No Heroes But One Award!

The “little comic that could” No More Heroes picked up the award for Best Comic at the SICBA (Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards) event held at Glasgow Comic Con over the weekend.

The four-issue mini-series about the suspicious death of the world’s greatest superhero and his sidekick’s search for the truth has picked up a lot of attention since its March debut thanks to its unusual origins. When its writer Gordon Mclean lost his job he used his redundancy money to fund the comic and teamed up with artist Caio Oliveira to make his dream of being a comic creator a reality.

“Winning this award is an incredible honour and a hell of a way to top off what’s already been a shockingly successful few months for our comic," says Gordon. "We’ve sold a hefty amount of copies of what’s basically a debut comic by an unknown creative team and of course there was the bizarre situation of seeing issue one becoming the most pirated comic in the British indie scene and sitting in the torrent charts next to Batman and The Walking Dead. Sod it, I’m putting that in the win column too!”

 Gordon and Caio are now planning on using their success to find a publisher for No More Heroes and take their comic to a wider audience.

“If ever there was a time to get a publisher to pick up our comic it’s now," Gordon enthuses. "We’re award-winning, the response from readers and critics has been incredibly positive and we’ve received a lot of attention from comic book websites, magazines, blogs, podcasts etc.

"A special thank you to Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool – he’s been a hell of a supporter of No More Heroes and by featuring it on his website he raised its profile immensely.

 “I’ve also adapted the title into a film script that’s picked up some studio attention," Gordon reveals. "If all of this this isn’t enough to convince a publisher that this is a hit comic waiting to happen then I don’t know what is!”

Glasgow Comic Con was founded in 2010 by Sha Nazir and John Farman – two respected figures in the Scottish independent comics scene and co-owners of Black Hearted Press. This year’s guests included Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Jim Starlin, John Wagner and Rufus Dayglo. www.glasgowcomiccon.com

• Anyone interested in No More Heroes should its official website at nomoreheroescomic.wordpress.com 

British Comic Awards launched

News today (via The Emperor and the Forbidden Planet Blog) of the launch of the British Comic Awards website.

The British Comic Awards is described as a brand new initiative to annually celebrate the very best in British comics. The organisers aim to commend and highlight the best stories told by writers and illustrators over the past twelve months.

"Our awards recognise the finest examples of creativity, ingenuity, skill and originality in sequential storytelling in all genres and formats. We don’t distinguish between printed work and digital, or between published and self-published work; our only criteria is that the creator(s) be from the UK.

"The Awards are designed to focus on the work itself and the wonderful stories being told by the wealth of talent in this country."

There are only five awards which will emphasise the high quality of all the nominated books, not just the winners and these are:

• Best Comic for short-form, self-contained stories.
 
• Best Book for long-form comics and collections.
 
• Young People’s Comic Award for short and long form comics suitable for children voted for by young people.
 
• Emerging Talent to recognise irrepressible talent and potential in a young or new creator.
 
• Hall of Fame to commemorate the career and legacy of an influential figure from Britain’s rich comic history.

More details about each category can be found on the site's Awards page.

Scotch Corner Art Blog Celebrates Its 3rd Birthday

The Scotch Corner daily art blog is celebrating its third birthday and, like last year, has called on a number of guest artists to give a short holiday to the Scotch Corner regulars, artdroids Graeme Neil Reid, Gary Erskine, Simon Fraser and Alex Ronald, and artists Jon Hodgson, Andy Hepworth and Thomas Crielly.

The first guest for July is artdroid Henry Flint who provides the illustration of a 2000AD cover for the current Judge Dredd saga 'Days Of Chaos'. In addition to several images, each guest will answer a series of questions and Henry reveals that his first published work wasn't in 2000AD but actually in The Dandy where he, as a reader, sent in a picture of Deperate Dan which won him Star Letter and a jigsaw.

Further guests to come in July include Paolo Rivera, Mike Austin, Paul Bourne, Simon Gurr and INJ Culbard.

The Scotch Corner art blog is here.

New Futurequake, Zarjaz now on sale

The latest issues of the ace indie comic titles FutureQuake and the 2000AD-inspired Zarjaz are now on sale.

Behind the cover of Futurequake Issue 21 by Gibson Quarter and Keiren Smith there are eight strips to astound you, including 'Aclonement', a two-pager by writer Dominic Teague and artist Charlie Parsons and letterer Bolt-01; 'Before Tomorrow Comes' by writer Joshua Spiller, artist John Cahill; 'Call of Nature' by writer Lee Robson and artist Jason Smith; and other contributins from creators Dan Fox, Ben Michael Byrne Pete Hobson, Max Dunbar, Gary Robinson, Dave Thomson, Ricky-Marcel Pitcher, Gibson Quarter, Craig Collins, Sam Weller, Derek Hamill, and artist Dan Cornwell.

Behind the ace Judge Dredd cover for Zarjaz 15 by Edmund Bagwell, Peeps the butler droid delivers Judge Dredd strips aplenty and more from the likes of Samson Horn, Phillip Vaughan, Lee Robson, David Broughton, Mark Howard, Alex Paterson, Bolt-01, Kevin Levell, Shaun Avery, Simon Bennett Hayes, Rich Wells, Nora Rodriguez, Richmond Clements and Stephen Prestwood.

The samples sent to intrigue and tantalize simply leave us urging you check out both great titles.

- Check out both titles at: www.futurequake.co.uk