Mad May for Wallace and Gromit

VisitEngland, the UK’s national tourist board has recruited Wallace & Gromit as 'Tourism Trailblazers' to inspire Britons to take a holiday at home this year.

(It's a busy time for the duo - earlier this month, they notched up the 1000th daily Wallace and Gromit strip in The Sun, created by the Titan Comics team).

The campaign kicked off with Wallace & Gromit exploring the country’s most exciting holiday spots on their motorbike and sidecar, plus the duo are now starring in a new animated TV ad, which is going out across TV and cinema screens in the UK.

Nick Park, Creator and Director of Wallace & Gromit, said “Leisure time has always been very important to Wallace & Gromit, so it’s great to see them making this holiday choice.  A nice cup of tea and some tasty local cheese is always a favourite so they won’t be disappointed with their holiday in the UK.

The ad was produced at Aardman studios in Bristol and you can take a sneaky peek behind the scenes in the video here.

Striker creator Pete Nash still hopes for TV series

Striker © Pete Nash

Pete Nash, creator of the long-running football strip Striker for The Sun newspaper, still has hopes the strip will jump from the printed page to TV.

Answering fans questions on the StrikerWorld forum (membership required to view), Pete, who successfully secured sponsorship for the strip in the past, said that in order for Striker to be a real success, it needs to evolve from being just a newspaper strip.

"It has been produced with 3D animation software since 1999 because I believe animation is the future for Striker, whether as a TV series or film," he said. "The costs are significant but I am optimistic it will happen before I kick the bucket!"

Pete Nash has been writing Striker since 1985, first as a line art strip for The Sun, then moving to its current 3D presentation. In 2003 he withdrew the strip form the paper following a dispute over intellectual property rights then launched Striker comic, which closed after an impressive 87 issues in 2005.

Striker returned to the pages of The Sun, but it was dropped in 2009 and found a home in Nuts, then eventually returned to The Sun earlier this year.

It's clear from questions asked that many fans of Striker were supporters of his attempt to turn it into a news stand comic and hanker for its return, but Pete knows this would be no easy journey, even with the ability to promote such a title through social media and with the online support and promotion by the stripe's many fans. 

"Production costs would only be lower if we operated as an online comic without a print issue," he argues. "Would an online comic have been profitable, or could it be? Who knows. The Dandy has ended its print run after 70 odd years but only time will tell if it will thrive online.

"Having said that, the online platform does offer opportunities in the areas you've suggested - for instance, one activity that will be launched in the near future is an iPad app and mobile app for past issues of the comic and newspaper strips. The overheads are quite low so hopefully this can generate some reasonable revenue, but we will have to see how they sell."

At present, it seems really promoting the title online is a little hamstrung: Pete revealed "certain contractual issues"currently prevent him from forming an official website and Twitter feed or Facebook page –  "but at least Striker is back in the country's biggest-selling paper and being enjoyed again by millions of readers.

"One interesting aside about Facebook and Twitter is that Striker's return to The Sun generated thousands of posts and tweets around the country," Pete revealed. "It certainly shows the strength of Striker's appeal and following but it's frustrating that it's been so difficult to reflect that popularity with the emergence of spin-off activities. We must keep the faith, though!

"For Striker to evolve creatively, more money needs to be generated. The Sun will be trying to generate extra revenue through new opportunities and possibilities so we will have to see how these develop."

Pete also says he still hopes the whole strip will be collected, perhaps aiming for release in time for the strip's 30th anniversary in November 2015. Meanwhile, plans are afoot for new merchandise.

It's clear he is still thinking long term about Striker, in terms of the strip and its possible adaptation in other mediums. Clearly a man who has fought long and hard to make the best of his creation, we wish him every success.

Striker returns to The Sun

As rumoured last week, the Striker comic strip has returned to The Sun newspaper, after a long absence - ousting vampire comic Shadows.

Returning on Monday, the strip began with longtime soccer hero Nick Jarvis being interviewed on TV about the perilous state of Warbury Warriors, a team he both played and then managed, taking it from non-league football to the Premiership and Champions League glory.

The club have been given three weeks to pay a £9million tax bill or face winding-up proceedings - and Jarvis lets the club’s Arab owners know exactly what he thinks.

Created by Pete Nash, Striker had a long run in the daily paper before Pete decided to go it alone and create his own weekly comic. The strip has also appeared in Nuts magazine, and there has been previous interest in turning the comic into a TV series.

• More news and images her on The Sun's web site

The Really Heavy Greatcoat returns (sort of)

 

The Really Heavy Greactcoat is a long-running cartoon strip which ace artist Nick Miller and I created years ago and, just occasionally, Nick (who's constantly busy on numerous projects) teases me with a new and topical episode.

• View Nick's work over at: teamsputnikblog.blogspot.com  

• Read the Really Heavy Greatcoat online (not a complete archive, but you'll get a taster) here on downthetubes.net

• If anyone wants to pay us to write and draw The Really Heavy Greatcoat we're open to offers! 

Wallace & Gromit find a place in The Sun!

A new newspaper strip featuring Aardman Animations' Wallace & Gromit, launched last week, is getting good feedback from the characters legion of fans.

Replacing the long-running 'strip-com' George and Lynne, the new comic is being produced by Titan Comics and is appearing daily.

Launched Monday 17th May, each story will run over six days (Monday-Saturday) and will feature the world famous duo in all-new adventures starring hapless inventor Wallace, who's keen on creating labour saving gadgets, even though they don't always go to plan, and best friend and loyal dog Gromit... Expect Gromit to be saving Wallace from various scrapes and a number of mischievous characters. It's no wonder he's happiest reading the paper in a nice comfy chair.

Titan Magazines is now regarded as the largest publisher of licensed entertainment properties in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand and the debut of the Wallace & Gromit strip marks another step in the company's ongoing development, builing on its suite of magazines that include the Batman Legends Comic, Simpsons Comics, Transformers and more.

• For more information on Wallace and Gromit, visit: www.wallaceandgromit.com


• For more information on Titan Comics, visit: http://titancomicsuk.com

Striker Heads Into the Net

Long-running soccer strip Striker recently came to an end in The Sun - catching many fans by surprize, even though creator Pete Nash had been saying for some time he planned to end the saga. But, after 24 years of publication, both in The Sun and as a self-published nationally-distributed comic, Pete still hopes the series will enjoy new life in new forms - including the online publication of the first ever adventure on myebook.

When Striker came to a conclusion earlier this month, Pete, tells downthetubes he had a holiday, a little relived at no longer being beholden to the deadlines the strip imposed on his life. But on his return he was gobsmacked to find his inbox full of emails from anxious fans, wondering what had happened to their favourite football comic, as The Sun itself had given no indication it was coming to an end!

"I received hundreds of them and they're still arriving," says Pete, "so I hope fans will forgive me for not replying to each one personally." Instead he is posting news about the strip's post-Sun developments on www.striker3d.net, which has long been its official internet home. This includes hopes Pete's long-held dream that the Striker saga will become a blockbuster movie or TV series as well as releasing the entire archive into a volume of books available in print.

"I have been warmed by so many kind comments and somewhat surprised by the strength of feelings expressed," Pete told fans via the StrikerWorld forum (registration required), also revealing the ending of Striker was rather more rushed than he would have liked because The Sun decided to stop the Saturday pages in August, so he had to reduce the final episode he had written by five or six strips. "I left the story with an open ending to allow for the possibility of an eventual relaunch (Romeo and Todd would provide excellent scenarios) but The Sun clearly want to pursue their own ideas. Having said that, one would have thought they could have come up with a better replacement for Striker than web virals."

Explaining the strip's completion, he told fans, "Last year, I gave notice to The Sun that I felt the time was approaching to end Striker as it was becoming increasingly difficult to create fresh storylines for the characters and I did not want to run the risk of it becoming stale.

"There was always the possibility of re-launching it in the future and to this end I offered to create a replacement strip for The Sun or to rerun earlier adventures showing how Warbury Warriors were formed when Nick and Eric first got together. Sadly, The Sun did not wish to discuss this possibility.

"I ended the strip with a scenario that both wrapped up the storyline and left it open to the possibility of being restarted at a later date. I had no idea The Sun would leave their readers in the dark by failing to announce the strip was ending."

This, of course, is not the first time The Sun has decided to leave fans in the dark about the strip's future. Back in 2003, when Pete decided to launch his own weekly Striker comic, The Sun gave readers every impression the strip was over for good, even featuring the Warbury Warriors team being killed in a plane crash in its replacement strip, The Premier.

Behind the scenes, as the Press Gazette reported, the paper also accepted £85,000 for a series of adverts to mark the end of the comic strip appearing in The Sun and to tell readers it was launching as a comic in its own right - then refused to run them. The paper also touted replacement strip The Premier in a news item, only mentioning the new Striker comic toward the end, declaring it would be "The most exciting and innovative strip to be launched in a British newspaper for decades". (It wasn't).

Despite this - and the unfortunate demise of Pete's Striker comic after 87 impressive issues, which even offered shares to readers to try to keep going, with huge success (but not enough to save it) - eventually Striker returned to The Sun, ousting The Premier, reaching a finale this month, much to the dismay of many fans of the strip, which has been created in digital form using Maya software for over 10 years. But even though the strip has ended its daily newspaper appearances, Pete still has plans for its future now he is back in full control, owning all rights to the saga.

"For a long time now I have wanted to publish the entire Striker archive as a series of books and develop it into a movie or TV series," he says. "I now have the time to explore those possibilities."

• Striker fans wanting to keep up to date on Striker developments should visit www.striker3d.net where you can also read some of the earlier Striker adventures free online.

Em joins The Sun

(with thanks to David Baillie for the tip): The cartoon strip Em, the creation of Swedish cartoonist Maria Smedstad, joins The Sun on Tuesday.

"Yes, it's true," says Marie. "Em will be packing her little messily drawn bags and move to The Sun for two days a week. And to those of you who have asked - no, she will not be on page three."

First published in the free thelondonpaper for three years, which is closing, Em was created as an autobiographical side project, depicting life as a young (semi) professional in a shared London house.

"It was picked up by thelondonpaper in October 2006," Marie outlines on her web site. "Since then the often acerbic portrayal of Em’s life has received a hugely positive response and has struck a chord not only with Londoners, but with people worldwide who sympathise with her and her friends’ daily struggle to keep their wine intake down, fight broadband service providers and find that special someone to keep them warm at night."

Marie has hinted that a collection of Em strips is in the pipeline. Any publishers reading this...?

• EmCartoons on the Web at: www.emcartoons.com


• Follow EmCartoons on Twitter

Sun Spikes Smith Story

Good news! Since downthetubes drew attention to British newspaper The Sun's out of date story about 2000AD artist Ron Smith's trial, they have removed it from their web site.

Ron's fans over on the official 2000AD web site followed up on our report, and their campaign should be given full credit for the article's removal.

Responding to one complaint, Jane Hamilton at The Sun was clearly apologetic. "Having done some research this verdict was way back at the start of June and then only reported by a small number of local websites," she explained. "I will need to find out why this is as no reputable new agency or freelancer has filed it to us. I will ask a reporter to check with the court."

Now they've done this, the story has been removed from The Sun's site.

While it's a shame they haven't run a new story to point out he was totally absolved of some horrendous accusations, this is at least, a ghafflebette victory, as Tharg might say!

• See our initial story here)


(Thanks to Paul Rainey for the update)

The Sun Still Besmirching Ron Smith

UPDATE, 5th August 2009: We're pleased to report that since this story was first published, The Sun appears to have removed the offending story referred to from its web site (see news story). We have left this report live for archival purposes...

Back in June, The Sun - Britain's top-selling newspaper - reported on the opening of the trial of 80-year-old comics artist and former Spitfire pilot Ron Smith who had, as it turned out, been wrongfully accused of rape and indecent assault.

Rather than publish anything, at downthetubes we chose to await the outcome of the trial.

Mr Smith was, to his many fans' delight, unanimously cleared of all charges made against him by the jury and therefore we felt this story deserved no coverage.

Commenting on the trial Ron's daughter, Sue Carr subsequently told fans she was relieved that her father’s innocence had been proved and that his name had been cleared.

"It has been a very, very difficult time for him," she said, "and it's been a great comfort for him to learn that his many fans have been behind him in this simply dreadful matter.”

Unfortunately, although the result in favour of Ron was widely reported online and in comic circles, it has not been covered by The Sun, unless it chosen not to publish a story reporting the outcome of the trial online but only in print. Instead it has kept the original story, unchanged on its web site (5th August 2009 update: story now removed, see news story), with a link title that perpetuates the totally untrue allegations against Mr Smith.

Here at downthetubes we have to wonder: why is The Sun perpetuating this totally false story about Ron Smith? Why does its actual link title effectively repeat the disproved allegation made against him? And why has The Sun chosen not to update its original story to report the outcome of the trial?

Ron has a huge number of fans who were deeply upset by these false allegations but, despite writing to the paper we have not had an explanation for what of course may be simple but very unpleasant oversight.

The Sun story can still be found online without update and gives a totally false impression of a highly regarded artist. We think this is wrong, immoral and, despite the careful wording of the article itself potentially libellous, simply because of the link construction.

UPDATE, 5th August 2009: The Sun appears to have removed its story from their web site. See news story

• Michael Molcher comments on the reporting of the trial in the wider context of modern journalism here. Joe Gordon at the Forbidden Planet International blog comments on that here