Striker bounces back again - into Nuts

Football comic Striker has kicked off its 25th anniversary year by signing exclusively to Nuts, Britain’s biggest-selling weekly mens lifestyle magazine published by IPC. (We're betting the team mascot might just be a bit racier than its past cheerleader, pictured here). The computer-generated adventures of Warbury Warriors football club, which previously featured daily in The Sun and, for a time, in their own weekly comic, will launch in the issue going on sale on Tuesday 26th January. Striker will have its own page in Nuts and will feature all-new adventures, starting with the resurrection of the destitute Warriors by Arab billionaire Sheikh Mustapha Futti Kulub (Gedditt!?). Striker was created by journalist and artist Pete Nash back in 1985 and made its debut in The Sun newspaper in November of that year as a three-panel black-and-white cartoon, switching to colour four years later. In 1999, Striker became the first daily newspaper strip in the world to be created entirely in computer-generated 3D software. “Nuts will be the perfect new home for Striker," says creator Pete Nash. "The magazine’s readership of young adult males matches Striker’s core following and the cheeky, entertaining style of Nuts is exactly on a par with Striker. “What’s more is that a weekly format, rather than daily, will give me time to work on developing Striker into a movie and possible TV series. Talks are at an advanced stage with two producers and I can’t wait to see the Striker characters come to life in Nuts and on the screen.” Launched in 2004, Nuts has established itself as the biggest brand in men's media and is the PPA Consumer Media Brand of the Year 2009, accounting for one out of every two men's lifestyle mags purchased at newsstand. Online, Nuts.co.uk is Britain's number one men's lifestyle website, according to the Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards 2008, and gives IPC an unparalleled total reach into what;s often regarded as the most elusive and hardest to please audience there is – young men. “Pete Nash's Striker strips are legendary," added Nuts editor Dominic Smith. "To sign him up and bring the Warbury Warriors to Nuts readers exclusively every week is a dream come true. "Without a doubt Striker is a perfect fit for Nuts, with our mix of sport, girls and humour. "Striker will be must-read material for our football-mad fans - and we've got much more planned for the magazine this year that will underline Nuts' premier league position." • Nuts is on sale every Tuesday, priced £1.70, and online at www.nuts.co.uk

The Dark, Freeman titles from Markosia

(Before any hardcore fans of this blog get hugely excited, we should point out that Freeman is the name of one of the books due soon from Markosia, not the name of one of its creators...)

March will see the introduction of two new original Graphic Novels from publisher AAM/Markosia, following hot on the heels of recent successes From the Pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Harker, Serpent Wars and Kong: King of Skull Island.

The Dark, written and created by Chris Lynch with art by Rick Lundeen, is a super-hero sci-fi thriller that challenges the reader’s very perceptions of reality versus fiction. It's the story of Daniel Abbot, a brilliant young scientist on the fringes of the establishment and the creator of Memetech - a technology that encodes information and memories into a liquid form, allowing anyone to literally "drink" the encoded knowledge.

Terrified that his invention will be used for military purposes he decides to destroy his research, but not before he takes one last trip... with disastrous results.

Two years on and the genie is out of the bottle. Abbot, having perfected his own version of the technology, fights a one-man war against the spread of his own invention and the collapse of our information culture in the guise of ‘The Dark’.

“We've hidden lots of coded messages throughout the book,” explains Lynch, “Both in the dialogue and in the artwork. From the symbol on The Dark's chest to adverts in the background, everything is there for a reason. Hopefully people will get a kick out of trying to solve the mystery, or at least from looking back after they've read the book for the first time to find all the clues they missed.

"Either way, we wanted to create something with enough depth to bring people back to re-read the story time and again.”

Also shipping in the same month is Freeman of the Armed Services, written and drawn by industry veteran Huw-J. Freeman is a true archetypal British hero of old, a cross between James Bond, Doc Savage and Captain Britain without the spandex, from the artist perhaps best known for re-iventing Garth for the Mirror newspaper - to mixed reviews.

This new book is packed with action and adventure throughout as Freeman takes readers back to the good old days, where the spirit of adventure and good old-fashioned action reigned supreme. You join Captain Freeman in his search of a mysterious Viking treasure in the frozen north (a re-working of the Garth story published online by the Mirror) and battling an evil Chinese drug lord alongside Irish gangs in prohibitionist era New York, in a non-stop action-packed adventure akin to the old Saturday morning pulp shows.

“When I decided to take the successful Garth strip down from the Mirror website it was with both sadness and excitement,” explains Huw-J. "Re-branding the character as 'Freeman' was easy as I wanted the character to be 'a homage' to all the creators who went before me, so buckle up and enjoy the ride!”

• The Diamond order codes for both books are:


JAN10 0699 THE DARK Graphic Novel

Read an 18 page preview online here on Mysebook

JAN10 0698 FREEMAN OF THE ARMED SERVICES Graphic Novel

Read an 28pg preview online here on Myebook

Beezer Blog Launched

Comic creator and Beezer fan Simon Mackie has launched a new blog that aims to chart the history of DC Thomson's best-known large format humour comic.

The Beezer was a large format (tabloid newspaper/A3 sized) weekly published by DC Thomson from 1956-1981. Along with its sister comic, The Topper, it dominated the comic stands from the late 1950's to early 80's until it was cut down to A4 size.

"For many years the comic retained a charming consistency," says Simon, who is a huge fan of the comic. "Fantastic artists like Dudley D. Watkins, Bill Ritchie, Leo Baxendale and Mal Judge contributed: the characters rarely changed and when you opened up the comic every week you knew exactly on what page they were going to be."

Sadly, when it was shrunk in size, a lot of the original artists left and the characters and formats changed. The Beezer continued until 1993 when, after merging with The Topper, it ran for 153 issues before cancellation. Although never officially merged, some characters did continue in The Dandy and The Beano.

"My blog is solely devoted to the glory years of The Beezer when quality, style, consistency and above all size mattered," Simon enthuses.

• Simon Mackie's Beezer Blog: thebeezersgoldenyears.blogspot.com

New Biography of Showbiz Legend Lew Grade

A new biography of British media entrepeneur Lew Grade - without whom shows such as Thunderbirds, UFO and The Muppets might never have been made - is to be published by Aurum Press next month.

All My Shows are Great is the first biography of a giant of British show business and the story of a pioneer of commercial television. A portrait of a genuinely larger-than-life figure legendary for his witticisms, Lew Grade was the last of the old-time media moguls – a genuine show business tycoon. From humble Jewish immigrant beginnings in east London, he became the world Charleston dance champion (and could dance it well into his eighties), from which he drifted into theatrical agenting, at which he discovered he was extremely good.

Soon he was a top impresario, with his brothers Bernard (Delfont) and Leslie Grade putting together variety bills, owning theatres, and eventually booking showbiz’s biggest names from both sides of the Atlantic.

The birth of commercial television saw him win a franchise with ATV, where Grade was a pioneer of popular culture, responsible for such TV hits as Saturday Night at the London Palladium, Robert Powell’s epic portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth and bringing shows like Thunderbirds, Space:1999 and The Muppets to British TV screens. It was his genius that also, then, paved the way for fan favourite comics such as TV Century 21 to reach the news stands.

Grade then went into films, most notoriously with Raise the Titantic! whose cost over-runs inspired his most memorable witticism, that “It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”.

Grade was still working until he died in his early nineties, in the office at dawn, puffing on his trademark giant Montecristo cigars, and never losing his love of a deal. “Some of my shows are good, some are bad,” he once said. “All of them are great”.

Former Sunday Times journalist Lew Chester’s biography – the first to be written, is an entertaining portrait of someone who was truly larger than life.

• All My Shows are Great by Lewis Chester is published by Aurum Press on 18th February at £20 in the UK