Anthology Three to be released at Dundee Comics Expo

An anthology of work from aspiring comic and graphic artists from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) will be launched on Saturday the 30th of March at the Dundee Comics Expo, wrapped in an all-new cover by Dave Gibbons.

Anthology Three will showcase the work from the Comic Art and Graphic Novels module undertaken by Level 3 students at DJCAD, part of the University of Dundee. The 120-page, full colour comic is published by 'UniVerse', an imprint specially created to provide exposure for the students' work.

The cover for Anthology Three is provided by legendary comics artist Dave Gibbons, who is a visiting lecturer on the module.

He was one of a number of leading industry professionals who hosted workshops with the students as part of the module.

Lecturer Phillip Vaughan, who runs the module, has been very impressed with the high standard of the students work. “This time around the module was made available to all Level 3 undergraduate students within DJCAD, and the class was full to capacity…”

"Again the work was completed over a 12-week period, which is a tight turnaround, although I am happy to say that the students were up for the challenge. The results speak for themselves! The work is attracting the attention of major comics creators and publishers, which is great exposure for the students!

“Dundee Comics Expo is a great launch pad for this new book, as we have some top comics creators coming to the event, people such as David Lloyd (V for Vendetta / Aces Weekly) and Bryan and Mary Talbot (Dotter Of Her Father's Eyes / Grandville), who won the Costa Biography Award 2012.”

Dr Chris Murray who runs the MLitt in Comics Studies at the University, and who also teaches on the module, paid tribute to the work contained in Anthology Three, saying, “The comics created on this module were outstanding! The students certainly rose to the challenge and it was wonderful to see this work come together over the course of the module.

"The students also benefitted enormously from masterclasses and workshops by Kate Brown, Cam Kennedy, Colin MacNeil, Ian Kennedy, and Dave Gibbons. We are honoured to have the support of top industry talent in the Comics Studies modules at the University of Dundee.

"We are particularly indebted by Dave Gibbons for the incredible cover art, which makes this issue a little bit extra special!”

The cover price of Anthology 3 is £6.00, and the venture is not for profit, with funds from sales being put directly back into the cost of publishing promotional copies of the next issue. Anthology Three will be launched at Dundee Comics Expo 2013 at the Tower Building, University of Dundee.

• For information, please email: universecomicATgmail.com. To buy online go to (Anthology One & Two Available now – Anthology Three from the 30th March): http://ukondisplay-com.mybigcommerce.com/universe/ 

• Dundee Comics Expo is on Saturday 30th March: http://on.fb.me/14h1Hdq

Photo Review: Dandy Day At Dundee University

Announced at very short notice, the University Of Dundee held an official opening event for their new exhibition of original artwork 75 Years Of The Dandy on Saturday 8 December with the added bonus of getting five of the men working on the new Digital Dandy along to the University's Baxter Suite to talk about the new e-comic version of the venerable title.

From left to right (above) they were - artist David Sutherland, Digital Dandy editor Craig Ferguson, writer Dan McGachey, former Dandy editor Morris Heggie, and artist Stephen White.

Taking questions from the audience, the group talked about both the old and new versions of the title. David Sutherland is best known for his work on The Beano, including 50 years of illustrating The Bash Street Kids, and while semi-retired he admitted that he had been tempted to help out on the new version of The Dandy by editor Craig's offer of a fish and chip supper at the end of the day. Craig Ferguson had previously worked on both The Dandy and The Beano and both he and writer Dan McGachey spoke fondly of the good-natured rivalry between the staff of the two comics who worked in neighbouring offices.

Morris Heggie talked at some length about the two original editors of The Dandy and The Beano, Albert Barnes and George Moonie, as well as the differences between the two publications with The Beano's move to child characters in the 1950s and The Dandy's more aggressive comic violence.

Stephen White, also known as Stref', talked about the differences for an artist working on the older version of The Dandy as he had, compared to the new version of the title with its motion strips and the additional work that illustrating for such a format involves. The talk was good natured, yet informative as a remembrance by one of the group would often set in motion a completely new topic of discussion.

After a break for refreshments, the event moved to the University's Lamb gallery and the large display of original Dandy artwork, comics, annuals and various spin-offs. Morris Heggie gave an exhibition talk as he and the audience moved around the gallery looking at specific artwork. Stephen (above) pays attention to Morris' comments on Korky The Cat artwork by Charlie Grigg, while (below) Morris points out some rare initial sketches by Dudley D Watkins below the main image of his WWII era header for a Wild Young Dirky text story.

 

A colour mock up for the front and back covers of The Dandy Book for 1957 drew a lot of attention despite being colourist's art rather than the original artwork...

...however the two pages of Desperate Dan (below) were very much original Dudley D Watkins artwork and showed how his style of drawing the character had changed over the years between 1942 on the left and 1959 on the right.

With so much artwork on display in the gallery, it covered the more modern Dandy characters as well as the older ones including this one (below) of Cuddles, of the terrible toddlers Cuddles and Dimples, with a slight problem with the cold courtesy of artist Nigel Parkinson.

There were a selection of images from the new Digital Dandy around the walls in the Baxter Suite including a large poster image from the superhero strip Retroactive which we already know features the original Dandy superhero The Amazing Mr X. As no DC Thomson character with superhero-like powers will be off-limits to the new strip, whether they featured in the humour titles, the boy's adventure titles or the girl's adventure titles, this close-up image of the poster gives a little taster of just which characters may turn up in future issues.

Congratulations to Chris Murray and Phil Vaughan for organising such an interesting event at such short notice and I would hope to see similar events at the University continue in 2013.

The Digital Dandy is available via The Dandy website, www.dandy.com or by clicking on the image below.

The University of Dundee 75 Years Of The Dandy exhibition is free and runs in the Lamb Gallery of the University's Tower Building until 12 January 2013. There are more details, including seasonal opening times and images of some of the original artwork on display, at the University Of Dundee Museum Services website.

In Review: The Amazing Mr X - Special Edition

In 2011 the University of Dundee ran a comic art competition as part of the annual Dundee Comics Day to create a new Beano-style comic strip of one or two pages. The competition was won by Steve English's Belle's Magic Mobile which was printed in The Beano in February 2012 as well as in the University's Anthology One publication.

In 2012 the competition was for a three page strip and a cover image based on The Dandy's 1940s superhero The Amazing Mr X. Entrants were allowed to update the character in any form they wanted and the competition was won by Steve Marchant with a tongue-in-cheek take on an elderly Mr X still attempting his heroics. Rather than running the winner and runners up as part of Anthology Two, the University imprint UniVerse have put out a separate title entitled The Amazing Mr X and labelled it as a Special Edition.

Yet despite that description, this is more than just a publication of the competition winners as it reprints original pages from The Dandy as well as including a feature on the background and history of the character.

Dundee Comics Day organiser, and director of the Scottish Centre For Comics Studies, Dr Chris Murray writes about the background to Mr X in The Dandy where he first appeared in issue 272 in 1944 as what Chris describes as "Britain's first home-grown superhero". While the superhero grew to dominate the American comics scene, Britain never really  succumbed to the idea with most superhero characters that appeared in British comics over the years being reprints of American stories or British stories using US characters. Indeed The Amazing Mr X only lasted 14 issues (plus a single appearance in the 1962 Dandy annual courtesy of Dudley D Watkins) and Chris postulates why the character failed to gain a following with The Dandy's readership. The book reprints 3 of those 14 stories which were in the 'picture and paragraph' format that we now tend to associate with Rupert Bear. These are certainly interesting as an historical document but seventy years after they were originally published they are now more of a curiosity piece than actually being entertaining.
 

The book then goes on to publish the strip by the Dundee Comics Prize winner, Steve Marchant, which Chris says "undercuts the tome of the usual superhero story with a playful satire on the mythology of the superhero". Personally I prefer the Darren O'Toole written and A Kaviraj illustrated runner-up strip (above) which sets the scene for a potential ongoing series that the actual winner did not, while the other runner-up, Gavin Boyle, presents an amusing Scottish themed tongue-in-cheek version of the character. A further 11 stories from the competition cover a multitude of styles and ideas, some rather more interesting than others, giving a total of 14 new strips with the character, echoing the original number of 1940s episodes. 

The Amazing Mr X: Special Edition is not at all what I was expecting to see from UniVerse given their previous two Anthology titles. A very well produced, 76 page US comic sized book, it will be of interest to devoted Dandy fans as well as no doubt proving to be something of a curiosity to students of old British comics. 

The Amazing Mr X: Special Edition has a cover price of £8 and is available, as the other UniVerse titles are, by sending an e-mail requesting details to - universecomic@gmail.com

Photo Review: Dundee Comics Day 2012 - Part 2

The Dundee Comics Day has been running as part of the Dundee Literary Festival at Dundee University since 2008 under the guiding hand of Dr Chris Murray of the School of Humanities (above). The event treads the fine line between the accessibility of a public Lit Fest and the seriousness of an academic conference and now, with comics courses being run at the university, it now adds an educational element for the course students. While the main day of this year's DCD was, as usual, on the Sunday, this year the event did expand out somewhat with a screening of the documentary Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods at the Dundee Contemporary Arts cinema on the Friday night and a talk and signing session with artist Dave Gibbons on the Saturday afternoon. The downthetubes photo review of the Dave Gibbons event is here.

The main day however was Sunday 28 October 2012 under the titleInvisible Symmetries: The Comics Of Grant Morrison, with Grant Morrison himself and a selection of his British and Canadian artistic collaborators. The number of attendees at Dundee Comics Day has increased over the years as the guest list has increased and as more people hear about the event. Last year's DCD, with its predominance of 2000AD art and script droids, had perhaps the largest turnout to date but the Dave Gibbons talk on the Saturday appeared to match that turnout while the appearance of Grant Morrison on the Sunday easily brought DCD's largest turnout in all the years that it has been running.

The hour long morning session was devoted to Chris Murray interviewing Grant at the front of the large and well equipped lecture theatre before opening the discussion out to include questions from the audience. This took in his earliest work on Near Myths and Starblazer, through his IPC and Marvel UK work and onto his better known American superhero work. While the difference between Chris' academic questions and the audience's more fannish questions was noticeable, Grant took them all in his stride and, for all the adulation he receives from some sections of comics fandom, he quickly relaxed into the interview and came across as a regular guy.

Lunch gave the attendees a chance to inspect the entries in the Dundee Comics Prize competition for a 3 page story and cover for an update of the 1940s DC Thomson superhero character Mister X which were in the corridor outside the main lecture theatre or the original 2000AD and Megazine artwork on display upstairs in the Baxter Suite exhibition The Art Of Judge Dredd. The cold buffet selection for lunch was included in the cost of the £15 ticket which covered both the Saturday and Sunday events.

After lunch came five of Grant's artists in a run of half hour talks which normally included a QandA element at the end. First up was Rian Hughes (below) who has previously appeared at DCD several years back. He covered the Grant Morrison Dan Dare series in Revolver and Crisis that he had illustrated plus he gave a general overview of his work including a vast selection of logos for various DC comics as well as stylised versions of Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Supergirl for DC 's merchandising arm.

Next up was Frazer Irving (below) who concentrated on displaying and talking about the covers that he has produced for 2000AD and DC Wildstorm. Fraser was the first of the guests to connected his iPad to the lecture theatre's main screen and it proved to be an interesting and much more dynamic and interactive experience than the more traditional Power Point presentations as he zoomed into the specific covers and then into details on the given cover before moving on to his next subject.

The second break of the day allowed the first of the two signing sessions to take place in the Baxter Suite. The increased number of attendees did put a strain on what in previous years had been relatively quick signing queues and this first signing session ran over so badly that it had to be curtailed to allow the next batch of guests to give their talks. While it may not have been obvious to the academic organisers, perhaps not being used to such behaviour, it was obvious to those of us in the audience that some attendees were expecting to get serious numbers of books and comics autographed based on the piles of items that they were arranging and rearranging during the talks. Indeed an announcement had to be made prior to the second signing session that only one or two items should be presented for signature.

The third session of guest talks brought Frank Quitely (above) back to Dundee having appeared at DCD last year. With pages of the newly remastered Flex Mentallo on the screen behind him, he talked and took questions about his work with Grant and his current artistic style. For someone perhaps best known for his DC work, when asked what characters he would like to work he he listed Spiderman, Daredevil and the Hulk.

Next up was Canadian Cameron Stewart (above) who pointed out that his first "collaboration" with Grant Morrison was when he donned a Zenith outfit for a costume party in Canada many years before. As with some of the other guests, Cameron described the differences he had experienced between working traditionally with paper and then moving on to creating his art digitally.

The final guest of the day was artist and colourist Peter Doherty (below) who chose, perhaps wisely as the fifth of five artists talking that day, to concentrate on his colouring work showing examples of his Judge Dredd work as well as, of course, Flex Mentallo. Peter's laid back presentation concluded the guest's individual talks for the day after which most attendees made for the Baxter Suite again to join the long signing queue as the scheduled time of the concluding roundtable discussion came and went.

Indeed while the Dave Gibbons signing on the Saturday was scheduled at the end of Dave's talk with nothing due after it, the length of it was never really going to be an issue. However it was the signing sessions, more than the couple of technical glitches with the presentation equipment, that proved the most problematic for Sunday's schedule. The scheduling and control of the signing sessions is something that, while never really a problem before at the Dundee Comics Day, will need to be reconsidered for the future.

That said the weekend's events were interesting mixture with a good selection of presentations and presenting styles and all the guests seemingly relaxed about answering questions about their work. It certainly was something of a coup for Dundee to get both Dave Gibbons and Grant Morrison, as well as so many of Grant's artistic collaborators, to take the time to attend this year.

Indeed given that this year the event had Dave Gibbons, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely appearing, there is really only one other British comics creator that could top those names for next year - but no pressure there Chris!

There are more details of the Dundee Comics Day on its Facebook page.

There are more details of comics studies at the University Of Dundee at the University's website.

Dave Gibbons guests at Dundee Literary Festival

Another reminder about events in Dundee next weekend, that are part of the Dundee Literary Festival.

On Saturday 27th October Dundee University welcomes special guest Dave Gibbons, one of the most famous comics artists in the world, and best known as the co-creator of Watchmen, the ground-breaking graphic novel written by Alan Moore and drawn by Gibbons.

Gibbons will deliver a talk on the theme of Creating Comics, and will discuss his own methods for producing comic art, and in particular, his use of Manga Studio, which he will demonstrate. He will also lead a workshop on this theme, which anyone can participate in, but would be particularly useful for anyone who has ever considered creating a comic.

Dr Chris Murray, lecturer in Comics Studies at the School of Humanities and Director of the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies said “it is a tremendous honour for us to host a workshop with Dave Gibbons. He is a hugely talented and influential figure”. He added, “to have Dave Gibbons and Grant Morrison in Dundee on the same weekend is astounding - we are very proud that comics creators of this calibre are supportive of the Comics Studies courses and events that the University of Dundee is leading”.

Phil Vaughan, lecturer at DJCAD added, “comics students at the Art College and in Humanities will benefit enormously from meeting Dave Gibbons and Grant Morrison, and hearing about their creative processes”.

"It's also good to see such interest from the general public in these events," notes Chris, "as this demonstrates that for many Dundee’s proud history as one of the homes of comics production is still something that has a great deal of resonance”.

The talk and workshop are open to the general public, but are ticketed (£15 full price, £7.50 concession). This ticket also allows access to Dundee Comics Day on Sunday 28th October, which features comics superstar Grant Morrison, along with several of his collaborators, including Frank Quietly, Peter Doherty, Rian Hughes, Frazer Irving and Cameron Stewart. The events will be held in the D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre and Baxter Suite, Tower Building, University of Dundee. More information is available here: http://on.fb.me/WgJH1t

To buy tickets, please visit www.literarydundee.co.uk or http://bit.ly/SXEityTickets are also available from Literary Dundee, 6th floor, Tower Building, University of Dundee, tel. 01382 384413. Please note, this workshop and talk is part of a wider event called “The Comics of Grant Morrison”, so that should be selected. One ticket allows access to all events on Saturday 27th and 28th October.

 

Grant Morrison headlnes Dundee Comics Day

A reminder that one of the world’s most successful comics writers, Grant Morrison, heads the stellar line-up of top industry talent appearing at this year’s Dundee Comics Day.

The annual event, part of the Dundee Literary Festival, takes place on Sunday, 28th October and this year’s programme, entitled ‘Invisible Symmetries: The Comics of Grant Morrison’, celebrates the work of the Glasgow-born writer.

It will be preceded by two special events in the run-up to Comics Day – a screening of the documentary ‘Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods’ at Dundee Contemporary Arts on Friday 26th, and a two-hour workshop on creating comics using Manga Studio on Saturday 27th. This workshop will be delivered by Dave Gibbons, the co-creator of Watchmen and one of the world’s most respected comics artists.

Grant Morrison began his career at the famous Dundee publishers DC Thomson before going on to work for Marvel and DC Comics and write for many of the world’s best-loved publications, including Superman, Batman and X-Men.

He will be discussing his approach to writing comics, his thoughts about superheroes (as expressed in his recent book Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero), and his experience of working with some of the best comics artists in the world.

Joining him at the event will be several of his collaborators, including Frank Quietly, Peter Doherty, Rian Hughes, Frazer Irving and Cameron Stewart. They will talk about their experience of working with Grant Morrison, as well as discussing their wider careers and future projects.

Dr Chris Murray, event organiser and one of the UK's foremost authorities on the subject, said Grant Morrison’s upcoming appearance was causing a great deal of excitement among comics fans.

“Grant Morrison is, quite simply, a legend in the world of comics,” he said. “Having him come here is a real honour and we are absolutely delighted to be able to pay tribute to a truly great comics writer.

“The fact he is Scottish and began his career with DC Thomson is testament to the great comics tradition here. We have a fantastic line up of other artists and writers and this is an event no true comics fan should miss. We know that people are planning to travel considerable distances for this year’s Dundee Comics Day so I’d advise people to get their tickets fast.”

Dundee is one of the great powerhouses of comics production, not just in the UK, but internationally. The publisher DC Thomson is at the heart of the city, with its long running comics, The Beano and The Dandy, and a host of beloved characters, such as Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan, and the Bash Street Kids.

Building on this local tradition and expertise, the University of Dundee is currently leading the way in this emerging academic field, with modules on comics at undergraduate level and the UK’s first Masters course in Comics Studies.

The Scottish Centre for Comics Studies (SCCS) is based at the University, bringing together researchers, teachers, archivists, artists and writers, industry professionals, and others involved in the promotion of Comics Studies.

Comics Day has been held annually since 2007 and has attracted some of the biggest names in the industry, including artists, historians, scholars and writers, in that time. It is designed to appeal to anyone with an interest in comics, and will be accompanied by an exhibition of comic art work. Book signings, talks and the announcement of the Dundee Comics Prize winners will also take place.

The events will be held in the D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre and Baxter Suite, Tower Building, University of Dundee. More information about any of the events is available by contacting Dr Murray at c.murrayATdundee.ac.uk.

• To buy tickets, please visit www.literarydundee.co.uk. Tickets are also available from Literary Dundee, 6th floor, Tower Building, University of Dundee, tel 01382 384413.

 

Transitions 3 - Keynote announced

The Transitions symposium is fast approaching, taking place on Saturday 3rd November at Birkbeck College, London.



Transitions is a one-day symposium promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study of comics/ comix/ manga/ bande dessinée and other forms of sequential art.

The keynote will come from Dr. Julia Round (Bournemouth University) and Dr. Chris Murray (University of Dundee), editors of Studies in Comics and Dr. Roger Sabin (Central St. Martins).

Transitions is part of Comica 2012, the London International Comics Festival, and is organised in association with Birkbeck, University of London; the School of Film and Television Studies and the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia; Studies in Comics (Intellect), European Comic Art (Berghahn), Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Routledge), the Contemporary Fiction Seminar and The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship.

This event is free, but please register your attendance by email at transitions[dot]symposium[at]gmail[dot]com

• The programme can  be accessed here on the Comica web site and here. 

Comics Creators At Hi-Ex 2012: Part 1

Having taken a lot of photos of the various creators at the Hi-Ex comics convention, which took place at the Eden Court complex in Inverness last weekend, there was never going to be enough room in the main downthetubes review of the con to include all the images. Instead we present a selection of those images of the creators along with links to their websites, blogs and/or Facebook pages. They are in no particular order, but let's start with "A" anyway.

Dr Chris Murray's distinctive shirts are now well known around comics events in Scotland and, along with fellow Dundee University lecturer Phillip Vaughan, had the Anthology One book on sale. It presents the work of the students of the 2011-2012 University of Dundee's DJCAD Comics Art and Graphic Novels module as well as the winner and runners-up of the 2011 Tartan Bucket Prize that was run as part of last year's Dundee Comics Day.

Details of ordering Anthology One by post are available by e-mailing : universecomic@gmail.com

Dr Chris Murray and Phillip Vaughan are interviewed on downthetubes here and here.

Colin MacNeil is a former student at Dundee University's Duncan of Jordanstone College Of Art And Design where Phillip Vaughan lectures and supplied the rather excellent cover for Anthology One. As can be seen here, he uses chalks on a black background for his convention sketches.

Colin MacNeil's professional website is here and his Lambiek entry is here.

Another title that Colin provided the cover for is the 2012 edition of the A5 size Doctor Who comic Doctor WTF?! Contributor James Feist (left) and editor Owen Watts were there to sell both issues of this title which chronicles short adventures of 'other' incarnations of the Doctor.

There are more details of Doctor WTF?! on the title's Facebook page.

From Doctor Who to Star Wars and Star Wars: The Clone Wars artist Tanya Roberts who has been working on the junior title for some four years now. It was good to see former Star Wars Dark Empire artist Cam Kennedy comparing notes with Tanya during the weekend and it will be intriguing to she what comes of her ideas for non-licensed work in the future.

There are more details of Tanya Roberts art on her Enolian Slave DeviantArt page.

Hi-Ex co-organiser Richmond Clements is a creator in his own right as well as being an editor for Futurequake Press. As well as writing for Strip Magazine, Rich wrote the two part Turning Tiger for Renegade Arts Entertainment which is just about to be released as a special edition graphic novel.

There are more details of Richmond Clements' writing on his blog and his FQP work of the Futurequake website.

Rich's co-creator on Turning Tiger is artist Alex Moore and she was at Hi-Ex as well showing of the new title and her small press work. Alex is currently working on The Liberty graphic novel due from Markosia.

There are more details of Alex Moore's work on her website and blog.

There are more details of Turning Tiger on the Renegade Arts website.

Writer and artist Dave Shelton's comic strip Good Dog, Bad Dog was originally published weekly in The DFC and then collected into one of the hardback DFC Library titles. New episodes are due to appear in The Phoenix, a comic that he had copies of to show prospective readers which was a good thing considering that the nearest Waitrose to the venue was 155 miles away in Edinburgh. He also had copies of his new illustrated novel A Boy And A Bear In A Boat.

There are more details of Dave Shelton's work on his blog.

Manga artists Chie Kutsuwada (left) and Inko (right) were some of the hardest working of the creators over the course of Hi-Ex's two days. Both seemed to have a never ending stream of attendees wanting their portraits drawn manga style with Inko even having Cam Kennedy sit for her.

There are more details of Chi Kutsuwada's work on her blog.

There are more details of Inko's work on her blog.

Artist Graeme Neil Reid as well as having his own blog is the founder of the Scottish daily art-blog Scotch Corner. Graeme normally does his sketches before conventions which allows him to relax more during the events, as well as using them on the two blogs and compiling them into limited edition convention sketchbooks. However as the Sqaxx Dek Thargo know that he is an artdroid, he was convinced by several Hi-Ex attendees to draw them Dredd while one little girl even managed to get him to draw her a dinosaur.

There are more details of Graeme Neil Reid's work on his website, blog and on Scotch Corner.

Artist Gary Erskine is another member of Scotch Corner as well as being Eagle Award nominated this year in the Favourite Artist: Inks category. He is also rather well known nowadays for liking girls in roller skates and is working with his wife Mhairi on the Roller Grrrls title which has manifested itself before publication with rather a lot of comic conventions now having female Roller Derby teams attending - including Hi-Ex.

There are more details of Gary Erskine's work on his blog, on Scotch Corner and on the Roller Grrrls Facebook page.


The second and final part of Comics Creators At Hi-Ex will follow soon.

The Hi-Ex website is here.

The downthetubes review of Hi-Ex 2012 is here.

In Review: Anthology One

Anthology One is the first publication to come from the new UniVerse imprint set up as part of the various comics related courses run by the University of Dundee. Co-edited by Dr Chris Murray of the university's School of Humanities and Phillip Vaughan of the university's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), it presents the work of the students of the 2011-2012 DJCAD Comics Art and Graphic Novels module as well as the winner and runners-up of the 2011 Tartan Bucket Prize that was run as part of last year's Dundee Comics Day.

A 72 page, US comic size book with an excellent cover by DJCAD graduate Colin MacNeil, Anthology One does exactly what is says on the tin and presents a series of short stories from each of the contributors: Nest by Stephanie Scott; Hubert and Remington by Charlie Parsons; Treasure Hunt by Rebecca Rolland; Mob Mentality by Calum Sutherland; Asylum by Louise Cadger; Code of Love by Samantha-Jo Ross; Subject Nine by Claire Roe; and finally Calvin The Dog by Jamie Buchanan.

The Tartan Bucket Prize section at the back features the winning strip, Belle's Magic Mobile by Stephen English, that was also published in The Beano, plus the four runners-up, The Ape Prentice by Stephen Baskerville, Holly Unlikely by Adam Smith, Elly's Evil Teddy by Jamie Huxtable and Jack The Robot by Paul Rainey.

Any anthology title can be a hit or miss experience depending on the reader's interest but it has to be said that the standard achieved throughout the book by the DJCAD students is uniformly high. Their strips range from complete short stories to issue zero style intros to what could become a longer story and each strip also has a page or two of design sketches. Since I enjoy 'police procedural' TV series Samantha-Jo Ross' different take on the arrest of a suspect in Code of Love (left) is perhaps the highlight for me, helped by being complete in itself, but Stephanie Scott's moodily talky Nest and Jamie Buchanan's silently comedic Calvin the Dog, despite being worlds apart both story and art-wise, are also both interesting while Hubert and Remington by Charlie Parsons with its robot and human lead characters is perhaps the most 2000AD or Megazine-like strip in the collection. It would have been nice to read a paragraph or two by the creators explaining their work as part of their sketchbook pages but that is a minor gripe.

With the main section of the book being the DJCAD students producing artwork formatted for US size publication, the Tartan Bucket Prize pages formatted for DC Thomson's Beano and Dandy are a considerable change of pace. The introduction at the very beginning of the book by Chris Murray gives a little of the background to the competition but it would have been nice to read more details on the competition and its creators while a separate introduction to this section would have lessened the culture shock between the two different sections of the book. Of these stories Adam Smith's Holly Unlikely (right) is perhaps the most interesting with its girl character puzzled by being able to see herself in other panels on the same page, although it is also probably the least likely of the Tartan Bucket strips to work as a series.

Anthology One is an interesting snapshot of the comics work that has been gradually building up over the last five years or so at the University of Dundee and shows off a wide range of styles and genres. It will be interesting to see if Anthology Two, which is scheduled to contain work by the students of the MLitt in Comics Studies, can keep up the high standard of this first issue.

Anthology One will be formally launched and available to buy at the Hi-Ex Comics Convention in Inverness this weekend, Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April 2012. The cover price is £5.95.

Details of ordering Anthology One by post are available by e-mailing : universecomic@gmail.com

Anthology co-editors Dr Chris Murray and Phillip Vaughan are interviewed on downthetubes here and here.

Treating Comics Seriously: Six Questions For Lecturer Phillip Vaughan

Phillip Vaughan is a lecturer at the University of Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art And Design (DJCAD) with a background in 3D animation for the television, film and games industry. At DJCAD he teaches graphic design and has run the first module on Comic Art and Graphic Novels, the results of which have just been published in the Anthology One book from the new UniVerse imprint. Jeremy Briggs talks to Phillip about his work teaching the new generation of animators and graphic artists.

What comics did you grow up reading and what do you read now?
Being brought up near Dundee, it was inevitable that my first comics were The Beano and The Dandy. I soon graduated to more 'adult' comics such as The Victor, Warlord, Commando, Starblazer, Spike, Buddy and Champ, all DC Thomson stalwarts. In 1982 I picked up the new Eagle, but wasn’t impressed with the photo strips (bar Doomlord!), really I bought it for Dan Dare, especially the early Ian Kennedy run. A slow adopter, I moved onto 2000AD in 1984. Also around this time I discovered Marvel and DC Comics imports in my local newsagents. Sporadic though these imports were, I managed to collect runs of Uncanny X-Men, Peter David's run on the Hulk, John Byrne's run on Superman and some of Alan Moore's stint on Swamp Thing.

These days, I have stuck with 2000AD through thick and thin, and like the sentiment of anthologies such as Strip and Clint. I dip my toes into the American mainstream now and then, currently reading Hellblazer, Fatale, Action Comics and Captain America (mainly for the Alan Davis art). I have also been picking up Requiem by Pat Mills and Oliver Ledroit.

You lecture at DJCAD, could you tell us a little about what you cover and how comics came to be in the curriculum?
For the past 7 years I have lectured part-time in Graphic Design, mostly covering On-Screen and Motion Graphics, and I have also taught 3D Animation. We restructured our courses last summer, and as part of the new Communication Design umbrella, we were invited to pitch new expansive modules. I proposed the Comic Art and Graphic Novels Module, and was happy when this was picked up for Level 3 students to participate in.

Dr. Chris Murray, Lecturer & Programme Convenor at the School of Humanities (left, with Phillip Vaughan, centre, and Cam Kennedy, right), was a great help in the preparation of this module, as he had undergone the same process in the School of Humanities a couple of years before. The first cohort of students signed up for the module last year, and we are expanding to offer the module to other undergraduate areas of the art college next year.

You have had a number of comics creators give talks to the pupils as part of the course - who has done this and do the students value these talks?
So far we have been very lucky to welcome David Bishop, Colin MacNeil (a DJCAD graduate and cover artist of Anthology One), Frank Quitely, Cam Kennedy and the guys from DC Thomson, Calum Laird, George Low and a childhood favourite of mine, Ian Kennedy! Phew! This year, as well as returning guests, I have a few more very special creators up my sleeve, who have agreed to come in and impart their considerable knowledge! The students have given very positive feedback, and I can't wait to reveal who we have coming this year!

How did you get involved with the Dundee Comics Day?
Dr. Chris asked me! No seriously, me and Chris had been having several planning meetings with regard to my module and Chris's Comic Studies MLitt in Humanities. We dreamed up a wish list, that just so happened to include a lot of 2000AD alumni and I had a few contacts, Chris had his contacts and we managed to get a stellar line up of guests for Dundee Comics Day 2012. Again we are looking to push the boundaries for this year’s Comics Day…stay tuned!

How did Anthology come about and is it something that we can expect from each year of the course?
The Anthology was always part of the brief for the DJCAD Comic Art and Graphic Novels module, where the students were asked to produce between 2-6 finished pages of comic art, on a subject of their choice, for publication. The final book, Anthology One, features the best of the work from the module, and runs to 72 pages of full colour artwork. Colin MacNeil has provided a stunning cover for the first issue. The book costs £5.95 and is non-profit, with costs just covering printing, and it will be used to support and promote the students hard work!

We will be launching the book at Hi-Ex on the 31st March. Everyone who has seen the finished product has been very impressed with the work, which was produced in a very short space of time. Anthology Two will feature the work of students from the Comic Studies MLitt, and then we will keep the book running as a biannual affair! These publications will all be published under the UniVerse imprint which we have recently set up.

Could you tell us a little about your work outside of the university?
When I am not teaching, I work as a freelance designer/animator. Over the last 16 years I have worked on many different projects including 3D animated sequences for Deathtrap Dungeon, Star Trek, Farscape, Tom & Jerry, Wallace & Gromit, Teletubbies(!), Braveheart, plus a couple of original computer game concepts for various publishers such as Eidos and Sony. Most recently I completed the character design, animation and front end work on an iOS Superman Game App for DC Comics/ Warner Bros, which was nice! In the little spare time that I have I produce comic work just for fun and have had a couple of strips in Zarjaz, with the next one appearing in issue 15, out in July. The next project on the table is a comic book collaboration with Dr. Chris Murray.

There is more information about Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design on their website.

For more information about the Comic Art and Graphic Novels Module at DJCAD e-mail Phillip Vaughan at p.b.vaughan@dundee.ac.uk

For information about ordering Anthology One email: universecomic@gmail.com

There is more information about the University Of Dundee's MLitt in Comics Studies on the university website.

There are more details of Phillip Vaughan’s freelance work on his website, V14 Studios.

Phillip Vaugan will be at the Hi-Ex Comics Convention in Inverness on Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April 2012 where he will have copies of Anthology One for sale.

Photo Review: Dundee Comics Day 2011

"The Dundee Comics Day has been the highlight of my comics year so far and I look forward in anticipation to what Chris Murray and his team have in store for next year" was how I ended my review of the 2010 Dundee Comics Day some 16 months ago, so this year's event had a lot to live up to.

As part of the Dundee Literary Festival organised by Dundee University, the Comics Day had to move with the festival from its normal timeslot in June to October putting it close to Thoughtbubble, and its academic conference, and clashing with London's MCM Expo. Yet, other than the fact that it was too cold to eat lunch outside on the front lawn, the date change does not seem to have negatively affected the event or the attendance, indeed the turnout was noticeably larger than in previous years. Whether this was down to the fact that it was term time and Dundee's students were around, or that the 2000AD fans realised that it was worth attending due to the number of script and art droids due to be there, or even that the Glasgow Comic Con in July had opened Glaswegian comics fans eyes to what was going on in the rest of Scotland, is open to debate.

In previous years the day has begun with a morning workshop but this year the workshop was done away with and the pre-lunch session was expanded into a series of talks beginning at 11am with comics historian and author Paul Gravett (above). Paul has been to Dundee before and this year his talk was based around his new book 1001 Comic Books You Must Read Before You Die as he suggested a fairly long list of comics creators, several of which I hadn't heard of, from which to chose five.

Next up were Burke and Hare writer Martin Conaghan and artist Will Pickering, talking about their graphic novel, originally published by Edinburgh's Insomnia, and which won the Best Graphic Novel, and Conaghan best writer, at the inaugural Scottish Independent Comic Awards at the Glasgow Comic Con in July. They discussed the background to the book, their inspiration for it in the form of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell, plus the amount of research that they put into it to avoid the many myths that have grown up around the two murderers.

The morning session came to an end with a short talk by artist Jimmy O'Ready about his new comic Death Sentence which he writes under the pen name Montynero and which has art by Rex Royd's Mike Dowling. The audience showed their interest after this talk by buying every copy of the comic that Jimmy had with him.

A light buffet lunch was proved as part of the day's entrance cost of £10 after which the early afternoon session took on a heavily 2000AD feel. Yet for all the fact that John Wagner is associated with 2000AD and his co-creation of Judge Dredd, he began his talk with his time at DC Thomson and showed photos of Pat Mills' former garden shed where the pair of DC Thomson men had written 23 scripts for IPC's Cor! humour comic and had 12 of them accepted. They wrote IPC humour characters such as Jack Pott and Tom Boy. He then moved on to the creation of Battle Picture Weekly as a competitor to DCT's Warlord and the attempts to shore up the falling sales of Valiant before it was amalgamated into Battle. One of the Valiant characters was the Dirty Harry-esque One Eyed Jack who mutated with the arrival of 2000AD into Judge Dredd.

Robbie Morrison was next who has been writing Nikolai Dante in 2000AD for the last 16 years as well as creating Shimura and Shakara which, it was pointed out, sound similar but aren't. Of the two very different artists on Dante, Robbie said that he wrote to their strengths with John M Burns preferring adventure over science-fiction and Simon Fraser getting the more SF and emotionally charged stories. One snippet that I hadn't heard before was that his first professional script sale was to DCT's SF digest Starblazer and that he had written some 4 or 5 scripts for the title, none of which were used before Starblazer was cancelled in 1991. Chances are those scripts are still sitting in DC Thomson's archive.

Finally in this session was artist Colin MacNeil, another of the Starblazer alumni who pointed out that he was "not a comics artist, just an artist who draws comics." Stating that he was more at home with pictures than words, Colin then went on to give a very thoughtful talk about his work over the years, his influences including his very close encounter with Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' in Holland and his plans for a Battle of the Somme graphic novel to come out in 2016. Colin was followed by a break for refreshments and a signing session in the foyer.

The final session of the day began with Matthew Jarron of the university's Museum Services introducing Commando editor Calum Laird (right), deputy editor Scott Montgomery (left) and former editor George Low (centre) for a short talk about the Commando Battlelines exhibition that was displaying original cover and internal artwork from the comic in the foyer. They gave a good-natured talk and answered questions about one of the great survivors of British comics during which they got what was perhaps the most off-the-wall question of the day when they were asked how much of their readership was female. Surprisingly it is 2%, or 1 in 50, which may not sound like much but it is much higher than I would have expected it to be.

Next up was at talk by Jamie Bryan (left) of computer game firm Tiger Games who, along with the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design lecturer and one of the organisers of the Dundee Comics Day Phillip Vaughn (right), talked about their new Superman game for iPads and iPhones which has not been released yet. While it was an interesting talk, it was definitely the odd-man-out of all the talks during the day.

Things got back on a comics track with artist Cam Kennedy who stood at the front with the microphone and, rather than giving a talk, immediately asked for questions. Cam has a dry humour and it came across well here as questions set him off on amusing anecdotes about his career as he told the audience about his time in France and America as well as his disregard for Star Wars. After the success of his two Dark Empire series when Dark Horse asked for a third he turned them down as he was "fed up drawing a big carpet and a dustbin." When pressed by them he said that he would do a series on Boba Fett as long as John Wagner wrote it and they agreed - not realising that John Wagner hadn't even seen Star Wars at that point. With his art on the screen behind him and the chance of a sketch book of his work being published in Europe (we can but hope), Cam's session was one of the highlights of the day.

After the energy and humour of Cam came one of the most highly regarded comic strip artists of modern times, Frank Quitely, whose 'secret identity' just happens to be a quietly spoken bloke from Glasgow called Vincent Deighan. Unlike most artists who prefer their artwork to do the talking, Vinnie is at home in front of an audience and he sat at the front cradling the mic and talked about his work and career. Like Colin MacNeil, as a child he had considered books were something for school and it was comics that he read for fun at home, while his favourite pastime even then was drawing.

The audience were then invited to move out to the foyer for the Tartan Bucket awards presentation. In association with DC Thomson the university had run a competition to create a new 1 or 2 page humour strip in the vein of Beano and Dandy. With a honourable mention for Craig Balmer, the four runners up who received a cheque for £250 each were Steven Baskerville, Jamie Huxtable, Paul Rainey and Adam Smith while the tartan Bucket Prize was won by Steve English (below) with his two page strip Belle's Magic Mobile. As well as a cheque for £1000 and, quite literally, a bucket full of DC Thomson merchandise, Steve's strip will be published in the Beano in the new year.


Finally, and a surprise to most not least of all Cam Kennedy, there was a short presentation by Calum Laird about the two unrelated Kennedy "brothers", Cam and Ian. Artist Ian Kennedy had quietly joined the audience towards the end of the day which meant that he was there for Calum presenting him, and John Wagner presenting Cam, with lifetime achievement awards which, it has to be said, were both very richly deserved. Despite both being Scottish, Cam (left) and Ian (right) had never met before and this candid photo below shows the moment when the men were introduced to each other for the first time by a delighted Phillip Vaughn.


The day's talks were themed as 'Wot I Learnt From Comics' and two fairly consistent things came from that. Firstly comics creators don't read many comics (and why would they when they spend all day working on them?) and secondly, and more importantly for budding creators in the audience, if you want to make a comic just go ahead and do it - practice may not make perfect but it can only benefit you in the long run.

Practice has pretty much made perfect when it comes to the Dundee Comics Day and congratulations must go to Dr Chris Murray and his team for yet another excellent event covering both old and modern British comics and their creators. Long may it continue.