Post 4000: A Thank You to Creators, Publishers and our Loyal Readers

Ye Ed. Art: Nick Miller

This post marks our 4000th blog post since deciding to create a separate 'news feed' for our main site www.downthetubes.net.

(This blog 'feeds' into our main site and forum, presenting news from a number of contributors via Google's Blogger, in a way that simply enabled me to bring on board some fantastic writers about British comics that didn't involve complicated Content Manage Systems and other bells and whistles I don't have the technical skills - or time - to implement).

downthethetubes has been dedicated to covering British comics since 1999, back when there were few comic sites covering anything except US superheroes and their like. As you'll see from the "Blogroll" we feature, that has changed somewhat, with dedicated fans such as Steve Holland bringing us Bear Alley and Lew Stringer giving us six wonderful years of his now-on-hiatus Blimey! It's Another Blog About Comics.

Down the years, we've had contributions from many a British comics fan to the cause of promoting British comics and creators, but I'd just like to thank Jeremy Briggs in particular for his dedication and input behind the scenes on this site, quietly correcting my mangled, often perhaps too hastily written posts.

His contribution to this blog has helped build it into a blog that now gets some 40,000 visits a month.

There's still more that could be done and we (of course!) welcome contributions from others, and folk such as Matthew Badham, Norman Boyd, Ian Wheeler, Richard Sheaf, Steve Winders and others have all provided us with news items I may have quite otherwise missed if not for their support.

A big thank you has to go out to the independent creators and British comic publishers for their support of our efforts, sending us information that has all helped in our attempts to promote British comics.

I'd also like to thank those of you who have, on occasion, donated sums toward our operating costs to pay for the hosting of our main site and forum and our current sponsor, digital comics publisher Panel Nine, who saved us from going on hiatus ourselves last year.

Finally, the biggest thank you goes to you, to the most important part of this site and blog - our readers.

We publish downthetubes for the love of it more than anything else. We're grateful there are so many of you out there as dedicated to British comics as we are. Long may it continue...

See you in the funny papers,

John Freeman
4th February 2013

• downthetubes main site - British comic links, interviews and more: www.downthetubes.net

• Discuss British comics on the downthetubes forum

Celebrity Comics Challenge!

Comic artists are being asked to design a 'Celebrity Comic' cover for the latest downthetubes forum art challenge.

What would the news stand be like if Alan Titchmarsh produced "Titchmarsh Comics"? How would Eamon Holmes present his comics persona? (Best be careful with that one, he seems a bit prickly...) Would Jennifer Love Hewitt's approach be more like Heat than Superman? What kind of comics would Phillip Schofield write?

And goodness only knows what Rolf Harris or Leonardo diCaprio might come up with! (Of course, Leonardo might get some help from his father, George, a comics writer, editor and major west coast underground comic book distributor.)

This is intended as a totally fun challenge, inspired by - well, if you've been following this blog recently you can probably guess, but if you can't, then if anyone involved in that project is reading this... we just couldn't resist and we love you really!

If you want to join in, if you aren't already partt of it, simply join the downthetubes forum (membership is moderated) and add your Celebrity Comic Cover to your downthetubes photo album (please include "Celebrity Comic Cover" in any title, so we can find it! For example, "Celebrity Comic Cover: Christopher Lee Comics presents...").

The entries will be assembled in the Celebrity Comics Challenge album here - currently illustrated by a very old 'celebrity comic' - an issue of Marvel's Strange Tales that saw the Fantastic Four meet The Beatles.

We may also feature some of the entries here on the blog.

This isn't our first art challenge - we had a terrific response to our Moon Landing Anniversary challenge last year. So we're hoping for a great response!

Web Links

• Celebrity Comics Challenge album on the downthetubes forum


• Moon Landing Anniversary

• British Comic 'Ensemble' Covers
downthetubes members choose their favourite 'group' covers from their British comic collections

Promoting Your Comics: Your Ideas Wanted

Over on the downthetubes Forum we’ve started a discussion about promoting comics with a view to creating a “resource page” for creators looking for ways to publicise their work.

Primarily, at the moment the page with edited info pulled from this discussion (view it here) is a list of links to sites and publications that run reviews but with hindsight it could also include ideas for promotion.

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please get in touch.

(If you’re not a member of the downthetubes Forum you need to sign up to contribute, or, if you’d rather not join yet another online community, just drop us a line directly or via the regular downthetubes email address)