Phoenix launches digital edition on first birthday

If you haven't sampled The Phoenix - the lively weekly childrens comic aimed at 8-12 year olds that sprang from the ashes of The DFC - then those of you who have or were given shiny iPads for Christmas are being offered the chance to do so as the title launches its digital edition - backed by an unbeatable launch subscription offer of just £9.99 for six months, for this coming week only.

Despite huge acclaim, a great creator line up and an attractive print subscription package (albeit, we're told, some initial glitches for some), The Phoenix, like The DFC, has suffered from a lack of presence on the shelves of your local newsagents or supermarket. It's currently to be found in Waitrose, but for a lot of the country that supermarket chain is still nowhere to be seen, so sampling The Phoenix before committing to a subscription has not been possible.

The launch of the digital edition changes all that, offering not only a great-looking comic app available worldwide, courtesy of downthetubes sponsors Panel Nine but a sampler issue as an appetiser - and a staggeringly cheap, one week only six month subscription offer.

It's an offer that has proven an instant success, with the app currently the top-grossing Children's Magazine in Apple's Newsstand, beating out CBeebies, Doctor Who, Pokemon and Barbie.

The comic reader not only enables a page per view option but also features an impressive 'Panel Mode' feature that presents each strip panel one at a time with a simple 'double tap' command. For those relucant comic readers, unsure even how to read a comic (sadly, a common affliction thanks to a decline in comics literacy), this helps them learn just how to digest a great strip before going on to enjoy The Phoenix at its full page best.

A fabulous mix of humour strips and adventure serials and carefully designed feature pages that put the boot firmly into many rivals offerings in terms of puzzles and interactivity, the launch issue of the digital Phoenix includes an impressive roster of talent.

Pride of place surely goes to the return of Pirates of Pangaea by Daniel Hartwell and Neill Cameron, plus Cora's Breakfast by Nick (Hugo Tate) Abadzis and plenty more, including Long Don Gone by Don Skelton and Star Cat by James Turner.

The app is the work of digital comics company Panel Nine, who have have created the digital Phoenix for Apple’s Newsstand for iPad service. It's a slick comic reader, with a good choice of font size and the aforementioned Panel Mode view (although I think I'd still like a pinch and zoom option, too, but you can't have everything).

Given that a single printed issue costs £2.99, the subscription launch offer is really good - but it ends very soon, so head over to the iTunes store now to take advantage!

Now all we need are digital back issues or print/digital collections of the best strips in the first 52 issues of this great comic!

• The six month, 24-issue subscription is going to be available for the first week only at the quite amazing price of £9.99 ($13.99) (that's something over 80% off). Go to https://itunes.apple.com/app/phoenix-weekly-story-comic/id583824799 to download!

• The Phoenix official web site: www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk

 

Panel Borders: Nick Abadzis on Hugo Tate

Panel Borders: Hugo Tate

Continuing Panel Borders' month of shows about the depiction of travel in comic books, Alex Fitch talks to the award winning cartoonist Nick Abadzis about the recent Blank Slate Books collection of his much loved strip Hugo Tate, originally serialised in Deadline magazine.
Alex and Nick discuss the autobiographic aspects of the serial, his experiences in the brief but influential wave of 'adult' British comics in the late 1980s and how the story reflects the difficulties of any Brit coming to terms with life in America.

8pm Sunday 14th October, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

Beasts take over the Cartoon Museum!

Animals have always inspired cartoon and comic artists, from the British Lion to Bunny Suicides, Korky the Cat to Simon’s Cat. Now, London's Cartoon Museum is to host an exhibition of animal-inspired cartoons.

The Animal Crackers exhibition includes works by creators such as Nick Abadzis, Leo Baxendale, Alfred Bestall,  Simon Bond, Hunt Emerson, Michael ffolkes, Martin Honeysett, Don Lawrence, Royston Roberston (above), Ronald Searle, Ralph Steadman, Bryan Talbot, Norman Thelwell, Dudley D. Watkins and many, many more.

This cartoon bestiary features the iconic American Eagle, the Russian Bear and the financial Fat Cat, as well as favourite characters such as Mickey Mouse, Wallace and Gromit, Flook, Fred Basset, Gnasher, Pip, Squeak and Wilfred and Rupert Bear. Also included are cracking joke cartoons from Punch, Private Eye, The Oldie, The Spectator and many national papers. There is something for everyone with over 140 cartoons, caricatures, comics and graphic novels by over 60 artists.

Throughout history animals have fascinated us. We have hunted, eaten, studied, collected – and drawn them. They inspired our earliest art and our oldest myths. We have given them human attributes: ‘as cunning as a fox’, ‘as wise as an owl’, ‘as brave as a lion’. Selfish pigs and proud peacocks strut their stuff on our gallery walls accompanied by Aesop’s Hare and Tortoise, the Three Bears (minus Goldilocks) and other characters of fur, feather and scale from folk and fairy tales and from literary classics such as the Alice books.

Giants of the natural and unnatural world such as Moby?Dick and the Lambton Worm also feature, as well as beings which only exist in the minds of cartoon and comic artists. Among the ‘marvellous creatures’ are dragons of yore, the Loch Ness monster and a psychedelic horse.

Many of the cartoons suggest how much animals are ‘just like us’. From Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Jiminy Cricket and King Louie of The Jungle Book to Nick Park’s Gromit, these animals are human in every way that counts. Others, such as Simon’s Cat and Thelwell’s ponies, highlight our pets’ irritating or endearing habits.

Also represented are political animals, both individual and national. When political caricature developed in the eighteenth century it drew on the tradition of heraldic beasts – the English Lion, the Scottish Unicorn and the Habsburg double-headed Eagle. Others such as the Russian Bear and the French Cockerel became established in the nineteenth century.

Certain creatures are purely figments of the cartoonist’s imagination such as David Low’s ‘Coalition Ass’ and ‘TUC Carthorse’. At times animals themselves have taken on a political significance, as in China’s so-called ‘Panda diplomacy’. Politicians can find themselves depicted as King Kong or a chimp, a panda or even a dodo.

The world of animal cartoons is often a surreal place, allowing creatures to stray into the realms of art, business, politics and personal relationships. It reminds us just how much we share with our fellow animals.

• Animal Crackers: A Cartoon and Comic Bestiary; 25th July – 21st October 2012,  Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street London WC1A 2HH. Tel: 020 7631 0793 Web: www.cartoonmuseum.org

Creating Comics: Nick Abadzis

Born in Sweden to Greek and English parents, writer, artist and editorial consultant Nick Abadzis was brought up in Switzerland and England. He writes and draws comics and graphic novels for both adults and children and his stories have been published all over the world.

Since his early days at Marvel UK Nick, whose perhaps best-known graphic novel to date is Laika, the story of the first dog in space, has helped set up several best-selling and innovative children’s magazines, including most recently, The DFC for David Fickling Books.

His storytelling contribution, Cora’s Breakfast, was featured in The Guardian and his work has also appeared in various British publications such as The Times and The Independent on Sunday.

One of his earliest comics works was the hugely popular Hugo Tate, published in the ground-breaking 1980s comic magazine Deadline. Now, at last, British publisher Blank Slate Books have collected the strips into one gorgeous-looking new book, and I caught up with Nick to ask him about the project.

For the full interview with Nick, you'll have to grab a copy of STRIP Magazine Issue 5 from your nearest comic shop, on sale later this month.

DownTheTubes: Hugo Tate. What's it all about?

Nick Abadzis: It’s a rites-of-passage story about a young man who is, initially at least, represented as a stick man in a figurative world. He’s simultaneously an everyman and he changes and becomes more “real” as the story progresses – his story is not by any means universal in the way in which he experiences it, but hopefully it’s universally understandable.

DownTheTubes: It's a welcome collection that's a long time coming - how will it be pitched to people who haven't heard of it?

Nick: A road trip. The second part of it anyway. I’ve heard it described as “a road movie from Hell”!

DownTheTubes: Hugo Tate was one of Deadline's most popular strips - is that a period in your career you remember fondly?

Nick: Mostly, yes. There were some hard lessons to learn – such as, don’t ever sign a contract without reading it first. Tom Astor (Deadline’s funder) chained all of the early Deadline cartoonists to these draconian agreements that I spent a lot of time and most of the money I’d earned (which was a pittance, let me tell you) trying to extricate us all from, which is why there was a break between the first series of Hugo and the second.

Eventually we agreed terms but it was an experience that’s made me cagey about contracts and what rights you sign away ever since. I’m an advocate of creator’s rights in comics and I’d advise all young cartoonists to watch what they sign.

That said, the creative aspects of it were incredible – it really was an amazing opportunity to be given – to be allowed to develop your own comic characters via a regularly published forum with national distribution. I’m very grateful for it and although I think Tom could’ve been smarter in the way he developed his relationship with the magazine’s contributors, I thank Steve Dillon and Brett Ewins for getting me on board. My career might’ve been very different without their championing the likes of us snot-nosed brats.

It was a kind of a shambolic university of comics, very experimental and energetic with some incredibly inventive talent from the start. You had Steve and Brett around and other greats like Brendan McCarthy, Pete Milligan and Tom Frame who you could learn from if you paid attention, but also carte blanche to do your own thing. And I did.

DownTheTubes: Do you have a favourite Hugo Tate moment?

Nick: Do you have a favourite Hugo Tate moment? If you do, submit it here:
http://hugotate.tumblr.com/

DownheTubes: What one piece of advice you would give an aspiring comic creator?

Nick: Persevere. Never give up.

• Find out Nick's favourite Hugo - and his thoughts on Laika - in STRIP Mgazine Issue 5 on sale later this month in UK comic shops

• Hugo Tate is available now from all good book and comic shops. For more about Nick's work, find him online at www.nickabadzis.com; http://hugotate.tumblr.com/ and his regular blog: http://nickabadzis.my-expressions.com/; or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/NickAbadzis
 
• The Hugo Tate Facebook page is at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hugo-Tate/296276587062422?v=wall

Blank Slate announces 'Nelson' graphic novel, firms up 2011 schedule

Nelson, a new collaborative graphic novel from Blank Slate Books will be launching this November at the Thought Bubble convention in Leeds, and features an awesome line-up of British comics talent (detailed below).

So, who is Nelson? Well, Nel Baker’s story starts in 1968 (the year of her birth) and takes us through to the present day, with each creator presenting a snapshot of one year of her life.

“I don’t know if anyone’s tried anything like this before," says Rob Davis (Doctor Who, Don Quixote) the anthology’s editor. "I just think it’s a great way to show what separates comic artists from other artists – we don’t just draw pictures, we tell stories!

"I wanted us to avoid the ‘pick-and-choose’ aspect of most anthologies and get everyone writing their own chapters, working together to tell one continuous story. So whether a creator is your favourite or someone whose work you’d never normally go near, they all become an essential read.”

Blank Slate to release complete 'Hugo Tate'

(via Nick Abadzis and Forbidden Planet International): I missed this great news last week but make no apologies for plugging now. Comic creator Nick Abadzis has announced Blank Slate Books will be publishing a collection of his hugely popular strip Hugo Tate, which first appeared in Deadline magazine alongside Tank Girl and other well known indie strips.

Hugo Tate ran in Deadline magazine from 1988 to 1994. Part of it was collected as Hugo Tate: O, America in 1993 and in 1994 this collection won a UK Comic Art Award for best graphic novel.

Click to read: Bread and Liver

"Over the years, I have been asked for this collection, many, many times," says Nick. "It’s taken a long time to get together, for which I apologise to all those patient readers and fans of Deadline out there. I’ve been working on it, on and off, for years, digitizing and restoring the artwork. (Note to self: never use zip-a-tone again. It shrinks with age.)

"But this is to let the faithful out there know that the Hugo Tate book really is on its way. It’s going to be published by Blank Slate, an imprint whose output I’ve been really enjoying in the past couple of years."

Scared Ground

It's hard to explain in a couple of sentences what Hugo Tate is about exactly, but he was a stick-man who, as he acquired experiences during the run of the strip, slowly evolved into a more figurative character. It's the sort of visual metaphor that could only work in comics.

Blank Slate has been putting out some great indie titles: most recently, Luchadoras by Peggy Adam, chosen as part of the 2007 Sélection Officielle at the Angouléme International Comics Festival; and Sleepyheads by Randall C. It's easy to see Hugo Tate alongside these and other company's many other titles - it's a perfect fit.

Miscellaneous

• Click the strip images in this story to view some of Nick's favourite pages from Hugo Tate - or just click here to browse them all.

• Blank Slate Books is at www.blankslatebooks.co.uk

Nick Abadzis Torchwood comic strip reaches finale

The latest Torchwood magazine, on sale tomorrow in the UK, features the final part of award-winning British comic book creator Nick Abadzis's story for the title.

Abadzis, creator of the acclaimed graphic novel Laika and a contributor to The Times and Guardian’s comic sections, writes part three of Broken for the hit BBC show's official tie-in publication. In the story, the team are trapped in a mysterious hotel – Gwen Cooper is plagued by the ghosts of Torchwood past, while Captain Jack and Ianto must face Bilis Manger.

Acclaimed artist Paul Grist, creator of Jack Staff and Kane and a regular contributor to the Torchwood title, provides the art.

Abadzis joins a long list of stellar talent to have contributed to the Torchwood comic, including Tommy Lee Edwards, Simon Furman, Ian Edginton, D'Israeli and, recently, Carole and John Barrowman.

• Torchwood Magazine Issue #17 is on sale in the UK and Ireland tomorrow, 20th August and in the US on 15th September.

Nick Abadzis: Apollo Remembered

Here's a fab image from Nick Abadzis he's sent us for our Moon Landing Comics Celebration album.

Nick should need no introduction here: his comics and contributions to British comics are legendary, with strips featured in The Times and elsewhere.

"I did this portrait of the Apollo 11 crew for a strip that ran in a DK book," he says, "but then later tweaked it just for my own satisfaction."

Nick is of course no stranger to using space travel as a story theme. His superb graphic novel, Laika, a wonderful story inspired by the first dog in space, was released in 2007, and is highly recommended...

He's also written two Torchwood strips for Titan's official magazine, coming out next month and the month after, drawn by the excellent Paul Grist.

"Everything else I'm doing is long-term stuff," he reveals, "the follow-up to Laika for First Second, etc..." Whatever he's doing it will be worth the wait and we're delighted he found time to join in with our Moon Landing comics project.

• View Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are still very welcome: latest additions include an illustration by Chris Wood, who runs the British Horror Films website, and a humour strip by Paul Eldridge.

If you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit. Thanks!

"Sober Dog" Comes To An End

Top comics creator Nick Abadzis' strip The Trial of the Sober Dog, which started its run back in June last year (see news story), finished its run in the British daily newspaper The Times yesterday. If you missed it, the entire story is now free to read online on his blog.

Times readers have lapped up Nick's strip and more comics are in the offing thanks to its success. "The reaction has been really positive," Nick told downthetubes, "The biggest fan being Mr Editor-of-The Times himself, James Harding. Basically, he's happy because his readers are and my immediate editor (of T2) told me that she thinks they've turned the readers of The Times onto comics which is cool. That's nearly a million people!

"Looks like they're going to do more - [New York Times contributor] Rutu Modan [author of the critically acclaimed Exit Wounds] will be next." (View Rutu's online protfolio here on TheArtWorks)

As for whether Nick will appear in The Times again, he tells us he's busy with several projects at present, including organising an expanded, rejigged collection of Tale of a Sober Dog and finishing his next tale, Skin Trouble, for First Second before doing anything else. "I'm keeping a lot plates spinning right now!" he notes.

Trial of a Sober Dog centres on the person everyone knows or knew: the person at school who was thought most likely to succeed. A chance encounter at a private view sees friends Marco and Petra encounter their old school rival Joe Chase again after many years. It seems he has indeed lived up to his potential… but things aren’t always what they seem. No matter how it seems to observers, nobody can have it all…

Told through observations, anecdotes, flashbacks and musings by different narrators, each episode shows a different aspect of Chase and multiple reasons why he might still be nicknamed The Sober Dog…

Caption Guests Announced

The 17th annual Caption comics convention taking place in Oxford in August has just confirmed a few more guests for the Timewarp, with representatives from classic magazines Escape and Deadline as well as a veritable golden horde of creators involved with brand new weekly subscription-only kids comic The DFC.

On board are Nick Abadzis, Rian Hughes, Ilya, Paul Gravett, Garen Ewing, Kate Brown, Sarah McIntyre and Neill Cameron. (All guests appear subject to work commitments).

More information about Caption past and present can be found at www.caption.org.

The Caption team are also still after contributions of illustrations, comic strips and articles for the Caption Souvenir Programme, on the theme of Timewarp, which will need to reach editor Selina Lock by the middle of July at the latest. Contact details on the Caption web site

Abadzis In The Times

Clearly not content with taking over The Guardian with the wonderful Cora's Breakfast (see news story), Nick Abadzis reveals The Times will be serialising his new graphic novella The Trial of the Sober Dog, serialised in The Times every Monday from 2 June 2008 for the next six months.

The story centres on the person everyone knows or knew: the person at school who was thought most likely to succeed. A chance encounter at a private view sees friends Marco and Petra encounter their old school rival Joe Chase again after many years. It seems he has indeed lived up to his potential… but things aren’t always what they seem. No matter how it seems to observers, nobody can have it all…

Told through observations, anecdotes, flashbacks and musings by different narrators, each episode shows a different aspect of Chase and multiple reasons why he might still be nicknamed The Sober Dog…

The Times relaunch on 2 June features The Sober Dog as its new T2 Monday strip in full colour. Every episode will be available to read online, the day after publication at Timesonline.co.uk/soberdog

"Graphic novels – comics – in The Times?" says Nick. "It’s all true. Follow the exploits and observations of the Sober Dog and his “friends” every week!"

Here's a trailer for the first episode:



In the run up to the launch of The DFC there was a bidding war between various British newspapers for the rights to serialise Philip Pullman's new strip from the title, The Adventures of John Blake.

It seems that a knock on effect of that, and the raised profile of comics in newspapers spearheaded by The Guardian (who won the bidding war for the Pullman strip) might well spell a resurgence of interest in newspaper comics, albeit in longform rather than the traditional three to four panel strip. And not before time!

Eisner Awards Voting Opens

The online voting facility for this year's Eisner Awards are now open and you can vote online for your favourites from the nominees, which are listed in full on the Will Eisner Awards web site.

British creators nominated include Nick Abadzis for his book, Laika (nominated for Best Publication for Teens and Best Reality-Based Work); Garth Ennis for The Boys, drawn by Darick Robertson (Best Continuing Series) and Bryan Talbot for Alice in Sunderland (Best Painter or Multimedia Artist - interior art).

If you think you aren't eligible, remember that anyone connected with the worldwide comics industry can vote. The final deadline is 13th June.

Support the home team(s)!

• Vote at: www.eisnervote.com You'll need to register, but this only takes a moment, as does voting.

Abadzis in The Guardian

Nick Abadzis, whose book Laika has drawn deserved critical acclaim from many quarter of late, has just announced that he has a a three-page strip in The Guardian from this Saturday (19th April)that runs for six weeks (every Saturday in the Family section).

Called Cora’s Breakfast, you will also be able to download the strip at some point, probably on this page, as you can with most recently-published Guardian strips such as Monkey Nuts, Go Fish, Robot Girl and Good Dog, Bad Dog.

Cora’s Breakfast is part of a longer story that will eventually be serialised and then collected by an as yet unnamed publisher. Check out Nick's blog to keep abreast of further news.

Laika is the story of the world's first space traveller, a dog sent up in the Soviet space program. Nick was interviewed about the project for the Comics Reporter site earlier this year. It's a wonderful take and well worth checking out.

(If you need another excuse to buy this Saturday's Guardian, Paul Gravett written an article on superheroes and their role as propaganda for the Guardian Guide. This ties in with the Iron Man movie looming, and the story of the United Nations working with Marvel on a comic
book with their superheroes to show what the UN does).