Panel Borders: Resident Aliens / Caption podcast with Brown and Duffield

Panel Borders: Resident Aliens

In this week's episode of Panel Borders on Resonance 104.4 FM (London), the last of our series of shows about comic book creators who collaborate together, Alex Fitch talks to Steve Parkhouse and Peter Hogan about their new comic, Resident Alien, initially serialised in Dark Horse Presents and now continuing as a comic book miniseries. 


The comic tells the story of an alien who has crash-landed in rural American and found a job as a small town doctor, now turned detective when a body is found in mysterious circumstances. Alex talks to Peter and Steve about working together, producing comics for both the UK and US markets and their previous experiences on revered British anthology titles Crisis and Doctor Who Monthly. (Recorded in front of an audience at Kapow!, London, Spring 2012)



8pm, Sunday 29th July 2012, Resonance 104.4 FM / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / uncut podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Caption Podcast: Kate Brown and Paul Duffield

In the latest episode of the Caption Podcast, and the first to have been recorded at Caption small press festival 2011: Alex Fitch hosts a discussion between cartoonists Kate Brown (The Lost Boy) and Paul Duffield (FreakAngels) about their comics and working practices. Kate and Paul are both alumni of the Manga Shakespeare line published by Self Made Hero and bring subtle, illustrative lines to their work, with washes of colour and and obvious interest in Manga. 

The two creators discuss sharing a studio, bouncing ideas off each other and working on children’s comics such as The DFC and The Phoenix as well as their first graphic novels.

Caption 2012 takes place on August 18th / 19th, East Oxford Community Centre, Cowley, Oxford OX4 1DD 

More info and previous podcasts at caption.org

Steve Parkhouse and Peter Hogan talk Resident Alien

Get along to the Kapow! convention, Islington Design Centre tomorrow to hear an episode of Panel Borders being recorded live, as Alex Fitch talks to writer Peter Hogan and artist Steve Parkhouse about their new serialised comic Resident Alien, published by Dark Horse.

The comic tells the tale of a 'grey' alien becoming a small town doctor in the USA and Alex will be talking to the creators about the genesis of the comic as well as Peter previous experience of writing about grey aliens in Vector 13 for 2000AD and Steve's earlier comic of suburban weirdness, The Bojeffries Saga with Alan Moore.

The panel is at 2.30pm, Sunday 20th May 2012, Room A, Kapow! comics convention, Islington Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London N1 0QH

• More info at http://kapowcomicconvention.com/node/307

Hogan, Parkhouse on regular 'Resident Alien' title for Dark Horse

US publisher Dark Horse has commissioned British creative duo Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse to bring their epic Dark Horse Presents tale of an alien hero named Harry to a fully fledged series! beginning with Resident Alien #0 in April.

In Resident Alien, a stranded alien seeks refuge in the small town of Patience, USA, where he hides undercover as a semi-retired doctor, masking his appearance using his unique mental abilities. Now known as Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, all the alien wants is to be left alone until he’s rescued. 

However, when the town’s real doctor dies, “Dr. Harry” is pulled into medical service - and also finds himself smack dab in the middle of a murder mystery! He’d rather be fishing. 

“I blame Steve Parkhouse," says Peter Hogan, whose numerous credits include editorship of 1980s titles Crisis and Revolver and strips for 2000AD such as Durham Red and Robo-Hunter, as well as US books such as Tom Strong and Sandman. 

"Having collaborated with him long ago on a couple of stories for The Dreaming, I was keen to do so again - and anyone who’s ever seen Steve’s work (on The Bojeffries Saga or The Milkman Murders, to name but two) already knows the reason why: he’s stunningly good.

“We introduced our friendly alien to the world in the pages of Dark Horse Presents last year, and those installments have now been collected into Resident Alien #0. Over the next few months, you’ll learn a bit more about Harry and his supporting cast and watch as he attempts to catch a murderer - and that’s just for starters. This alien is here to stay.”

Steve Parkhouse's wide range of work, which also includes Doctor Who, The Spiral Path and the graphic album Angel Fire is a singular talent in British comics. It's great to know we're seeing him back in action.

- Resident Alien #0 is on sale in comic shops from 18th April 2012. Resident Alien #1 is on sale 23rd May 2012.

Peter Davison Doctor Who Comic Art for sale: The Moderator

I'm reluctantly selling, via eBay, an original page from Episode Three of the Peter Davison story 'The Moderator', published in Doctor Who Magazine Issue 87, cover dated April 1984, drawn by Steve Dillon.

The story, written by Steve Parkhouse, sees the Doctor and his new friend Gus arrive on Celeste. a world populated by intelligent soldiers. But all is not what it seems. The soldiers are under the control of the sinister Moderator who is using the gift of Celeste to create a link to Earth. Can The Doctor stop him inhabiting another planet?

The page offered shows the amphibious Josiah Dogbolter trying to cut a deal with the Doctor for his TARDIS, which gets short shrift.

The final frame of the page is a classic of the DWM comics, in my opinion.

The The Tides of Time graphic album. The story also inspired events in The Incomplete Death's Head series, which also involved The Doctor.

The art is in good condition with no speech bubbles missing, although they have coloured with age.

Hopefully this is a page that will appeal to both Davison and Dillon fans.

• View the item on eBay


• More about 'The Moderator' on the TARDIS Index File

New BoJeffries Saga in the Works

Alan Moore has again mentioned Top Shelf Comix will be publishing new episodes of his quirky story The BoJeffries Saga - a strip which can be likened, perhaps, to The Addams Family or The Munsters in terms of its "monster living on your street" setting.

Top British comics artist Steve Parkhouse will again be drawing the strip, as he told downthetubes some time ago, but swore us to secrecy as it had yet to be "officially announced". Alan subsequently mentioned the new stories in Padraig Ó Méalóid's fab interview with Alan for Forbidden Planet International recently, but we didn't pick up on it. More fool us!

First published in 1980s title Warrior, additional installments of the Bojeffries Saga, described as a "soap opera of the paranormal" subsequently appeared in US ttile Flesh and Bones before all the Warrior installments were reprinted in colour in Dalgoda. Five new stories then appeared in Atomeka's A1 Anthology (and Swimsuit Special), before the entire series plus some new ones were reprinted in a single volume, Tundra's The Complete Bojeffries Saga in 1984.

Two new stories were due to be published in 2005 in A1's Bojeffries Terror Tome #1, but that was never released.

Moore mentioned the new episodes of his surreal title during his talk for the ComicICA Festival on Tuesday night, according to reports on Bleeding Cool and Joel Meadows' Walls and Bridges web sites.

• More about the Bojeffries Saga on The Magic Robot Digital Scrapbook

• Bojeffries Saga on International Hero

Tube Surfing: Saturday 28th March 2009

• British comics creator Sean Michael Wilson, whose recent credits include writer for Classicial Comics upcoming Canterville Ghost (out in November) and Sweeney Todd (out next year) adaptations, has become, we believe, perhaps the first British creator to have a comic on Japanese mobile phones (comic strip on mobile is known as Keitai manga in Japan).
"A Japanese language version of my Lafcadio Hearns Japanese Ghost Stories book is now out in Japan, in two formats," Sean, who lives in Japan, told downthetubes. "As an e-book and an edition for mobile phones. Both formats are big business in Japan." More on this story on our dedicated Mobile Comics blog

• Eddie Campbell has posted a snippet of an interview with Alan Moore from back in 2000 in which he talks about his take on what happened to Big Numbers, whose never-published third issue surfaced on e-bay in January, albeit only as photocopies (see news story). Alan seems to clearly have wanted to try again with the project with issue 1, but also recognizes the impracticalities of that. "I don't see any way that I can resurrect it as a comic strip," he told Blather.net. "I mean, what do I do? Do I actually sort of say "Yeah, we've got a great new artist, are we going to start from #1 again but this time, no, buy it, because this time we really will get to issue #12." I mean, I wouldn't buy that if I heard it from somebody who'd kind of failed twice to do what he said he was going to do." Eddie also thinks he's uncovered art from #4, featured in this post on his blog.

• Talking of Alan Moore, Pádraig Ó Méalóid has transcribed and kindly sent us a draft copy of his wide-ranging interview with the comic creator, scheduled to feature on the Forbidden Planet International blog soon. It's a doozy, with plenty on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen including plans for the next tale to centre on a group of superheroes, projects such as The Bumper Book of Magic, his novel, Jerusalem and confirms that a new Bojeffries Saga, which is being right now by Steve Parkhouse, is in the works and will be released as part of a collection of al the Bojeffries strips!

• DFC contributor Sarah McIntyre has offered a bit of 'Vern and Lettuce' back story on her LiveJournal, and tells us an Oxford Literature Festival panel on Saturday 4 April about the project is still going ahead. It should a chance to ask questions of David Fickling and several creators (Robin and Lorenzo Etherington, Sarah and John Aggs) what happens next... All participating children will receive a free copy of The DFC. More info here

• (via Kasterberous): How do you know if you’re in a parallel world? This week’s issue of Doctor Who Adventures, out now, is a parallel worlds special. Discover what happened when a sinister fortune teller made Donna rewrite history in last year’s episode Turn Left. You can also find out about all the weird alternate realities in Doctor Who – and learn how to see if you have strayed into one by accident. The issue comes with a free set of badges and a model time watch as worn by companion Donna.

• With Accent UK's 2009 graphic anthology Western now available (buy a copy now), Lee Robson has decided to indulge in some some shameless self-promotion for the the strip A Fistful Of Steam Valves (by him and Bryan Coyle) which features in the very pages of that book and featured a couple of the story's steampunk designs on his blog.

• And finally... London-based publisher NoBrow has released its first book, Gods and Monsters, and is running an exhibition in May of some of the art. More info here. The diverse contributors were hand picked for their unique styles and all were invited to generate work based on the theme. Some are up and coming, others are plucked from unexpected places, but as you'll see if you follow some of the liks below, all are talented: Dave Taylor, Alex Spiro, Sam Arthur, Jordan Crane, Emiliano Ponzi, A. Richard Allen, Jens Harder, Reuben Rude, Benjamin Guedel, Eda Akaltun, Matthieu Bessudo, Caspar Williamson, Toby Leigh, Alex Bland, Ben Newman, Nick White, Stuart Kolakovic, Sarah King, Leah Hayes, Paul Blow, Bjorn Rune Lie, Brett Ryder , Carl Johanson and Blexbolex.

(Compiled with thanks to Matthew Badham, Sarah McIntyre and Pádraig Ó Méalóid)