creative team and Amanda Swan herself will be appearing at the Kapow comics convention in London's Business Design Centre.

There are more details of Amanda Swan : The Hellfire Legacy on the Rough Cut Comics Facebook page and blog and the title can be bought directly from the official Amanda Swan website shop.

Amanda Swan and Rose Black writer Ed Murphy will be appearing at at the Graphic Novel Night at Meadowbank Library in Polmont near Falkirk on Saturday 21 April 2012. There are more details of the event on the library website.

Graphic Novel Night in Polmont

To tie-in with World Book Night, Meadowbank Library in Polmont near Falkirk will be holding a free Graphic Novel Night on Saturday 21 April 2012.

Running from 1900 -2130 the event will bring together graphic novelists and artists to discuss their work and will also include a workshop on comics, small press publishers selling their novels, artists and writers signing sessions, an exhibition of art work and, as part of World Book Night, a free book giveaway.

Creators currently scheduled to appear are David Bishop, Edinburgh based writer and former editor of 2000AD, writer John Chalmers and artist Sandra Marrs of Glasgow's Metaphrog who produce the Louis series of graphic novels, Ed Murphy of Glasgow publishers Rough Cut Comics who publish Rose Black and Demon Seed, and James Lundy of Armadale's small press Emancipation Studios whose current title is Wired.

There are more details of the event on the Falkirk Community Trust website.

There are more details of the venue on the Meadowbank Library website.

In Review: Rose Black - Demon Seed

Rose Black: Demon Seed is Rough Cut Comics' newly released follow-up to their 2004 graphic novel Rose Black which told the story of a vampiric angel sent to earth some 600 years ago to battle evil on its own terms and which she accomplished during the Cold War as an agent of the British Secret Service.

There is a contagion sweeping the Middle East that makes people highly aggressive and an MI6 team is dispatched to a Libyan compound believed to be at the centre of the outbreak. Eloise Parrish is a new MI6 agent who joins the special ops team that includes Rose Black but, in the Libyan desert, reveals her truly evil nature to Rose and her partner Dobie. Leaving Rose and Dobie for dead, Eloise returns to Britain with the survivors of the raid as the contagion spreads while Rose and Dobie travel to Scotland to try and discover who this woman with Rose's power, but not her conscience, really is.

The original Rose Black graphic novel had black and white artwork by penciller Jaeson Finn and inker Colin Barr and, between that and a Durham Red-style character, it had a rather nice old-style 2000AD feel to it. With Jaeson Finn having moved on in his career to film work, this second outing for the character is in full colour with artwork by Joel Carpenter and colours by Derek Dow. With the move to a more modern style of digitally coloured artwork the feel of the book moves away from 20th century 2000AD and heads towards 21st century Panini UK territory, albeit rather more violent than any title Panini would release to the UK market.

The comparison continues with Panini UK best known for US superhero reprint titles and this book is dominated by its two 'super-powered' vampire/angels as they suss each other out before having several almighty superhero type fights. Indeed Carpenter's dynamic artwork portrays Eloise as a superhero-style statuesque blond who battles her way through her outer clothing as the book continues leaving her only in her underwear for the final battle. Rose, consistent to her character, remains rather more demure albeit it in a tight fitting outfit that proves to be rather more resistant to combat.

The ending of the first book which revealed Rose as an avenging angel rather than a vampire left writers Ed Murphy and Tom Campbell at a point where they could have taken the story of Rose in many directions. In Demon Seed the religious overtones that made the first book so interesting, but also less commercial, are virtually swept away and replaced with fast moving action and a plot that, in part, echos the Arab Spring uprisings despite having presumably been written before them. Coupled with the new art style, this makes the book feel much more modern than the previous outing for the character.

The book is split into four chapters with four cover illustrations at the back so Rough Cut would have had the ability to release it as four comics as opposed to one graphic novel. Of those pin-ups one is the superb image by Carpenter that is used as the book's cover, while another is a similar but more touching image of Eloise cradling an unconscious Rose by original artist Jaeson Finn which makes for a nice link between the two books.

Rose Black: Demon Seed is a tale of the Rose character with a much more modern feel to it than the original and, while I miss the old style of art and plot, this is much more commercial approach that should pay dividends for Rough Cut Comics amongst the superhero reading fraternity.

There are more details about Rose Black: Demon Seed and other Rough Cut Comics titles on the Rough Cut Comics website and blog while more illustrations from the book can be found on their Facebook page.

The downthetubes review of the original Rose Black graphic novel can be found here.

Rough Cut Comics will be appearing at Thought Bubble this weekend, 19/20 November 2011, and their table is located in Savilles Hall.

Rose Black: Demon Seed Due In August

We reviewed Rose Black, the graphic novel published by Rough Cut Comics, recently and teased that the second book was due soon. Courtesy of Rose Black co-creator Ed Murphy we now have the impressive cover by Joel Carpenter to the sequel, Rose Black: Demon Seed, which is due in the next month or so.

Created by Ed Murphy and Tom Campbell, Rose is a 600 year old vampire in a world in which vampires don't exist and over her long life has been everything from a British secret agent to a nun. The new book pits her against Eloise, a genetically-engineered vampire who is depicted as a white angel on the book's cover.

Originally published in 2004 the first Rose Black book was written by Tom Campbell, pencilled by Jaeson Finn and inked by Colin Barr and was very much in the style of 1980s 2000AD with its stark black and white artwork. Since then Jaeson Finn has moved on to become a storyboard artist on films such as Doomsday and Centurion by Neil Marshall as well as the recent Liam Neeson thriller Unknown.

Replacing Finn on the new book is Joel Carpenter, who has previously worked on Pete Nash's football strip Striker, and his pencils and inks are coloured by Derek Dow. “It’s a definite change in style,” said Murphy, “but we felt the colour pages would bring in more new readers than we’d lose from the original fan base. I think Joel’s created some beautiful frames and his style is very cinematic, which is exactly what we were looking for."

Rose Black: Demon Seed is solicited in the July UK Previews for release in August and there are more details and artwork on the Rough Cut Comics Facebook page.

In Review: Rose Black

She is a vampire who is 600 years old and doesn't know why her lonely, endless life began. Such is the character of Rose Black created by Edward Murphy and Tom Campbell in Rough Cut Comics' Rose Black graphic novel, written by Campbell, pencilled by Jaeson Finn and inked by Colin Barr.

Rose has been in a French convent for decades, hiding from the world and her recent past as an agent for the British Secret Service. When a special forces team infiltrate the convent and attempt to kill her, she returns to her former spy partner, Raymond, in an attempt to understand why she is now being targeted. Teaming up with a new, younger partner, Dobie, Rose finds that their investigations lead them to the Vatican and Cardinal Bochour who is trying to eliminate the woman he considers to be the world's only vampire.

As a character Rose is a cross between Marvel's Black Widow and 2000AD's Durham Red, and not just in the similarity of the names. She is a former secret agent who is a vampire in a world in which vampires don't exist. Beginning with her as a nun, the plot slowly reveals her secret agent background as we discover more about both her and the people around her, from her former spy partner to the Vatican sect who are trying to kill her.

While the book is very violent at times, Rose is not a character who is simply out to kill and, while she is very good at killing, writer Campbell gives her a Christianity-based conscience that means she tempers the use of her demonic powers as best she can, generally only using them for self defence. The reason for those powers, and why she appears to be a vampire, is left to virtually the last page of the book and provides a very neat twist that I, for one, didn't see coming.

The black and white artwork has a nice 1980s 2000AD feel to it and while the lack of colour reduces some of the impact of the violent deaths her enemies meet, this is probably a good thing. Throughout the story penciller Finn's page layouts are impressively dynamic and, while the finished artwork feels a little rushed on some pages, where the story needs the artwork to make a visual impact it always does, leading up to the climactic impact of who and what Rose actually is.

For a first graphic novel from a small press company, Rose Black is very impressive package and left me wanting to read more about the character. Based on reports on the Rough Cut website and their blog, I won't have to wait long as a second book, Rose Black: Demon Seed is due for release very soon.

There are more details about Rose Black and other Rough Cut Comics titles on the Rough Cut website.

There are more details of the upcoming Rose Black: Demon Seed on the Rough Cut blog.