Tube Surfing: 30 August 2008

• A quick reminder about Jonathan Cape,, The Observer and Comica's Graphic Short Story Competition of which the winner will receive a tasty grand and their story across two pages of The Observer. Follow this link for more info and to download an entry form. Manchester Comic Collective artist suggest that to inspire you here are some of the MCC's entries for last year's Prize, which MCCer Stuart Kolakovic won runner up.

• A couple of weeks ago Garen Ewing promised he'd get some high resolution prints featuring his wonderful A-Z of favourite characters, and they can now be found as thumbnails on his web site's A-Z page. "Please feel free to download them for your own private use," he says. They are not for re-publishing, and definitely not for commercial usage.
Meanhile, Jonathon Dalton's A-Z is going great guns... he's currently up to T; and now there's 'Mitz's inevitable A-Z of comic and cartoon Villains', which is currently up to G... a bit harder to think of villains, so go over and help them out there too... Other artists are also doing their own A-Zs including Clive Jennings and others.

• The next episode from the fan film series Star Trek Phase II, of "Blood and Fire, Part 1", an AIDS allegory by David Gerrold that was considered two controversial 20 years ago, should hit the net by the end of October. To give you a taste, the Phase II team just released the action-packed opening teaser with some truly stunning SFX (including the new opening credits). Check out the video on the trekmovie web site.
The story opens with the Enterprise pursued and damaged by repeated Klingon attacks. The crew must then respond to the distress call from a Federation research ship. In a matter of hours the ship and crew will be consumed by a nearby star -- but before that, the crew of the Enterprise will be consumed by a mysterious horror that threatens both ships as the Klingons watch and wait..
Producer and star James Cawley says that following release of Part 1 of "Blood and Fire" by October 31st, Part 2 will follow a few months after. That will be followed later in 2009 by "Enemy: Starfleet" which will feature original series actress Barbara Luna and the just-revealed refitted Enterprise.

• (via SF in the News): Talking of space battles, the idea of space marines, fighters who are able to deploy from space onto the earth in mere hours, has been around since 1939, when Robert Heinlein coined the term. But now, SF in the News reports the idea is moving slowly forward. According to an article in Wired, the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) idea is the subject of a National Security Space Office conference.

• (via Forbidden Planet International): The BBC reports the sad news that famous comedy producer Geoffrey Perkins has been killed after being involved in a traffic accident. Perkins, aged only 55, was involved in a vast number of British TV and radio comedies, including some of my personal favourites such as I’m Sorry I Haven’t Got a Clue, Father Ted, Spitting Image and also the radio version of Douglas Adams classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

• (also via FPI): As a TinTin film edges closer to realization, it would seem the protectors of Herge's estate, Moulinsart has found a new enemy: the fan. A decade after Paramount tried (and failed) to remove any and all Star Trek material from unlicensed websites, and Fox’s Monty Burns-like lawyers tried the same with fan sites celebrating The X-Files and Simpsons, succeeding only in alienating their own hardcore audience, Moulinsart has decided that, with all their copyrights and trademarks, their investments still aren’t protected well enough and so sent a cease and desist letter to French laungauge site Objectif Tintin, arguably the best informed and most enjoyable source of Tintin-related information on the web. Needless to say, the site owner is fighting back against an action which has been described as amounting to nothing more than censorship.

• (via Daily Cartoonist and Gizmodo): And finally for this brief round up which admittedly has again included some non cpmic news but hey, live with it, some fun at the expense of Apple's Steve Jobs, as realized in this affectionate homage to Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes. I don't know if Bill Watterson would like this version by MAD's Jacob Lambert (writer) and Gary Hallgren (artist)., in which Hobbes morphs from philosophical tiger to killer CEO, but I like it. More via Gizmodo.

Read More Calvin and Hobbes, Government Urges

(with thanks to Matthew Badham for the initial lead): The British government says young boys should be encouraged to read Calvin and Hobbes and comic-book annuals such as the Dandy and Beano to get them into the reading habit young and help them to keep up with girls' at school.

That's the message from government adviser Chris Brown, reported in several newspapers including The Times, a retired head teacher and author of Primary Boys into Books, a new reading report commissioned by the Government that's part of a £5 million government scheme to get more boys reading sooner and trying new books.

Jeff Smith's Bone: The Great Cow Race, Kazu Kibuishi's Flight, Michael Carroll's Sakkara (New Heroes), David Petersen's Mouse Guard title Fall 1152 and Art Spiegelman's It Was A Dark and Silly Night are just some of the comic or comic related titles in the extensive reading list, along with Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes collection, Scientific Progress Goes Boink.

The report, part of the "Riveting Reads" series published under the auspices of the School Library Association, includes many comic-style or graphic books in a list of the Top 200 new works he has drawn up for 5 to 11-year-old boys, along with novels about espionage, ghosts and aliens -- but not ‘The Famous Five’, ‘Just William’ or even the ever-popular Roald Dahl books.

Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Mirrormask and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish are among the selected novels, as

Brown argues such books had great appeal for many boys and could be of enormous educational benefit because they stimulated visual responses to the pictures as well as intellectual responses to the words, he said. He regretted that schools and parents dismissed them too often as not being "proper books".

Statistics show that boys are ten percentage points behind girls in English at Key Stage 2. Ministers hope that better reading habits among boys will help close the gender gap. A recent evaluation of Every Child a Reader (ECaR), a programme of intensive literacy support for children who are struggling, shows that it is possible to close the reading gap between young boys and girls.

• The booklist is available exclusively online on the SLA website as a searchable database and also as a downloadable PDF version.
• More on Boys into Books can be found at: http://www.sla.org.uk/boys-into-books-overview.php
• Government research on early reading can be found at: http://www.aft.org/pubsreports/american_educator/spring2003/catastrophe.html

Calvin and Hobbes spoof

The wonders of dabble and youtube turned up this segment from the US comedy show Robot Chicken. I love Calvin and Hobbes, but this is very funny... but wasn't Calvin taller in the strip?