Comics Creators At Hi-Ex 2012: Part 2

Having taken a lot of photos of the various creators at the Hi-Ex comics convention, which took place at the Eden Court complex in Inverness last weekend, there was never going to be enough room in the main downthetubes review of the con to include all the images. Instead we present a selection of those images of the creators along with links to their websites, blogs and/or Facebook pages. They are in no particular order and the first part of this photo feature is here.

Artist Nigel Dobbyn has an eclectic selection of titles to his credit from The Beano's Billy The Cat to 2000AD via Thunderbirds and Transformers. The image he is showing here is entitled Primeval Priest and is available to buy from his website.

There are more details of Nigel Dobbyn's work on his website.

Glasgow's small press Team Girl Comic have four issues to their name as well as a selection of individual contributors' own titles and did a good trade, particularly on the Saturday. Shown here are editor Gillian Hatcher (left) with contributors Coleen Campbell (centre) and Clare Yvette (right).

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website and Facebook page.

French artist Michel Rodrigue is currently resident in Scotland and having been at the previous Hi-Ex was back this year on the Cinebook stand. His Cinebook titles are the two modern Clifton titles Jade and Black Moon which he was signing and sketching over the weekend. He is also the writer of the French series Sybil La Fee Cartable which is on its third book in France and the first book of which has just be translated into English by Papercutz as Sybil The Backpack Fairy and he was more than happy to sketch and sign copies of it as well.

There are more details of Michel Rodrigue on Lambiek.

There are more details of Sybil The Backpack Fairy on the Papercutz website and of Clifton the the Cinebook website.

From pink fairies to something rather darker and artist John Higgin's RazerJack, the death-bitch from the Twist Dimension. To promote RazerJack, John produces illustrations at each of the conventions that he attends and here is the image that he was working on on the Sunday at Hi-Ex.

There are more details of John Higgin's work on his website and of RazerJack on its Facebook page.

Write and artist Ian Sharman is also editor of Orang Utan Comics and AAM/Markosia as well as writer of Alpha Gods and Hero: 9-5. He took part in the Hi-Ex Pitching and Portfolio session on the Sunday. His latest title, as seen above, is Hypergirl.

There are more details of Ian Sharman's work on his blog and on the Orang Utan Comics website.

Perhaps the most unusual graphic novel available over the weekend was writer and animator Leslie MacKenzie's Gaelic title Cuir Stad Ak An Stoirm Shneashda which translates as Stop The Snow Storm. With art by Shona Shirley MacDonald, it uses the idea that the first peoples of Scotland were not from the south and Europe but from the north and the Arctic regions. As part of the publishing deal with the Gaelic Books Council the title will not be published in English for several years.

There are more details of Leslie MacKenzie's work on her website while Cuir Stad Ak An Stoirm Shneashda will be available from the Gaelic Books Council website.

A comic strip with killer STDs in it just sound like the sort of thing that should be in CLiNT magazine and the editorial team of CLiNT obviously thought so too. As can be seen above, artist and writer Monty Nero's Death Sentence started life as a small press comic but will get a new lease of life, and a lot more exposure, when it begins in CLiNT Vol 2 No 1 very soon.

There are more details of Monty Nero's work on his website and blog.

Artist Will Pickering worked on the Burke and Hare graphic novel published several years ago as well as contributing to a number of Glasgow based small press titles. He was also displaying Black Hearted Press' Gabriel title written by Jim Alexander.

There are more details of Will Pickering's work on his blog.

Londonderry's Uproar Comics came together through the city's 2D Comics Festival and its 2D Collective offshoot. They publish the Zombies Hi title which is an anthology of the main ongoing Zombies Hi story backed up with short zombie text stories and comic strip and has reached its fourth issue. Set after a zombie apocalypse within the defensive walls of the City of Derry, the comic is widely distributed within Northern Ireland. Artist Kevin Logue (left) drew attendees as zombies while writer Danny McLaughlin (centre) drummed up support and artist John Campbell (right) worked on pages for forthcoming issues.

There are more details of Zombies Hi on the Uproar Comics website.

Last and by no means least, especially since one of her titles is Eagle Award nominated this year as Best European Comic, is Irish writer Maura McHugh. Her two titles for Dublin's Atomic Diner Comics are the Eagle Award nominated 1920s mystery Jennifer Wilde and the supernatural Roisin Dubh as seen above.

There are more details of Maura McHugh's work on her website.

There are more details of Jennifer Wilde and Roisin Dubh on the Atomic Diner website.


The first part of Comics Creators At Hi-Ex is here.

The Hi-Ex website is here.

The downthetubes review of Hi-Ex 2012 is here.

Photo Review: Dundee Comics Day 2011

"The Dundee Comics Day has been the highlight of my comics year so far and I look forward in anticipation to what Chris Murray and his team have in store for next year" was how I ended my review of the 2010 Dundee Comics Day some 16 months ago, so this year's event had a lot to live up to.

As part of the Dundee Literary Festival organised by Dundee University, the Comics Day had to move with the festival from its normal timeslot in June to October putting it close to Thoughtbubble, and its academic conference, and clashing with London's MCM Expo. Yet, other than the fact that it was too cold to eat lunch outside on the front lawn, the date change does not seem to have negatively affected the event or the attendance, indeed the turnout was noticeably larger than in previous years. Whether this was down to the fact that it was term time and Dundee's students were around, or that the 2000AD fans realised that it was worth attending due to the number of script and art droids due to be there, or even that the Glasgow Comic Con in July had opened Glaswegian comics fans eyes to what was going on in the rest of Scotland, is open to debate.

In previous years the day has begun with a morning workshop but this year the workshop was done away with and the pre-lunch session was expanded into a series of talks beginning at 11am with comics historian and author Paul Gravett (above). Paul has been to Dundee before and this year his talk was based around his new book 1001 Comic Books You Must Read Before You Die as he suggested a fairly long list of comics creators, several of which I hadn't heard of, from which to chose five.

Next up were Burke and Hare writer Martin Conaghan and artist Will Pickering, talking about their graphic novel, originally published by Edinburgh's Insomnia, and which won the Best Graphic Novel, and Conaghan best writer, at the inaugural Scottish Independent Comic Awards at the Glasgow Comic Con in July. They discussed the background to the book, their inspiration for it in the form of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell, plus the amount of research that they put into it to avoid the many myths that have grown up around the two murderers.

The morning session came to an end with a short talk by artist Jimmy O'Ready about his new comic Death Sentence which he writes under the pen name Montynero and which has art by Rex Royd's Mike Dowling. The audience showed their interest after this talk by buying every copy of the comic that Jimmy had with him.

A light buffet lunch was proved as part of the day's entrance cost of £10 after which the early afternoon session took on a heavily 2000AD feel. Yet for all the fact that John Wagner is associated with 2000AD and his co-creation of Judge Dredd, he began his talk with his time at DC Thomson and showed photos of Pat Mills' former garden shed where the pair of DC Thomson men had written 23 scripts for IPC's Cor! humour comic and had 12 of them accepted. They wrote IPC humour characters such as Jack Pott and Tom Boy. He then moved on to the creation of Battle Picture Weekly as a competitor to DCT's Warlord and the attempts to shore up the falling sales of Valiant before it was amalgamated into Battle. One of the Valiant characters was the Dirty Harry-esque One Eyed Jack who mutated with the arrival of 2000AD into Judge Dredd.

Robbie Morrison was next who has been writing Nikolai Dante in 2000AD for the last 16 years as well as creating Shimura and Shakara which, it was pointed out, sound similar but aren't. Of the two very different artists on Dante, Robbie said that he wrote to their strengths with John M Burns preferring adventure over science-fiction and Simon Fraser getting the more SF and emotionally charged stories. One snippet that I hadn't heard before was that his first professional script sale was to DCT's SF digest Starblazer and that he had written some 4 or 5 scripts for the title, none of which were used before Starblazer was cancelled in 1991. Chances are those scripts are still sitting in DC Thomson's archive.

Finally in this session was artist Colin MacNeil, another of the Starblazer alumni who pointed out that he was "not a comics artist, just an artist who draws comics." Stating that he was more at home with pictures than words, Colin then went on to give a very thoughtful talk about his work over the years, his influences including his very close encounter with Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' in Holland and his plans for a Battle of the Somme graphic novel to come out in 2016. Colin was followed by a break for refreshments and a signing session in the foyer.

The final session of the day began with Matthew Jarron of the university's Museum Services introducing Commando editor Calum Laird (right), deputy editor Scott Montgomery (left) and former editor George Low (centre) for a short talk about the Commando Battlelines exhibition that was displaying original cover and internal artwork from the comic in the foyer. They gave a good-natured talk and answered questions about one of the great survivors of British comics during which they got what was perhaps the most off-the-wall question of the day when they were asked how much of their readership was female. Surprisingly it is 2%, or 1 in 50, which may not sound like much but it is much higher than I would have expected it to be.

Next up was at talk by Jamie Bryan (left) of computer game firm Tiger Games who, along with the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design lecturer and one of the organisers of the Dundee Comics Day Phillip Vaughn (right), talked about their new Superman game for iPads and iPhones which has not been released yet. While it was an interesting talk, it was definitely the odd-man-out of all the talks during the day.

Things got back on a comics track with artist Cam Kennedy who stood at the front with the microphone and, rather than giving a talk, immediately asked for questions. Cam has a dry humour and it came across well here as questions set him off on amusing anecdotes about his career as he told the audience about his time in France and America as well as his disregard for Star Wars. After the success of his two Dark Empire series when Dark Horse asked for a third he turned them down as he was "fed up drawing a big carpet and a dustbin." When pressed by them he said that he would do a series on Boba Fett as long as John Wagner wrote it and they agreed - not realising that John Wagner hadn't even seen Star Wars at that point. With his art on the screen behind him and the chance of a sketch book of his work being published in Europe (we can but hope), Cam's session was one of the highlights of the day.

After the energy and humour of Cam came one of the most highly regarded comic strip artists of modern times, Frank Quitely, whose 'secret identity' just happens to be a quietly spoken bloke from Glasgow called Vincent Deighan. Unlike most artists who prefer their artwork to do the talking, Vinnie is at home in front of an audience and he sat at the front cradling the mic and talked about his work and career. Like Colin MacNeil, as a child he had considered books were something for school and it was comics that he read for fun at home, while his favourite pastime even then was drawing.

The audience were then invited to move out to the foyer for the Tartan Bucket awards presentation. In association with DC Thomson the university had run a competition to create a new 1 or 2 page humour strip in the vein of Beano and Dandy. With a honourable mention for Craig Balmer, the four runners up who received a cheque for £250 each were Steven Baskerville, Jamie Huxtable, Paul Rainey and Adam Smith while the tartan Bucket Prize was won by Steve English (below) with his two page strip Belle's Magic Mobile. As well as a cheque for £1000 and, quite literally, a bucket full of DC Thomson merchandise, Steve's strip will be published in the Beano in the new year.


Finally, and a surprise to most not least of all Cam Kennedy, there was a short presentation by Calum Laird about the two unrelated Kennedy "brothers", Cam and Ian. Artist Ian Kennedy had quietly joined the audience towards the end of the day which meant that he was there for Calum presenting him, and John Wagner presenting Cam, with lifetime achievement awards which, it has to be said, were both very richly deserved. Despite both being Scottish, Cam (left) and Ian (right) had never met before and this candid photo below shows the moment when the men were introduced to each other for the first time by a delighted Phillip Vaughn.


The day's talks were themed as 'Wot I Learnt From Comics' and two fairly consistent things came from that. Firstly comics creators don't read many comics (and why would they when they spend all day working on them?) and secondly, and more importantly for budding creators in the audience, if you want to make a comic just go ahead and do it - practice may not make perfect but it can only benefit you in the long run.

Practice has pretty much made perfect when it comes to the Dundee Comics Day and congratulations must go to Dr Chris Murray and his team for yet another excellent event covering both old and modern British comics and their creators. Long may it continue.

Burke and Hare comic web site live

The Burke & Hare graphic novel website is now live at www.burkeandharecomic.co.uk ahead of the new movie release, featuring a preview, some info about the book and links to purchase a copy.

While writer Martin Conaghan tells us the new Ealing Studios movie directed by John Landis isn't based on the graphic novel, interest in the film has certainly spurred people to check out their limited first edition of the book, which is still available to buy now priced just £10 (plus £2 P+P). £12 delivered!

The film stars Simon Pegg (Star Trek), Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings) and Isla Fisher.

The story of William Burke and William Hare, who disposed of 17 bodies to the Edinburgh medical establishment - 16 of them murdered - in 1827 is the stuff of modern legend. It's also mired in falsehood, misconception and myth. Almost universally, the duo are hailed as 'graverobbers' or 'bodysnatchers', often depicted as stealing freshly-interred corpses to sell to the eager doctors at the Edinburgh medical school - when, as far as history is concerned, neither set foot in a graveyard with the intention of stealing a corpse.

• Check out: www.burkeandharecomic.co.uk

Burke and Hare first editions on sale from creators

With the news that Insomnia Publications, the company behind graphic novel Burke & Hare, has ceased trading, its creators Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering can now offer out copies for sale of the first edition of the book.

"Will and I are in the process of negotiating a deal with a new publisher," says Martin, "which will necessitate a new cover and some amendments/additions to the book in the second edition. This means the first edition will never be seen in print again in its current form.

Fortunately, I have around 300 copies that were sent to me by the Insomnia distributor when the company landed in financial trouble."

Burke & Hare delves into the  12-month period from 1827-1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland, when two Irishmen by the names of William Burke and William Hare murdered 16 people and disposed of their bodies to the eminent dissectionist Dr Robert Knox.

Delve into the murky, misquoted history of Scotland's most notorious serial killers with a research-based graphic novel that unravels a ghoulish story of medicine, murder and money.

The price of the book is £10+£2 P&P. if you live in the UK. If you're outside of the UK, contact Martin via sales@burkeandharecomic.co.uk and he will give you a price on postage.

• If you want a copy, you can send Martin the money via PayPal to sales@burkeandharecomic.co.uk and he will get it sent out to you as soon as possible.

• Read David Hailwood's review of Burke and Hare

Comic creators to deliver serial killer talk in Edinburgh

Martin Conaghan and Will Pickering, creators ofnew graphic novel Burke & Hare, will be at the Edinburgh Central Library in the Edinburgh Room on 28th January presenting a talk on the history of the serial killers and the production of the book for Insomnia Publications bio-graphic novel imprint, Vigil.

If you’d like to book a place at the talk, please contact the Fine Art Library in the Central Library Tel: 0131 242 8040 as numbers are limited.

After the talk, there will be a siging session of the book where guests can talk with the creators.

There will also be option to join West Port Tours popular, Burke and Hare Murder Tour for free, which will start just outside the entrance of the Central Library. For more details of the tour please visit West Port Tours official website

Crawford Coutts On The Spot

Insomina Publications is fast becoming something of a rising star in the UK indie publishing press, with graphic novels such as Cancertown and the upcoming Burke & Hare just some of its well-received titles. As the company prepares to launch its much-anticipated Vigil range - graphic novels re-telling the events, lives and stories of famous men and women - David Hailwood chats with with Crawford Coutts, Insomnia Publications Managing Director...

downthetubes: When was Insomnia first formed, and how did you get involved?

Crawford Coutts: Since as long as I can remember, I’d always wanted to start-up and run my own business. When I was completing my degree at Dundee University back in 2005, Alasdair Duncan approached me with a screenplay script. I had been reading a lot of independent comics, such as 30 Days of Night from IDW, by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, and The Red Star by Archangel Studio’s by Christian Gossett and noticed that there was an increase in creator-owned work which was being aimed at mature readers with more novel-style themes and content, which was appealing to a wider audience.

By the time I'd graduated, I suggested to Alasdair that we should adapt his script into a six-issue mini-series and try something different with it, but first of all, we had to undertake a huge amount of research to ensure we were starting from the strongest possible position.

I began my comics career by illustrating our first series, Daemon, which was released in January 2007. Unfortunately, due to the demand on my time required to run the business, I had to stop only three issues in to the six issue series.

We wanted to emphasize that Insomnia was not just another indie "company" which would produce one product and then disappear like so many people trying to self-publish, I wanted the company to grow into a publishing house, and with the interest and success of our Layer Zero anthology series we had started this process.

The decision to take on the role of "Managing Director" rather than "artist" was very difficult, but incidentally came at a crucial time and has since enabled us to get our products into the high street bookstore as well as online shops like Amazon and we are becoming more accepted by the general public rather than purely comic-book fans.

downthetubes: What type of material is Insomnia most likely to publish? Is there any particular genre you would avoid, or have a personal disliking for?

We produce a wide range of Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror titles. With each of our products, we look to publish something which is unusual, literate, challenging and thought provoking. Most of our books are aimed at teen/mature readers and most have an 18+ age rating so we're not limiting our content and restricting character development.

We're pretty open to most genres, as long as it's meets some (or all) of the above criteria. Readers of the likes of From Hell, A History of Violence, Road to Perdition, Fell and Nightly News will undoubtedly like our titles.

downthetubes: Which small press/independent titles would you recommend, and why?


Crawford: Unfortunately, I don’t really get a chance to read many other titles these days, and if I do it's mainly researching what the "competition" is up to! I do have a huge "to-read" pile sitting by the bedside, which is ever increasing!

I’ve been paying close attention to C2D4 and their new Graphic Novel, Jack in the Box, which looks stunning. I picked up some of the individual issues by Tony Wicks and Martin Buxton and I’m looking forward to seeing how the full book has turned out. Martin’s created a wonderful mix of sci-fi and the surreal complimented by Tony’s exceptional art style.

There’s some pretty good looking books from Studio 407 which I’d like to get my hands on as well, along with (Bob) Heske Horror's award winning Bone Chiller Anthology series which I’ve heard great things about.

Incidentally, Bob is currently producing another anthology, entitled 2012 which will be one to watch out for. Many of the Insomnia creators have been involved with this project, including Stephen “Cancertown” Downey. In fact many of the Insomnia creators have lots other projects on the go, either self-published or with other indie companies.

downthetubes: What advice would you offer aspiring comic artists and writers?


Crawford: Keep writing, drawing, inking, colouring, and generally "creating" as much as possible. Practice when you can and don’t be afraid to submit your work to publishers. Be sure to check out submissions guidelines and look at the current products they have to see if your ideas will fit in with what they produce.

There are many small press and indie publishers out there who are looking for contributions to anthology series, showcases, magazines etc and they’re great places to get initial feedback, constructive criticism and hopefully exposure which unfortunately the larger, mainstream publishers just can’t do.

downthetubes: Which of the upcoming Insomnia releases are you most excited about?


Crawofrd: There’s so many books currently in production it’s very hard to pick any particular titles, and to be honest, I’m very excited about them all. Next month, we're launching our first title from our new Bio-Graphic Novel imprint, Vigil (which is very exciting in itself).

Burke & Hare will be released at the British International Comics Show (BICS) followed closely with several signing events in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The book is completely research-based on the historical facts, written by Martin Conaghan, illustrated by Will Pickering, with letters by Paul McLaren and a cover by Rian Hughes.

It also has a wonderful foreword from Alan Grant where he says, "Martin and Will have produced something of which they and their publisher - the relative newcomer, Insomnia - can be very proud. As well as being educational and entertaining, they've gone one better and given us something important. Hopefully, the Universe will ripple and change for a great many of their readers."

We'll be releasing a Special Convention Edition of Buskers at BICS. Earlier in the year we were approached by Sean Michael Wilson and Jeymes Samuel with this offbeat tale set in contemporary London with an array of odd but realistic characters.

The comic book is based on a story by Jeymes (who incidentally is the brother of the singer SEAL), which is being created both in graphic novel form and as a film. Buskers is written by Sean and illustrated by Michiru Morikawa, an incredibly talented Japanese artist who won the International Manga and Anime Festival Award a few years back.

Jeymes is currently working on the film version of Buskers with a cast including Kevin Spacey and Mos Def, and the different versions will complement each other. [Read our news item on this project here - Ed]

The Special Signed Convention Edition will be limited to 100 copies and includes a CD with exclusive music from the OST and bonus features.

downthetubes: Could you tell us a little about the new Vigil imprint?


Crawford: Vigil specifically deals with historical graphic novels and stories of a biographical nature. Think along the lines of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell or Frank Miller’s 300; we’re looking for rich stories based on fact, not facts dressed up as fiction.

The stories published under Vigil can be about a significant global event, the life of a famous personality or historical figure, cultural events, political scandals, wars, assassinations, rock stars, miscarriages of justice, cover-ups, conspiracies or inspirational tales from ordinary lives.

Biopics like Ali, Ray, Valkyrie, Frost/Nixon, JFK, Persepolis, Braveheart, Wyatt Earp, Apollo 13, Gandhi and Chariots of Fire are all similar to what we’re publishing. Each one tells a story about the life of someone unique, or chronicles events so dramatic and inspirational that they almost seem entirely fictional or unbelievable.

Historical accuracy was paramount in the development of Burke & Hare. Martin and Will spent much of the last year waist-deep in research material: original documents, biographies, contemporary maps, portraits, street scenes, architectural drawings, fashion illustrations, photos of antique furnishings and fireplaces - all to ensure that the representation of history in a comic offers something that cannot be achieved in any other medium.

This amount of effort is put into each Vigil title so that every book is as much a work of scholarship as entertainment and readers will almost be able to smell the setting every time they turn a page.

The next books we have signed for the line are Crowley: Wandering The Wastes by Martin Hayes, and Allen Pinkerton by Richmond Clements. We'll have more information on these at BICS.

downthetubes: Do Insomnia’s publications have a following in the US and other countries, or are you mostly concentrating on building up a UK fan base first?


Crawford: In the UK our titles are available in Waterstones, Borders and other good book stores, most of the independent comic shops including Forbidden Planet International and available online from Amazon.co.uk.

In France, our titles are available from Album and exclusively on sale from our independent stockist - Librairie Delvaux, 17 rue du Val, 77160, Provins.

Now that we're one of the largest Independent publishers in the UK and we have a pretty solid grounding in the market, we're currently researching distribution avenues to tap into the North American market - speaking with various shops, distributors and shipping companies. By early 2010, readers will hopefully be able to purchase our books from many of the book stores and comic shops.

Of course our books can currently be bought for international delivery from various online stores. If you want an excellent personal service, try Whatever Comics who are not only a fantastic comic shop providing international shipping, but who are also the sponsors of Cancertown.

downthetubes: I believe you also have plans to option movie rights for various comic projects; any luck generating interest so far?


Crawford: With the huge amount of interest from film studios in the comic industry, especially with the recent news of Disney and Time Warner acquiring Marvel and DC respectively, we believe our titles are well suited to adaptation into these areas.

We have a dedicated Agent based in New York who actively looks into optioning Film and TV rights for us so we’ll keep you posted of any news further down the line!

• A list of Insomnia's creators and their personal sites and blogs can be found on the official Insomnia blog: www.TheRedEye.co.uk


• Read David Hailwood's review of the upcoming Burke & Hare


• Read David Hailwood's review of Milk by Stref


• Read the downthetubes review of Cancertown

In Review: Burke & Hare

Reviewed by David Hailwood

The Plot: Over a 12-month period from 1827-1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland, two Irishmen by the names of William Burke and William Hare murdered 16 people and disposed of their bodies to the eminent dissectionist Dr Robert Knox.

Delve into the murky, misquoted history of Scotland's most notorious serial killers with a research-based graphic novel that unravels a ghoulish story of medicine, murder and money.

The Review: As Martin Conaghan, writer of Burke & Hare, states in the appendix, 'Burke and Hare does not attempt to solve the crimes or analyse the behaviour of Burke and Hare, but merely to present the facts in as straightforward a fashion as possible, given the available historical and anecdotal information'.

Martin never gives in to the temptation to over dramatise events in a bloodthirsty Hammer Horror sort of way, even when there's ample opportunity to really play up the blood and gore angle. For example, in the space of just two pages, Martin has Burke and Hare dispose of seven people 'in the same manner'. By downplaying their deaths, moving swiftly through the murders rather than choosing to dwell on them, Burke and Hare's actions seem all the more chilling; they're businessmen who deal in death, selling corpses to medical science for a tidy profit. The fact that they have to murder people to obtain these corpses (usually by getting their victims drunk and smothering them) is a mere detail.

Burke & Hare is illustrated by Will 'Something Fast' Pickering, who employs delicate inking and well-researched visuals to capture the feel of 19th century Scotland, treating the readers to sweeping scenery, and moody crosshatching for those darker moments (of which there are many).

The graphic novel also comes with a sizeable thirty page 'companion' at the rear, written by Martin Conaghan, which gives a page by page breakdown of the comic, including precise details of research undertaken, and highlighting which parts are fiction and which are based on fact. Judging by the bibliography, a vast amount of research has gone into creating Burke & Hare, and it's worth anyone with a passing interest in the story, whether they're a comic fan or not, picking it up for the scholarly companion alone.

There's also a terrific gallery containing interpretations of Scotland's most notorious serial killers, as illustrated by Scotland's most notorious serial artists (and several artists of Irish descent) such as Frank Quitely, Dave Alexander, Stref, Gary Erskine and many more.

In summary, Burke and Hare is well paced, beautifully illustrated and painstakingly researched. A very impressive launch for Insomnia's new Vigil imprint.

• Burke & Hare ((ISBN-10: 1905808127; ISBN-978-1905808120) is 120 pages, b/w paperback, priced at £12.99 with a colour cover by Rian Hughes and an introduction by Alan Grant.


• Burke & Hare will be launched at the British International Comics Show 2009 on Saturday 3 October 2009. Writer Martin Conaghan and artist Will Pickering will be available at the Insomnia stand to talk about the book, sign copies, and provide sketches. There will also be guest appearances by some of the gallery contributors.

• If you're interested in the world of Burke and Hare, check out burkeandhare.com, a website apparently related to another book, The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner. The site's full of background information on the pair.

Enter Burke and Hare...

After critical acclaim for Cancertown, Burke and Hare by writer Martin Conaghan, artist Will Pickering and letterer Paul McClaren is the next book from Insomnia Publications, which will be launched at the British International Comic Show) in early October.

The book, which features a cover by Rian Hughes, also marks the launch of the company's Vigil imprint, Insomnia's line of "bio-graphic novels".

Over a 12 month period from 1827-1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland, two Irishmen, William Burke and William Hare, murdered 16 people and disposed of their bodies to the eminent dissectionist Dr Robert Knox at 10 Surgeon's Square. This new book delves into the murky, misquoted history of Scotland's most notorious serial killers, offering a research-based graphic novel that unravels a ghoulish story of medicine, murder and money.

"We got to stare into the face of William Burke himself," reveals Martin of their background work for the book, "when the medical faculty at Edinburgh University granted us permission to view his skeleton." Creepy...

Burke and Hare also features a foreword by Alan Grant and its picture gallery will be graced by contributions from Gary Erksine, Frank Quitely and Colin MacNeil, among others.

• Managing Director Crawford Coutts joins the line up of comic creators at this year's Dundee Literary Festival (see previous news story) on the 27th- 28th of June and Insomnia will have a stall, offering the first previews of the new book.

• Catch some internal art images here on the Insomnia blog

• Martin Conaghan on SciFiPulse.net radio, talking about the book