Charlie Adlard, Viz creators and more join Lakes Festival line up

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has revealed more of the writers and artists who will be taking part in the event later this year.

The festival, which will run from 18-20th October 2013 in Kendal in Cumbria, has a guest list running to more than 50 writers and artists from the United States, Europe, South America and the UK, who work in a wide range of different genres.

The latest group of guests range from Charlie Adlard, the artist on the hugely popular zombie comics The Walking Dead, to the men who created Britain’s most irreverent comic Viz, and American cartoonist Gilbert Shelton.

Charlie Adlard currently works with American writer Robert Kirkman on The Walking Dead, which dominates the list of US best selling graphic novels month in and month out.  It has been turned into a popular TV series, which is currently being broadcast on FX UK, with the third series due to start on Channel 5 around late spring.

Charlie says: “I'm very much looking forward to the event, particularly because the organisers are trying to style it on an Angouleme-style show, which I'm a big fan of.”

Simon Thorp and Graham Dury are two of the people who created Viz, which introduced characters like Raffles the Gentleman Thug, The Fat Slags, Felix and his Amazing Underpants and Roger Mellie the Man on the Telly to the world.

Viz parodies British comics like The Beano and The Dandy, with crude toilet humour, black comedy and surreal jokes. This will be the first comic event they have attended for more than 25 years (as far as they can remember!)

After a period producing underground comix in the sixties American Gilbert Shelton created The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy’s Cat. Unlike many cults from the sixties which have since faded away, The Freak Brothers are still going from strength to strength and are acquiring new fans all the time. They are published in 15 languages and worldwide sales are now over forty million copies.

Bryan Talbot, who is a patron of the new festival, says: "Gilbert Shelton is a comedy genius and a true original. His strips furnished catchphrases to the entire underground counterculture."

Hannah Berry is one of the talented young artists at the forefront of the new golden age for British comic art.  Her first graphic novel, Britten and Brulightly, was published by Jonathan Cape while she was still studying.  The Daily Telegraph said it was ‘superb’.  The New Statesman described her second graphic novel Adamtine as doing 'horror in the traditional way, while using the quirks of the medium to ratchet up the fear'.

Hannah says: "Just as comics are finally creeping into the public consciousness in the UK, The Lakes International Comic Art Festival takes the stage as the biggest, boldest and brightest celebration of their place in our culture. Long may it continue!"

The prize winning Argentine writer and illustrator Oscar Zarate has created two graphic novels with comedian Alexei Sayle - Geoffrey The Tube Train and The Fat Comedian.  He has also worked with Alan Moore on A Small Killing and produced several graphic novels with Carlos Sampayo. He will be celebrating his new book The Park at the festival as well as running an exclusive masterclass.

Karrie Fransman's autobiographical comic strips were published in The Guardian and her comic serial The Night I Lost My Love ran in The Times. Her graphic novel, The House That Groaned has been praised by film director Nicolas Roeg and was chosen as Graphic Novel of the Month in The Observer.

Robbie Morrison is best known for the Eagle award-winning Nikolai Dante saga which was serialised in 2000AD and, as we reported recently, he has written Drowntown, an epic adventure set in a flooded, futuristic London, which will be published by Jonathan Cape in the summer.  He is also a regular writer on Judge Dredd, and has scripted Batman and Spider-Man.

Spanish cartoonist Pau has won The Oscarcomix children's comics award, the Luis Molina International contests award (Italy) as well as the Haxtur Award for Humor, for his daily editorial cartoon Pau Per Tots.

Ravi Thornton is a multi-award-winning fiction writer whose work often involves a mix of different artistic approaches including graphic novels, sound and theatre.  Her work deals with adult subject matter and ranges from dark and disturbing, through wickedly outlandish, to heartbreakingly insightful. Her graphic novel The Tale of Brin and Brent and Minno Marylebone, published by Jonathan Cape, has been nominated for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards by the Horror Writers of America

Ravi says: "As a cross-media writer, I think very visually. I don't, however, draw. This means people who do draw are one of my most favourite things. At The Lakes International Comic Art Festival I'll be surrounded by them. It doesn't really get any better than that."

Luke Pearson is the writer and artist behind the highly-acclaimed Hilda series of comics published by Nobrow, which are aimed at both children and adults, and the short graphic novel Everything We Miss.

INJ Culbard won the award for Best Graphic Novel or Comic at the 2011 British Fantasy Awards for At the Mountains of Madness, published by SelfMadeHero.  He has also illustrated Deadbeats, which was published by SelfMadeHero late last year, in which a trio of 1920s Chicago jazz musicians find themselves battling with monsters, moonshiners and mobsters.

Inko is a Japanese Manga artist who now lives in the UK.  Her work includes Milk The Cat Comix and MangaQuake. She was also commissioned to create 19 Manga posters at Embankment Station in London as part of Art on the Underground.

Hannah Eaton was shortlisted for the First Graphic Novel competition in 2012 for Naming Monsters, which was published by Myriad Editions, the story of Fran a keen amateur crypto-zoologist – an expert in the study of animals that may not exist.

Kate Evans is an environmental campaigner who marries words and images for political effect.  Her latest book The Food of Love, published by Myriad Editions, is an ironic, self-deprecating view of the impossibility of perfection in an imperfect world.

They join founder patrons Bryan and Mary Talbot, and Sean Phillips, as well as writers and artists like Ed Brubaker, Jose Munoz, Posy Simmonds, John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Joe Sacco.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is modelled on the European comic festivals rather than comic conventions that UK audiences are more familiar with.

The aim is create an ‘en fete’ atmosphere, making the whole town part of the festival.  There will be a much bigger emphasis on the range of talks, special live drawing events, workshops, films, exhibitions and a kids’ zone.  Some of the events, including the exhibitions and the kids’ zone will also be free.

There will be a marketplace – The Comics Clock-tower - in Kendal Town Hall, where people will be able to buy comics and where authors and artists will be signing copies of their work. It will be smaller than at most comic conventions and will focus on writers, artists and publishers who are pioneers of a new wave of innovators in the field of comics and graphic storytelling.

Festival Director Julie Tait says: “We’ve now revealed more than half the line up for this year’s festival, so hopefully people have a real sense of the range and quality of what will be on offer later this year.   There’s an exciting mix of some of the big names from the world of comic art over the last few decades, as well as some of the best up-and-coming young writers and artists working in comics.

“We want to create something that is modelled on the European comic art festivals rather than the comic conventions that UK audiences will be more familiar with.

“We hope to take Kendal over for the weekend with comic art and we’ll be putting a lot of effort into individual events to give visitors a special experience.

“So people should expect something a bit different from most other comic events.  We hope it will not only appeal to the fans but also help to bring a new audience to comics, including many local people who may still be wondering what it’s all about!”
          
• More details about the new event are available at www.comicartfestival.com.  It is also possible to keep up to date with plans for the festival by following @comicartfest on Twitter or by liking the Lakes International Comic Art Festival Facebook page. Tickets will go on sale 7th May 2013.

Creator Talk: 6 Questions For Artist Simon Fraser

The retro-futuristic Russian rogue Nikolai Dante began in 2000AD Prog 1035, dated 25 March 1997, and came to its conclusion 15 years later in Prog 1791.

Created by the Scottish team of writer Robbie Morrison and artist Simon Fraser, who would eventually alternate on art duties with industry veteran John M Burns, the popularity of the series shows in the 10 different graphic novel compilations of Nikolai Dante stories that Rebellion have published over the years. The 11th and last Dante book is Sympathy For The Devil, available now.

Jeremy Briggs talked to Simon Fraser for downthetubes about his work on the character.

DTT: How did you first hear about Nikolai Dante?

Simon Fraser: Robbie mentioned it to me while I was working on drawing Shimura ‘Dragonfire’, which he wrote for the Judge Dredd Megazine. He had been doing a lot of research in the Mitchell Library (in Glasgow) on Peter the Great for a historical project he had wanted to write involving two Scottish mercenaries. That was transformed in a more fantastical direction when he knew that 2000AD were looking for new ideas. Robbie is always very enthusiastic about his ideas and enjoys talking about them when he gets a few drinks in him.

DTT: How much input did Robbie Morrison give have on the look of the series and how collaborative has the work with him been over the years?

Simon: Robbie’s only specific visual instructions were that it should look Napoleonic and that there should be Onion Domes. There’s actually a lot you can get from those two ideas. Robbie is very good at getting to the essence of something, then he has the confidence to let an artist run with what they come up with.

DTT: It is unusual these days for a British adventure series to run for such an extended period of time with the same creative team. Did it pose any particular problems for you such as aging the characters, maintaining visual continuity with John M Burns, or maybe even getting tired of drawing the same characters?

Simon: Absolutely! My life has changed enormously during those 15 years and it has sometimes been very difficult to keep focussed on an idea that we started working on in our mid 20s. It was essential for Dante to age (if not mature exactly ) because we were ageing ourselves. So to keep the character vital for us he had to reflect ourselves in at least that way. We did actually take a few breaks here and there.

John Burns did most of the heavy lifting during the first war. That was great as I found that I had no particular appetite to draw a war story. I’m much more comfortable with the swashbuckling and the character pieces and the comedy. Burns really gave the sieges and the massacres an epic sense of tragedy and scale.

It’s surprising how little interaction there was between the artists. Periodically I sent John a sketch, Dante’s crewcut for example, but most of the time I deferred to him and he to me. There were certain characters that were his designs, Dante’s Mum, Kurakin and the Rhudinstein Irregulars, who I had to really work at to get my own recognisable versions of. There are some points on which we disagreed. He drew Kurakin rather soft and pretty, which I felt didn’t match who the character was. A Mongol swordswoman can be beautiful, but there has to be real steel in her bearing , not just in her hands. Kurakin would never be passive or merely decorative. Dante’s mum was a perfect design however, I couldn’t improve on his version.

DTT: Robbie included his versions of various British comics characters into the stories, from Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright as Captain Luther Emmanuel to Warlord's Lord Peter Flint as Lord Peter Flintlock. Did you enjoy these 'in-joke' sections of the stories and how much reference material did you need for these characters?

Simon: Those references were all good fun. I like that we could tip our hats to the stories that inspired us. Luther Arkwright particularly is a work which both of us have a huge amount of respect for. A certain irreverent cheek is one of those 2000AD traditions that makes the comic what it is. I don’t remember doing any particular reference for the characters in question. It’s not important to get bogged down on what are essentially throw-away gags.

DTT: Now that the series is over and you can "choose your favourite child" as it were, was there a particular Dante character that you particularly enjoyed drawing?

Simon: I became very fond of Dante’s Mum, Katarina Dante. She became a key figure in the story and her strength as a character probably pushed her further forward in the narrative than we might have expected at the beginning. Mad King Henry and Papa Yeltsin were always a hoot to draw. While I love Lulu as a character she was by far the most problematic to draw. This was entirely my own fault (all that lace!), but once you have a strong look for a character you kind of have to honour it. No matter how much of a pain in the arse it is to render.

DTT: What are you working on at the moment and what can we expect to see from you in the future?

Simon: That’s hard to say for certain right now as I’m just at contract stages with a couple of big projects. It looks like I’m working on a Doctor Who story for IDW, which is a thrill for me as I grew up immersed in Wagner/Grant/Mills and Moore’s Doctor Who Weekly work. Dave Gibbons, Steve Dillon and David Lloyd had a huge influence on me through that comic.

I’m in negotiations right now over a short sci-fi piece for Dark Horse with a writer who I’ve wanted to work with for some time. I’m also working on a pitch for a series of books of comics journalism trying to explain the ongoing events of the Arab Spring. That’s going to be a big project and something I feel very strongly about. I’m still working on more Lilly Mackenzie in my spare time too.

• There are more details of Simon Fraser's art on his blog. http://simonfraser.posterous.com/blog/

• Simon helps run and contributes to the New York based webcomics collective ACTIVATEcomix.com http://activatecomix.com/

• Simon is a member of the Scotch Corner daily art blog where this interview has been cross-posted. http://scotchcorner.blogspot.co.uk/

• Simon is a member of the DrawBridge Studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn which also has a blog http://draw-bridge.blogspot.com/

• Details of all Simon's work on 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine is available from Barney's 2000AD Database

Have some Sympathy for the Devil

For more than 15 years, Russian rogue Nikolai Dante has fought, thieved and loved his way through life in the 27th Century.

2000AD has always bred a different kind of hero and brought the world a different way of telling stories - now one of its most popular characters comes to an end, courtesy of his original creators Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser, in Sympathy for the Devil, set for hardcover release on 11th October 2012.

Since its debut in 1997, Dante has become an iconic part of the British comics scene with his swashbuckling antics and devil-may-care bravado, and the long-running story reaches its explosive conclusion in this full-colour volume.

In this final instalment of his epic story, Dante must escape from captivity in order to lead the revolutionary army in its final battle against his tyrannical father, the psychotic Dmitri Romanov.

With additional art from industry legend John M. Burns, Sympathy for the Devil is both a fitting and striking end to this stunning epic.

Join Nikolai Dante as he reaches the end of his journey ... or does he?

- Nikolai Dante: Sympathy For The Devil - Written by: Robbie Morrison; Art by: Simon Fraser ISBN: 978-1-78108-073-3. Price: £18.99; Pages - 224. Published: 11th October 2012

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.

Cal-Hab Droids Infiltrate Megazine 301

The latest issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine, Meg 301, has a distinctly Scottish flavour to its art and script droids.

Behind a lovely Judge Inspector Inaba cover by Frank Quitely, from Cal-Hab's west coast, comes the Dredd story The Natural (shown below) about a Mega City One athlete who, controversially, refuses cybernetic assistance for his races. Written by Gordon Rennie, pencilled by Graeme Neil Reid, both from the east coast and inked by west coast Gary Erskine, the strip is the debut for Graeme in a 2000AD title. Graeme has been talking about his route to drawing Dredd professionally on his blog where he bravely shows off some of his earliest Dredd artwork from 20 years ago, as well as the spec scripts and responses he received from the Nerve Centre at the time.

The Judge Inspector Inaba story Hondo-City Justice, with art by Neil Googe, is written by Cal-Hab-er Robbie Morrison while Robbie's Nikolai Dante co-creator Simon Fraser, another Cal-Hab-er, writes and draws Lilly MacKenzie And The Mines Of Charybdis now on its fourth episode in which Lilly and Cosmo finally make it onto the surface of the planet.

Both stories are coloured by Gary Caldwell, yet another Cal-Hab-er.

Last but certainly not least of the Cal-Hab droids in Meg 301 is Alan Grant who is writing the Anderson Psi-Division story The House Of Vyle, drawn by Boo Cook, in which Cassandra is called to the hamlet of Salem just outside the Mega-City's walls where strange things are afoot.

Megazine 301 also includes Armitage by Dave Stone and John Cooper while the reprint is a selection of Mick McMahon's Judge Dredd stories.

• Judge Dredd Megazine 301 is available from newsagents and has a cover price of £5.99.

• Graeme Neil Reid, Gary Erskine and Simon Fraser are all members of the daily artblog Scotch Corner.

In Review: Nikolai Dante - Amerika

Writer Robbie Morrison's roguish Nikolai Dante character has been a success for 2000AD from his first appearance in Prog 1035 in March 1997 and with Amerika the Rebellion reprint books of his ongoing adventures have reached number 9.

It is the 27th Century and the Earth is dominated by the Russian empire of Tsar Vladimir the Conqueror. Despite their considerable differences in the past, Dante is currently the Sword Of The Tsar, operating as a trouble shooter for the Empire. Of course this being Nikolai Dante he is more likely to cause the trouble than to shoot it. The book reprints the ongoing story of Dante from the Amerika story itself up to An Army Of Thieves And Whores and adds a shorter spin-off story, Lulu's War, at the end.

Amerika is set again a backdrop of unrest in New York in which suicidal rebels take strength enhancing drugs to attack their Russian occupiers. These drugs give then superhuman abilities and Morrison, along with artist Simon Fraser, have fun in creating perverse versions of familiar superhero characters from the Captain America styled character on the cover to the Incredible Hulk and even the Watchmen. This is not that unusual in the Dante stories as Morrison has previously incorporated his versions of British comics characters such as Janus Stark, Luther Arkwright and even Lord Peter Flint from Warlord into his stories. Along with his love interest, the Tsarina Jena Makarov, Dante's task is to stop the violence from the terrorist groups and get them to declare a truce to allow elections to take place. Simon Fraser, as artistic creator of Dante, draws him with his usual dynamicism and uses his surprisingly rare splash panels to good effect.

The art chores on Dante are regularly split between the Fraser's traditional comics style and veteran John M Burns fully painted stories. As different as they are they both work just as well for the character and Burns paints the middle section of the story as Dante, sickened by what he has seen and had to do in New York, finally snaps and turns against the Tsar. This is a more sober storyline of torture and repression and Burns moody style fits it well before Fraser returns to art duties as the story opens out into an all out revolution against the Tsar's regime.

The extra story in the book is a short spin-off tale set during the uprising and involves perhaps the darkest of all Dante's siblings, Lulu Romanov. Lulu's ability is the creation of supernatural demons and her battle is set in Venice against the vampiric Nightstalkers. The art by Paul Marshall, who has previous illustrated tales of the vampire Durham Red, is not as polished as Fraser or Burns however, in a story that could so easily been too dark visually as well as plot wise, Harrison ensures that the panels tell the fairly vicious story clearly.

Dante is a fan favourite in 2000AD but, as these stories show, the world that he inhabits is coming to an end, with Morrison portraying him as less of the happy-go-lucky swashbuckler than he once was while John M Burns in particular is beginning to portray him as an older man.

All good things come to an end but Amerika shows that the tale of Nikolai Dante is not there quite yet.

There are more details of Nikolai Dante: Amerika on Rebellion's 2000AD Online website.

Simon Fraser has a "semi-official" Nikolai Dante site as part of his own website and he will be a guest at the Hi-Ex comics convention in Inverness on 27/28 March 2010.