Yes, we know we haven't done one of these for a while: juggling work for ROK Comics and Titan Books as well as a few other things is proving a welcome but all-consuming challenge most days of the week...
•
Chris Weston reports on his new 2000AD Future Shock, "Whatever Happened to the Green Pedestrian Palm?", which appears in
2000AD's Christmas issue, Prog 2010, on sale 16 December 2009. "It is cearly inspired by the star of Seventies Public Information Films, The Green Cross Code Man, whose previous comic-strip exploits were handled by The Govenor himself, Mr. Dave Gibbons..." Expect some merry mickey taking of merchandise superheroes, including Mr. Muscle.
• Comics Are Good For You: but that's the message from Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois,
who insists that looking down upon graphic novels as being inept at benefiting the children is a mistake. She argues comic books are as valuable as any other form of literature to be a part of children's education. So ditch those books and break out the
Beano now!
"A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words," Tilley said. "Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books -- that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words."
More on this story here on Science Daily.• We're sorry to report the passing of Belgian
Josette Baujot, who has died aged 88, was responsible for colouring Hergé's Tintin albums for more than a quarter of a century during the peak years of his popularity, and established the "colour code" that helped take Tintin far beyond Belgium and France to an international audience.
Phil Davison pays tribute to the colourist in The Guardian here.• Tweeters out there will be pleased to hear that the comics charity Draw the World Together is now on Twitter!
Follow its work there• Comics-related podcast
Small Press Big Mouth dropped by
CD24's table at BICS 2009, and bought a copy of the
Jack in the Box graphic novel. There's
an audio review on episode 11 of their podcast, and they've got some really nice things to say about the book and are "infectiously enthusiastic" about the comics scene in general, and you may find some rather cool recommendations (apart from
Jack in the Box) if you're stuck for something to read!
• And finally... for those of you who are fans of Alan Moore but are not necessarily on the
Alan Moore Yahoo! Group mailing list, Pádraig Ó Méalóid tells us there has recently
been a YouTube channel set up to collect all of Alan's appearances that are on YouTube. "We're still adding things to it, so it's by no means complete and definitive," says Padraig, "but it's a good start, at the very least.
"One of the things I'd particularly draw your attention to is the most recent posting,
under the name of Alan Moore Swamp Thing Interview. A wee while back I bought a video on eBay which turned out to be something he'd done for DC in about 1985, which I believe was for showing in comics shops and the like, where Alan talks very enthusiastically about his work on
Swamp Thing, and about his forthcoming work on
Watchmen. With the help of a few different people, I got this put up on YT, as I'm no good with technical stuff, and anyway it's a US video. It's kind of sad to see how enthused he is there, compared to how he feels now after how we was treated by DC."
Here on downthetubes we have been reviewing Cinebook's English language bandes dessinees titles for some years now, from the mature action adventure of Largo Winch, Lady S and XIII, to the child-friendly fun of Clifton, Papyrus and Yoko Tsuno. You can find a listing of the various Cinebook reviews and other Cinebook blog features here.
