The Scarifyers jumps from audio adventure to comics

(with thanks to Matt Badham): Artist and illustrator Simon Gurr, whose credits include 2000AD and Brunel: A Graphic Biography, has announced he is working on The Scarifyers, a brand new comic based on the audio series aired by on BBC Radio, written by series co-creator Simon Barnard and sporting a very handsome cover from ligne claire legend Garen Ewing.

Set in 1936 London, the comic follows Detective Inspector Lionheart’s investigation of a mysterious death at the home of academic and ghost author Professor Dunning.

"The spookiness is laced with plenty of humour and witty cultural references," says Gurr, "and, as you would expect from an audio play, the dialogue sparkles."

The Scarifyers audio adventure series is produced by Cosmic Hobo Productions and based on stories written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris. Set in 1936 and 1937, it follows the exploits of DI Lionheart and ghost-story writer Professor Dunning, as played by Nicholas Courtney and Terry Molloy.

Each adventure is a self-contained story and is released on CD and direct download. The first two stories, The Nazad Conspiracy and The Devil of Denge Marsh, were broadcast on BBC7 in 2007. Guest stars have included Brian Blessed, Leslie Phillips and Nigel Havers.

In 2011, after the death of actor Nicholas Courtney, David Warner joined the series with The Magic Circle, centred around the disappearance of Lionheart, and introduced new lead character Harry Crow, Lionheart's former police colleague. It was released in November 2011 and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra earlier this year. The seventh Scarifyers story, The Horror of Loch Ness, will be released in June 2012 and features the final performance of the late Philip Madoc.

"The Scarifyers is already a successful audio adventure series," Simon notes on his blog. "The comic adapts part one of the first audio adventure: The Nazad Conspiracy, and Simon has skilfully re-written it for a visual form."

Garen Ewing has drawn all the covers for the seven Scarifyers audio releases so far.

- Both Simons will be selling copies of #1 at the Bristol Comic Expo on 12th-13th May and at Kapow on Saturday 19th May, so look out for the Scarifyers banner if you are at either of these events.

Tube Surfing: Cursitor Doom, Nitro!, More Moon Stuff and Comics in Limbo...

• Bear Alley Books has just published the first inked and colour 'rough' for their upcoming Cursitor Doom collection. "I've put this together from a low-res scan e-mailed by artist John Ridgway, so this isn't the final version," says publisher Steve Holland, "But I probably won't change much. I was going to try and do something clever with the original logo but it's not something I ever particularly liked and I do like the elegant simplicity of the type."
You can now pre-order both Phantom Patrol (which features a cover by Chris Weston) and Cursitor Doom, due for relase in August, from the Bear Alley Books web site.

• UK publisher Future is to re-launch its UK boys 5-13 targeted Official Jetix Magazine as Nitro! in September. The first issue will feature kid-related news, toys, comic strips and features, covering characters from TV, movies and games. It's expected to have a 45,000 copy launch run and will offer at least four 'covermounted' gifts per foil-bagged issue.

• More Moon stuff: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum has created a website that allows visitors to relive the flight of Apollo 11 and the Moon landing. Called We Choose the Moon, you can follow the mission from pre-launch to blast-off to the actual Moon landing on Monday.

• BleedingCool has a another feature on Comics We Just Can't Wait For – But Have To, including Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran’s Stealth Tribes – a sci-fi cloudsourcing cyberpunk original graphic novel Collen is still apparently drawing it for Vertigo - but has been for five years; and Warchild by Alan Moore, a series script bought by Rob Liefeld, he hasn’t progressed publication because he says he hasn’t found an artists who is up to the script.

• The Forbidden Planet International blog reports that comics creator Simon Gurr, who collaborated with Eugene Byrne on the special (and well received) Darwin graphic biography for the great scientist’s 200th anniversary earlier this year, has been chosen for a high profile public artwork celebrating famous Bristolians.
Bristol Festival of Ideas and Bristol Cultural Development Partnership recently announced that Simon Gurr, Bristol artist and illustrator, has been chosen to create a new permanent artwork on the theme of Some Who Have Made Bristol Famous, following a citywide call for ideas and submission of proposals. The commission, worth £10,000, is funded by donations from two Bristol patrons. Read the full FPI piece here

• Good news for Futurama fans. Not only is it be returning to our small screens, but more toys are on the way. io9 reports KidRobot is coming out with this cute line of Futurama dolls, due for release next month.

• Gaming news site Kaoktu reports that 2000AD owners Rebellion have been picking through the remains of games company Vivendi’s old portfolio of intellectual property, discarded amidst the company’s merger with Activision, and have found a number of bargains. Among the unwanted, unloved IPs now obtained are Ground Control, Evil Genius, Empire Earth, Lords of the Realm and Lords of Magic. They just can't seem to stop buying stuff, can they? But surely they must now have enough cool properties to launch a game title-based comic as well as 2000AD?