Artist Paul McCaffrey takes on TMNT's 'Fugitoid'

British comics comic creator Paul McCaffrey is the artist on the latest issue of IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Microseries: Fugitoid.

Also available digitally as well as in comic shops, the story centres on Fugitoid, a Mirage Studios character co-created by the founding fathers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

This comic Is a one-shot, released as the eighth issue of IDW's TMNT "Micro-Series" line written by Paul Allor and introduces Fugitoid to a new era of readers, the strong familial themes in his story and his personal connections to the TMNT. The adventure leads the new 'Fugitoid' to Earth, and stands to affect the Turtles’ future in an unexpected and crucial way.

The story serves to set up an upcoming TMNT ongoing story arc, and writer Paul Allor has nothing but praise for Paul McCaffrey's art.

"Paul does a really amazing job with action sequences," Allor told Comic Book Resources news. "He's able to make sure you know where everyone is, what's happening and what the stakes are for each character. He's a masterful storyteller in that regard.

"He's also fantastic at the character-acting part of the job," he added. "He's able to pick just the right body language, the right expression to tell you everything going on inside a character's mind. That's why one of my favorite moments was the scene... between Honeycutt and his wife, as they have an important conversation. It's a quiet, domestic scene, and Paul nailed the emotions behind it, the interaction of these two characters.

"The Fugitoid is an early creation of Mr. Eastman and Mr. Laird, pre-dating even the Turtles," he says of the character. "In the original continuity, he was a scientist named Professor Honeycutt who becomes trapped in a robot body and finds himself on the run from intergalactic factions. Eventually he hooks up with the Turtles and hijinks ensue!

"In the IDW continuity, Dr. Honeycutt is working for Krang before deciding to defect. The new IDW continuity is focused so strongly on family and moral questions of right and wrong, the proper use of violence and peace and how to do the right thing in such an imperfect world. Our new iteration of Dr. Honeycutt fits into these themes quite well."

"!We seem to have been getting generally positive reactions," says Paul of the book, which marks only his latest foray into US comics, having also worked on the Men of War mini-series for DC Comics.

Paul McCaffrey graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic (as was) with a BA in graphic design. Since then, he's mainly worked in the area of children's educational illustration, so he's done a lot of work you'll never see for books you've never heard of. Some of this can be seen on his web site or or his agent's web site.

Over the past few years, his comic strip work has appeared in UK indie titles such as Omnivistascope, Violent! and Zombies Vs Robots: Adventure. When he's not scribbling away, he makes music with The Phase 4). (Also atwww.last.fm/music/The+Phase+4).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles digital comics are now available to fans outside of the US, including the UK, Australia, the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey), Ireland and New Zealand.

The comics will be available in the TMNT Comics app, the IDW Comics app, Comics by comiXology apps for iOS and Android, or online at read.idwpublishing.com

- Paul McCaffrey's web site: www.coroflot.com/paul_mccaffrey

- Read a 2010 interview with the artist on the SciFi Art Now blog

- Read Paul Allor's interview about the Fugitoid comic on Comic Book Resources

IDW release more info on Judge Dredd collections

Following their Comic-Con announcement of the new ongoing Judge Dredd comic’s creative team, US publisher IDW Publishing has announced expanded and refined plans to offer new editions of beloved Judge Dredd material as well.

Once again showing a willingness to tailor books to fan requests, IDW’s first hardcover collection of classic Judge Dredd comics, Judge Dredd: The Complete Brian Bolland, will first appear as a fully black-and-white edition, presenting crisp, clean, and stunning pages of Brian Bolland artwork as they first appeared. Bolland’s amazingly detailed linework will be on full display in this oversize hardcover edition.

“Fans have been very vocal to us about wanting to first see Bolland’s amazing pages in pristine black-and-white,” said IDW’s Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief and Judge Dredd editor Chris Ryall. “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimate Collections presented the original Eastman/Laird stories in gorgeous black and white, and that’s what fans have told us they’d like to see here at the start, too. We’re happy to give them what they want, especially since Brian Bolland’s art is so stunning even without colour.”

Owing to the TMNT model again, IDW is also preparing to give the fans of coloured art a chance to experience this artwork in full colour as well.

“In the spring, we’ll do as we did with Classic Doctor Who and TMNT Classics, and release the best Dredd stories as monthly color comics,” continued Ryall. “So anyone who loved what we did with that material - applying the most modern coloring techniques to these beloved pages - will also be able to re-experience these Dredd tales in vibrant color.”

Charlie Kirchoff , who has done such a superb job re-colouring Doctor Who stories by Dave Gibbons, John Ridgway and others will tackle Bolland’s Judge Dredd material for the monthly comics. This ongoing 32-page comic series will also see all-new colours applied to classic work by Carlos Ezquerra, and many other fan-favourite artists.

“I first experienced Judge Dredd in the form of the Eagle Comics reprints from the early 1980s, so it’ll be fun to pay that forward and let a new generation of readers also experience that material in monthly color comics, albeit with the benefit of 21st century coloring and printing techniques,” Ryall said.

IDW has other archival Judge Dredd projects planned to complement the full slate of 2000 AD/Rebellion books, in the form of hardcovers that collect the work of other beloved Judge Dredd artists, Treasury Edition-sized comics, and some other special things other than the new ongoing series, which launches in November alongside the Brian Bolland collection. Whatever your preference for Judge Dredd material, there’s no doubt justice will be coming your way in late 2012 and beyond.

• Order Judge Dredd: The Complete Brian Bolland from amazon.com 

• Order Judge Dredd: The Complete Brian Bolland from amazon.co.uk  

• Judge Dredd: The Complete Brian Bolland ($49.99, 248 pages, B/W, HC) will be available in November 2012. Diamond order code: APR12 8054. ISBN 978-1-61377-488-5.
 
• Official web site: www.IDWPublishing.com; Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/idwpublishing; Tumblr: http://tumblr.idwpublishing.com; Twitter at @idwpublishing

IDW confirm creative talent on new Judge Dredd US title

After announcing their partnership with the 2000AD at WonderCon 2012 earlier this year, US publisher IDW Publishing and Rebellion have announced Edgar-nominated and Anthony Award-winning Duane Swierczynski and Nelson Daniél, as the creative team for their brand-new Judge Dredd US comic book series.

The announcement was made to a capacity crowd during a panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2012 celebrating Dredd’s 35th anniversary.

”I’ve loved the work both Duane and Nelson have done for us separately – they’ve both been responsible for some amazingly action-packed and thrilling comics like Godzilla and The Cape,” said IDW’s Chief Creative Officer, Chris Ryall. “So partnering them on Judge Dredd is only going to amp up the excitement here.

“What’s more,” Ryall continued, “while Nelson will be running point on the main story’s art and colors, we’ll also be doing back-up stories in each issue that are tied to the ongoing storyline and that will be illustrated by some big-name talents as well. Folks like Paul Gulacy, Jim Starlin, and many others.

"Add to that covers by people like Ashley Wood, Carlos Ezquerra, Zach Howard, Whilce Portacio, and so many others, and there will be lots of exciting new artistic interpretations of Dredd to come.”

2000AD’s Matt Smith echoed Ryall’s excitement. “Ever since we announced the deal with IDW, Dredd fans all over the world have been eagerly awaiting news of which writer and artists will be coming to Mega-City One.

"We're really pleased with the creative line-up, which will bring a new dimension to Dredd for a whole new generation. It's been great to see the reaction 2000AD and Judge Dredd have had at SDCC 2012 – and with the new film out in September, 2012 really is the year of Dredd."

IDW’s Judge Dredd series will see new adventures from the legendary character originally created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra for the long-running British weekly comic. For this take on Dredd, IDW and 2000AD wanted to put creators behind the wheel that hadn’t worked with the character before, creating new stories that would appeal to new Dredd fans, as well as long-time lovers of the rich world of Mega City One.

“I discovered Judge Dredd at the tender age of 15 through a somewhat unlikely source: a bootleg Commodore 64 game where you move Dredd through a digital Mega-City One and pretty much shoot everything in sight,” Swierczynski enthused. “Jonesing for more, I realized that Dredd was a UK import, and super-tough to find here in the US.

"Over the next 25 years, I snapped up all the Dredd stories that I could, savouring them like exotic treats smuggled through customs. When IDW announced an American version a while back, I was over the moon -- never even thinking that I would be approached to write this new version. Needless to say, this is the opportunity of lifetime, and I couldn't be more thrilled. The 15-year-old in me may never recover.”

Daniel shared in the excitement “Judge Dredd is one of my three favorite characters, I'm really excited. Everything in Megacity is amazing, everything is possible, and that's something I want to draw.”

• Visit IDWPublishing.com or find them on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/idwpublishing and http://tumblr.idwpublishing.com/ and on Twitter at @idwpublishing.

'Kill Shakespeare' creators hit the UK for signing tour

The Canadian creators of IDW Publishing’s Kill Shakespeare comic book series look to court controversy this month by bringing their take on Shakespeare and his characters to the birth country of the Bard himself this month – on a two-week signing and convention tour of England.

“Colonists” Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col will be appearing at the Bristol Comic Expo as well as the Kapow! Comic Convention this month, along with a number of store signings in London, Manchester, Leeds and Stratford-upon-Avon.

Series artist Andy Belanger will be joining the duo for the Kapow! Convention and a London signing.

The trip to the UK is the final leg of their spring 2012 convention tour, which has seen them make appearances all over North America as well as at the Middle East Film & Comic-Con in Dubai last month.

One of the covers of
Kill Shakespeare #12

To prepare for the tour IDW Publishing has also announced that they are releasing a fourth printing of Kill Shakespeare Volume 1: A Sea of Troubles.  Originally released in April, 2010, this is the first half of the series that pits the Bard’s greatest heroes against his most menacing villains in a quest to track down and kill – or save – a wizard by the name of William Shakespeare.

Del Col and McCreery recently received their second straight Joe Shuster Award nomination for Best Writing in a comic series.  The duo is pitted against such talents as Jeff Lemire and Kathryn Immonen in the category.

“We’re quite chuffed to see what people in England think of our take on the Bard,” says McCreery.  “We expect some nay-sayers but we’re eager to show everyone that this project is just as vital a reflection of the Bard’s work as anything coming out of the Globe Theatre or Stratford-on-Avon.”

Kill Shakespeare has been in hot water before, after Shakespearean scholar Kimberly Cox denounced the series as “bull****” and said that “these guys really are helping to kill Shakespeare.”

However, the adventure series, which incorporates Hamlet, Juliet, Othello, Richard III, Lady Macbeth, Puck and others, has received high praise from media such as the New York Times, NPR, BBC, CBC and Fangoria.

The series has also spawned a 90-minute stage show that debuted in association with Toronto’s acclaimed Soulpepper Theatre company in November of 2011 and is scheduled to tour to various locations across North America this autumn.

The current signing schedule includes:

• Bristol Comic Expo - Saturday 12th - Sunday 13th May
• Travelling Man (Manchester) - Wednesday 16th May
• Travelling Man (Leeds) - Thursday 17th May
• Forbidden Planet London Megastore - FRiday 18th May
• Kapow! - Saturday 19th - Sunday 20th May

• Published by IDW Publishing, more information about the series can be found at www.killshakespeare.com. The graphic novel is available at all major comic and book stores and digitally through iTunes or ComiXology.

John McCrea takes on Mars Attacks! project

US publisher IDW Publishing and Topps have announces multiple Eisner Award-winning creative team for Mars Attacks, an all-new ongoing comic series based on the fan-favourite Mars Attacks franchise - and STRIP Magazine's John McCrea is one part of the line-up.

Debuting in June 2012, IDW’s comic series will offer the first stories of an all-new Mars Attacks universe, bringing the brand’s outrageous action and dark humour to a new set of tales.

Writer John Layman, author and co-creator of the Eisner-winning series Chew, will script the series, with art by John McCrea, best known for his collaborations with Garth Ennis, including Eisner-winner Hitman, whose creator-owned story, Warpaint, is currently running in STRIP Magazine.

Created in 1962, Mars Attacks celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012 with major product launches throughout the year. IDW’s new comic series, as well as high-quality reprints of existing material, will be a cornerstone of that effort.

Originally published by Topps as a series of trading cards, Mars Attacks was created by Len Brown and Woody Gelman, after Brown was inspired by the Wally Wood cover to EC Comics Weird Science #16. The cards went on to achieve cult status for their then-shocking imagery — fully painted by pulp legend Norm Saunders and based on designs by Wood and Bob Powell — and remains a staple of pop culture. Topps revived the franchise in the mid 1990s with a second card set, comic book series and toy line. The story was also adapted into the 1996 feature film Mars Attacks!, directed by Tim Burton.

“We were excited to hear of the award-winning creative team that IDW had secured,” said Ira Friedman, Topps vice president of global licensing. “John McCrea was our first choice to illustrate Mars Attacks and we were thrilled that IDW was able to bring him aboard. His experience drawing over-the-top violence on comics like Hitman, Judge Dredd and The Boys, coupled with John Layman’s penchant for twisted, offbeat humor makes them the perfect team to relaunch Mars Attacks.”

Mars Attacks will include covers by McCrea and alternate covers by such comic-book luminaries as Sam Kieth, Ben Templesmith and Eric Powell. The first issue will also feature a unique approach to variant covers: It will ship with 55 different covers, each depicting one of the original trading cards from the debut set of Mars Attacks from 1962. A complete collector’s set of the 55 covers in a box that replicates the original card packaging will be offered separately as well.

• Mars Attacks #1 will be available in stores in June 2012. More info from IDWPublishing.com. For information on Topps visit topps.com.

Tony Lee, Mark Buckingham and Richard Piers Rayner take on more TARDIS tales for IDW

A British creator line up that includes writer Tony Lee and artist Mark Buckingham will keep US Publisher IDW's Doctor Who comics afloat in the coming months.

While the Eleventh Doctor has already had several comic strip adventures in Britain's Doctor Who Adventures and Doctor Who Magazine, IDW Publishing's first title featuring all-new adventures of Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor, will not be released until January 2011 in a new ongoing series.

The new title comes as US screenings of Doctor Who on BBC America delivered record ratings for the channel, with episodes reaching  the top spot on the iTunes TV chart.

Doctor Who #1 is written by Tony Lee and will see  the Doctor and his new companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, battling holographic spam and 'friending' requests on a planet that's hours from destruction by an alien race.

Artist Andrew Currie brings this debut adventure to life, with the ever-busy Tommy Lee Edwards offering eye-catching covers on each issue. Eisner Award winning Fables superstar Mark Buckingham also offers an incentive cover for Issue 1, and will provide interior art on an upcoming issue, as well. Kelley Yates will also provide an incentive cover for Issue 1, featuring a die-cut gatefold image that allows fans to open the TARDIS and see the Doctor inside.

Joining IDW's Doctor Who comic book series for art duties is Richard Piers Rayner (who first drew Doctor Who in Evening's Empire for DWM, a strip that eventually appeared in a special edition due to deadline problems), who will tackle a run-in between The Doctor and Jack the Ripper in issues #2-4. Artists Matthew Dow Smith (Doctor Who, Starman) and Chris Samnee (Thor: The Mighty Avenger) will also be featured for special story arcs.

Storylines for the new book include holographic spam fighting Mad Max-esque mercenaries, Victorian Jack The Ripper suspense, penalty shoot-outs against Vikings and Cybernetic Space Pirate Dinosaurs. Said IDW's Doctor Who editor Denton J. Tipton: "There's going to be something for everyone in this story. For example, fans of the classic series should be on the look out for a classic Doctor Who villain!"

"I could tell you who they are, but I'd have to kill you," adds Lee. "Let's just say we've been given special dispensation to use them, and we have a killer story – in all senses of the word!"

• Doctor Who #1 ($3.99, 32 pages, full color) will be available in US stores in January. Technically the title is not available in the UK for licensing reasons but copies do reach some specialist stores. No UK publisher seems to have picked up distribution rights to IDW's Doctor Who collections.

iPads to order in UK, but which Comic Reader is best?

The prices and release date details for the most hyped and anticipated gadget this year, the Apple iPad, which features a number of digital comic products were announced for the UK this week. The device has been much touted as an ideal comic reader and, indeed, Apple itself is promoting the device as a comics reader in its promotional pages for the UK launch.

The iPad will be sold through the Apple Online Store, Apple retail outlets and via approved resellers from Friday 28th May 2010.

Pre-ordering began this week from the Apple online store where, you can order all the iPad Wi-Fi models, together with all the iPad WiFi + 3G models, in time for delivery on the 28th May.

Compared to the US, where the iPad is already on general release and selling in huge numbers, as usual for Britian, the prices do appear rather high. A basic model will set yo u back £429 (for the 16GB Wi-Fi iPad model), with a top of the range product priced at £699 (64GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad).

But is it any good for reading comics? (Assuming, of course, you're a fan of digital comics - I'm fully expecting the usual comments from folk who prefer paper, which they're entitled to have).

Reaction has been mixed but fairly positive.

"If the screen were about 20% bigger, this would be the best comic book reader yet, feels Gizmodo's Jason Chen of the iPad. "You wouldn't need to pan, to zoom, to scroll or to pinch. You could just read."

How many comics are available? Well, there are plenty of companies vying for your App loyalty, including PanelFly, Comixology and Marvel's reader, the latter of which is just Comixology, but only delivers Marvel Comics.

Earlier this month, technology site BoingBoing reported the Marvel Comics app would launch offering more than 500 titles through the application, including all the Marvel classics are here: Avengers, X-Men, Hulk, Spider Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and a number of newer titles. To navigate, you simply 'finger swipe' the page to get to the next one, or single click on the left or right edge to go back or forward. You can also scroll through the thumbnail bar at the bottom for faster, jump navigation. The app also enables you to 'zoom in' on the artwork using a double-click or two-finger 'pinching', which iPhone users will be used to

When you've zoomed in on a single frame, finger swipes or single clicks also navigate frame to frame rather than page to page.

"Scrolling is intuitive, brisk, and elegant," enthuses BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin. "I'm amazed at how smooth. The store interface makes sense to anyone familiar with iTunes and App store. Flipping and reading, one luminous full-colour page at a time, I do not miss paper." You can view a video review from BoingBoing below.



"You'd be a fool not to run screaming to the App Store and download this comic reader," feels EnGadgets' Joshua Topolsky. "Not only is the app built in a clear and cleanly laid-out manner, but you get access to tons of great Marvel titles to purchase and lots of free books to download off the bat, but it features a guided view which is about as close as you can get to a motion comic without... reading a motion comic. Our only complaint here is that they don't offer more of the Marvel catalogue."

Of course, given that this is a British comics blog, you might be interested in supporting a British comic app - albeit one with significant overseas investment. Graphic.ly recently launched it AIR app for desktops which includes a digital comic reader, store, and social activity feed and Apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android, and Windows 7 are coming soon. It will also be delivered as native Web app.

With an emphasis on material from independent publishers - although mainstream ones are on board - Grpahic.ly has taken a 'social' approach to digital comics reading, launching with an activity feed showing all the comics your friends are reading and their comments. This serves as a discovery mechanism.

"The AIR app is decent, but I really want to see this on an iPad," commented Erick Schonfeld on Techcrunch last month after seeing a demonstration. "There is just something about comics that makes you want to hold them in your hand."

If you get your comics elsewhere and then import them to your iPad, then you need Comic Zeal or Comic Reader. (The Comic Reader app itself went through a painful gestation period for the developer, which is documented here on the ComicReader forum).

"Comic Reader Mob has the best solution — even if its UI is ugly as Bizarro and costs twice as much," feels Gizmodo's Jason Chen of the iPad.

There's also a iPad version of iVerse, and iVerse Comics founder Michael Murphey is enthusiastic about the device's potential to attract new comic readers. The latest version of their app, demo'd here, adds much requested features like ZOOM for both iPad and iPhone in this update, but overall iVerse hope that the application fades into the background and you can just enjoy reading your comics.

"The things the iPad does it does so very well that it's going to be like the iPhone – once people have their hands on it, they're not going to want to not have that device," he told Comic Book Resources back in January. "It's very slick and very well made, and it's going to allow us to be able to present comics in the best possible way on one of the best devices to do this on."

Most importantly, will comics on the iPad - as well as other digital devices - increase comics readership? Many think so. Making strips available for consumers to download on a tablet could change "the mentality that comics are just meant to be collected," artist Dave Dorman, who has drawn for issues of Batman, Star Wars, and numerous additional comics told Bloomberg Business Week last month.

"Forty years from when I grew up, comics could potentially make a big breakthrough to a new generation," he feels.





Links: Reviews of Note

• Bloomberg Business Week: Comic Book Publishers Plot Comeback via Apple IPad

• EnGadget Round Up of book and comic Apps for iPad (including 'Comics'• Graphic.ly Wants To Blow Your Mind Away With Digital Comics (Video Demo)

• Gizmodo Review of Comic Zeal and Comic Reader

Links: Comic App for iPad Publishers

• Comic Reader

• Comic Zeal

• Comixology

• Graphic.ly

• IDW Publishing (iTunes store link)

• iVerse Comics

• PanelFly

Comic Creators Ally against Human Trafficking

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead


Monday, 11th January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the US. To participate, a number of comics creators including Heroes Inc. creator Scott Austin, writer Peter David and X-Men artist J.K. Woodward - formed the Comic Creator's Alliance - a group of over 80 comic book creators (both web and print) who volunteered their artistic talents to raise money and awareness for this cause.

You may not know it, but there are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide - more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year.

Unlike slavery in the 19th century, what is happening today is happening in secret. So it won't end until awareness is raised, and people need to take a stand.

So here's what the comic creators - all listed here - did: each of them contributed an original drawing of one of their own female characters, and combined them into a single wallpaper image. The preview featured above is just a small snippet of a simply gorgeous montage intended to raise money and awareness for an important cause.

The wallpaper features characters from The Phoenix Requiem, Girls with Slingshots, Earthsong, Looking for Group, Shadowgirls, Marsh Rocket, The Uniques and three IDW Publishing titles: Fallen Angel, The Dreamland Chronicles and The Dreamer, and lots, lots more.

To get hold of a copy, all you need to do is donate to the cause via the CCA website and download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper. The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from 11th - 24th January and all proceeds will be split evenly between Love146 and Gracehaven House - two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this crime.

• To learn more about the Comic Creator's Alliance visit www.comicalliance.weebly.com.


• To learn more about the problem, visit http://love146.org/slavery. (Be warned: contains adult themes and actual accounts of sex slavery.)