Mark Millar on Panel Borders

Panel Borders: Millar World

Starting a month of shows on Panel Borders about the art of writing superhero comics, Alex Fitch talks to Mark Millar, a 2000AD alumnus who now has his own anthology comic CLiNT, featuring popular alt-superhero saga Kick-Ass and other strips intended for forthcoming movie adaptations. Alex and Mark discuss the latter's experiences in British and American comics, the relationship of his Catholic faith to strips American Jesus and Saviour, and the genesis of super-villain heist caper Super Crooks with film maker Nacho Vigalondo.

8pm, Sunday 4th November 2012, Resonance 104.4 FM / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Artist Monty Nero offers online digital art class

Monty Nero's cover for CLiNT
Volume 2 Issue 3

Ace artist Jim Montynero, whose credits include Death Sentence for CLiNT Magazine, is teaching two weeks of live online digital painting classes from 6th August 2012.

These courses, organised by the Computer Training Academy, who have been running a variety of teaching since March, use video conference and desktop sharing software to link up your computer to a professional artist working in the industry today. In this way you can see the screen and talk live to the artist as they demonstrate techniques and take you through each step of their job. You spend every minute learning and being encouraged by a real pro. 

Getting set up takes minutes and is as simple as clicking on the link the Computer Training Academy send you.

All the tutors on these courses have over 10 year's experience as professional concept artists for computer games. Monty Nero tells us technical streaming quality is excellent, with the same one-to-one student attention and tutor interaction as a face-to-face class.

• Contact: info@computertrainingacademy.co.uk for more details.

• The Computer Training Academy homepage:
http://computertrainingacademy.co.uk/#/splash/

• A summary of the Concept Art class:
http://computertrainingacademy.co.uk/#/concepts/

• What you will need for remote courses through the CTA:
http://computertrainingacademy.co.uk/#/remote-courses/

• Pricing and class dates:
http://computertrainingacademy.co.uk/#/pricing/

Turf Sequel in the works?

Bleeding Cool reports that Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards are considring a sequel to Turf, which was published in CLiNT in the UK and has just been releasd in a smashing hardcover edition by Titan Books.

Jonathan Ross announced that the pair are considering a sequel to Turf, this time set in the 1940s, during a signing for the new book in a London Waterstones.

Ross, who wrote the vampires, mobsters and aliens comic book set in 1920s America, already has a couple of other projects in the works with Edwards, including a retirement superhero comic called The Golden Age, and a racing comic called Speed Trap.

Ross recently outlined how Turf came to be written when he found himself "between jobs" after leaving the BBC and he finally had the time to do what he'd always wanted – write his own comic. Writing for The Guardian, he explained his lifelong love affair with masked men and caped crusaders.

While delighting in the comic form, he also admitted how hard he found it to write the comic.

"I've come to the conclusion that comics are a bit like golf, or Susan Boyle, or threesomes," he said. "You can find large sections of the population who can't get enough of that kind of thing, while the rest of us just don't see where the fun is supposed to lie. But when done right, for me, no other entertainment form can match the beautiful synthesis of hand-crafted art with lovingly chosen words. And as I discovered when I wrote my first comic book last year, in collaboration with Tommy Lee Edwards, less is most definitely more.

"'Newspaper headlines written by poets' was the description that the great Dennis O'Neil (Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman) used when asked to describe the art of writing for comics, and it's as good a guideline as any I've encountered."

• Read the full article by Ross on The Guardian web site

CLiNT #9 arrives Stateside - delivers Supercrooks Exclusive

British comic fans have already read it but the latest 100-page issue of CLiNT - perhaps one of its most potentially controversial issues yet - goes on sale in the US this week.

Issue 9 is packed full with brilliant comics and includes a thrilling first look at super-villain heist comic Supercrooks, the continuation of Kick-Ass 2, an exclusive strip by British comedian Jimmy Carr, Turf, Superior and Jake Ellis.

CLiNT's exclusive first look at Supercrooks offers behind the scenes insight on the upcoming comic and movie, the brainchild of Mark Millar and artist Leinil Yu.

A supervillain heist story that is being written in parallel to the movie script, check out some preview sketches and get the low-down from Mark and Leinil themselves, and from Academy Award nominated Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo who will be bringing the strip to the screen.

CLiNT #9 also delivers the latest episode of Kick-Ass 2, in which Dave Lizewski's father has just discovered his Kick-Ass costume! And it looks like Justice Forever are in trouble, as a familiar foe returns to wreak havoc...

"Beat My Score", a story by famed stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr, co-host of Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live, stirred up the usual knee-jerk right wing press hostility in the UK before anyone had the chance to read the story - a nihilistic satirical sideswipe at the glamorisation of school shootings in modern culture.

Now American readers can decide for themselves and assess whether Japanese artist Ryusuke Hamamoto's grim strip will really pollute young minds.

In this issue's episode of Superior, schoolboy-turned-superhero Simon has been trying to use his new powers to be a true hero - he has saved a space-station from crashing into New York and has rescused a nuclear submarine.

However, the media have started to take notice and feisty reporter Madeline Knox is determined to get the scoop...

With all these strips and its usual selection of off-the wall features you'll find CLiNT on sale in all good US comic shops now. UK readers should still be able to find copies on sale in newsagents.

- CLiNT online at http://titanmagazines.com/t/clint/uk/9 and http://titanmagazines.com/t/clint/us/9

Tube Surfing: Two, Four, Nine, Fifty

BBC2 Scotland Only: Monday 11 July 2011 10pm will see the broadcast of the BBC Artworks Scotland documentary about Scottish comics and comic writers which, unsurprisingly, will feature Alan Grant, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison talking about their work. While it is officially only being broadcast on BBC2 in Scotland, and presumably will be available to the entire UK on the BBC iPlayer for seven days afterwards, it is worth remembering that Sky viewers in the rest of the UK are able to access BBC2 Scotland on channel 990 and so can watch or record it at the same time as those north of the border. Details of the programme are on the Artworks Scotland webpage.

Four Cornerers: Four of the seven artists who make up the Scottish daily artblog Scotch Corner were at the Kingdom Of Adventure shop in Kirkcaldy last Saturday for a signing and the recording of a podcast. Jon Hodgson, Andy Hepworth, Graeme Neil Reid and Tom Crielly were joined by Simon Fraser for a short time via Skype but technical issues, otherwise known as a blown fuse, meant that his Skype feed could not be recorded for the podcast. The reason behind the gathering was to celebrate two years of the blog's existence and their birthday present to themselves was a month's holiday as they have handed the blog over to an impressive array of other artists to show off their work and answer a few questions. To date these have included Mick McMahon, Bob Eggleton, Jimmy Broxton, James Ryman, Chris Weston and Siku. The Scotch Corner blog is here.

The Curse Of Issue 9? It looks like CLiNT has survived the curse of issue 9 but only by the skin of its teeth with the magazine's frequency dropped from 13 to an unusual 9 issues a year. Of the recent batch of comics related magazines, both Alan Moore's Dodgem Logic and Alan Grant's Wasted have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another having reached issue 8. SFX's Comic Heroes is currently on issue 7 and has gone from 4 to 6 issues a year so we will keep our fingers crossed for it and, of course, will have everything crossed for Strip Magazine in October and The Phoenix Comic in January. With Wasted gone to the great newsagents in the sky, Tales Of The Buddha and Vampire Vixens Of The Wehrmacht are both now looking for new publishers, so fingers crossed for them also.

Commando Interrogation: With the fiftieth anniversary of the first issue of DC Thomson's Commando at the end of last month, you would have expected the company to cover, or at least mention, it in their daily Dundee Courier newspaper, but it was not to be. Instead Scottish readers were able to read the thoughts of editor Calum Laird, deputy editor Scott Montgomery, former editor George Low and writer Ferg Handley in the Daily Record (the Scottish version of the Daily Mirror). The on-line version of the article has an excellent picture of Scott, George and Calum with loads of original Commando artwork but the paper version also had this priceless pic of George wearing a WWII British helmet. The downthetubes Medal For Resisting Interrogation must go to Scott as the only one of the four who managed to not have his age revealed. The Daily Record interview is here.

Tube Surfing: Dr Strange and Spider Man, zines in Birmingham , a misunderstood shark and more CLiNT reviews

Right, what's out there today:

There's an excellent interview with artist Brendan McCarthy over at Mark Kardwell's Bad Librarianship blog. In it, Brendan gives us the inside track on various projects past and present, as well as discussing his new trade collection, Fever (starring Doctor Strange and Spider Man):

"Marvel got a fun and unusual comic and I was able to get the Ditko/Dr. Strange thing out of my system. The Fever trade collection also reprints the 1960's Spider Man Annual by Lee and Ditko that inspired my story. I wish they could have scanned it directly off the old printed pages to get the period feel. Still, artistically it's Ditko at his peak. His genius is there to be enjoyed. Sadly, I am not worthy to sharpen his pencil!'

• Leonie O'Moore has posted a short (and funny) online comic about Jaws at her blog. Have a read!

• Comics collective We Are Words + Pictures (WAWP) will be attending the Birmingham Zine Festival this weekend and running a Drop-in + Draw session there too. What's a Drop-in + Draw, you say? Over to the peeps at WAWP:

'We’re also running a Drop In + Draw in the nearby Island Bar between 5 and 6.30pm, a chance for creators and the public to unwind with pencil and paper. We’ll have material to help you get started, and a few people on hand to guide you and answer your questions, all for free.'

• Speaking of the Birmingham Zine Festival, their site has lots of cool interviews that are worth checking out, such as this one with James Nash.

• Oh, and a whole bunch of people are reviewing Titan Publishing's new anthology, CLiNT: we already mentioned some, but check out further reviews at Comic Book Resources (via), Paul Gravett (scroll down for this one), Bleeding Cool and Comic Vine...

Oh, and we reviewed it too awhile ago...

Anyway, that's all for now, folks. See you at my next Tube Surf!

Clint: The Origin of Mark Millar's new comic title

For those not already wondering, veteran publisher and editor Dez Skinn has just explained the origins of Mark Millar's new comic title, CLINT, which Titan Magazines launch later this year.

If you're easily offended by bad language, don't read on.

"Back in the 1970s when IPC was rocking saleswise, there were two words you could never use in print in their holier-than-thou weekly comics: FLICK and CLINT," Dez notes in a posting to his Quality Communications group on Yahoo.

"Because Gravesend's letterpress printing was so blotchy the space between the capital letters L and I was virtually non-existent, so LI looked far more like a U.

"Hence the adage oft-heard in the corridors of Fleetway House..., FLICK OFF CLINT!

"It gives a whole new meaning to the old book/film/TV series My Friend Flicka," he adds wryly.

Titan to launch "Eagle for the 21st Century"

Comics by two of the UK’s most outspoken TV personalities and burgeoning writing talents - Jonathan Ross and stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle - will feature in CLiNT Magazine, an exciting new joint venture between Kick Ass creator Mark Millar and Titan Magazines.

Millar’s sequel to his cult comic and smash hit movie will also feature in the monthly title to form a stunning line-up of stories.

“This is The Eagle for the 21st Century,” claims Millar, whose genre-busting Kick-Ass scooped the number one movie spot in America and whose previous work includes Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

“I’ve worked on everything from Spider-Man comics to the Iron Man movie for Marvel, but what really excites me is the gap I see in the UK market at the moment.

"There are absolutely no comic-books aimed at 16-30 year old guys," he claims, perhaps ignoring Judge Dredd: The Megazine. "I think CLiNT has potential to make an enormous impact, bringing a new type of magazine to a new generation.

“I want this to be edgy and irreverent, the kind of thing guys will be passing around lunch-halls and common rooms, and there’s nobody I’d rather have creating new characters for CLiNT than Jonathan and Frankie," he continues. They’re both brilliant writers and will surprise a lot of people with this stuff. The last thing you’d expect from Jonathan, for example, is a vampire strip, but he pulls it off amazingly. People are going to love this.”

Millar is also launching his sequel to the hit Kick-Ass movie in the first issue of the comic. Kick-Ass 2: Balls To The Wall has been scheduled for production in 2011 for a 2012 cinema release, but fans of the first movie can find out what happens two years in advance by picking up CLiNT.

The 100-page magazine will be packed with interviews and features from movies, games and television as well as four serialized comic-strips. The biggest names in entertainment will be featured every month and some will even be sticking around to write sci-fi, humour or horror stories after they’ve been interviewed and quizzed.

“We can’t say who else is involved at this stage,” says Millar. “Jonathan, Frankie and I will have our stories serialized over the first six months, but we have the most insane line-up of creators ready to come in and join us. You’d be amazed how many people who work in film and television want to be comic-book writers. It’s very exciting and we think we’re creating something potentially enormous here.”

Talking about the project on his web site, where he recently put out an appeal for one page science fiction humour strips, Mark told fans Clint is not aimed at comic stores but "the huge potential of a UK mass market, the like of which hasn’t really been reached in a generation.

"Newsagents and supermarkets don’t really care about regular pros like me, instead looking for brand names like movie titles and television personalities. Hence the reason I’m launching this with the Kick-Ass sequel and people like Frankie Boyle and Jonathan Ross.

"It’s going to be a massive venture and one aimed almost entirely at the UK," he enthused. "It’s obviously massively exciting and I’ve been secretly working on it for a little while with some people I’m very excited about... I want to make this big, a cultural phenomenon and a showcase in parts for the UK talent I don’t feel has a wide platform anymore here."

• Further information on who is involved can be found at twitter.com/clintmag, where future developments will be revealed on a regular basis.

• CLiNT #1 will be on-sale from 2nd September in the UK: available from all good retailers and specialist comic stores. US subscriptions will be available.