Girly Comic Collected

The first collection of stories culled from the pages of British indie press title The Girly Comic, has just been published, featuring the talents of British comic industry professionals such as John Stokes, Mike Collins and Simon Fraser, veteran indy creators such as Lee “Inner City Pagan” Kennedy, Terry “Sleaze Castle” Wiley and Jeremy Dennis, alongside exciting new talents from the British Small Press scene and beyond.

The Girly Comic features self-contained comic strips across all genres with female protagonists, from the autobiographical tales of Lee Kennedy to the Two Fat Ladies meets Ghostbusters of Oddcases by Alistair Pulling and Bevis Musson; from Terry Wiley's Surreal School Stories to Martin Millar's Good Fairies of New York with Simon Fraser.

The title, published by Factor Fiction (who are also publishers of webcomic Violent!) has already earned high praise with the Comic Creators Guild describing it as “An absolute gem of a publication” and Savantmag describing the comic as “One of the undisputed stars of the small press”.

“Make them rich, and hopefully they'll keep on doing what they do for a long, long time!” says Mike Carey in his introduction.

• The 280-page The Girly Comic Book 1, which will be officially launched at the Thought Bubble conventiion in Leeds on 15th November, is available in hardback priced 15 from Factor Fiction. For more information, visit our website: www.factorfictionpress.co.uk.

• Girly webcomics at: www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/webcomic
• Violent! webcomics at: www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/violentwebcomic

'Body Snatcher' Comics from Insomnia!

Upcoming UK publisher Insomnia Publications have announced another new project based onthe infamous exploits of nineteenth century murderers Burke and Hare.

Between 1827-1828 in two Irishmen, William Burke and William Hare, murdered 16 people and disposed of their bodies to the eminent dissectionist Dr Robert Knox at 10 Surgeon's Square, Edinburgh. History often mistakenly references the murderous duo's grave robbing or 'body snatching' activities - when, in truth, the pair never set foot in a graveyard with the intention of stealing a corpse.

Writer Martin Conaghan and artist Will Pickering delve into the murky, misquoted history of Scotland's most notorious serial killers with a research-based graphic novel that unwravels a ghoulish story of medicine, murder and money.

"Burke and Hare could have stepped, in full lurid glory, from the pages of a penny dreadful," says Insomnia's Creative Director Nic Wilkinson. "The tale of the resurrectionists is classic gothic horror in the tradition of Sweeney Todd, Varney the Vampire or Spring Heeled Jack. It also happens to be true.

"Martin and Will are getting back into mainstream comics in earnest, following a 10-year absence, and we are delighted to have them back with us."

Martin Conaghan's first published writing work appeared in Aceville Publications' Comic World in 1992, in the form of interviews and reviews with writers and artists such as Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell. This was followed by a one-off Tharg's Terror Tale in the 1995 2000AD Yearbook and several short stories for the American publisher Caliber Press, including an issue of their popular Raven Chronicles title. In 1997, he produced a weekly internet column for The Big Issue in Scotland, in addition to writing feature articles for The Herald and other Scottish broadsheet newspapers. He now works for the BBC.

Will Pickering worked on the strip 'Dr Ballard' for the Glasgow-based indie comic Frankly and continues to work on his self-published superhero series Something Fast. He also illustrated Martin's issue of Raven Chronicles for Caliber (entitled 'The Compensators') and has worked in music journalism and magazine editing, and was a candidate for the rectorship of Glasgow University in 1999 (beaten by former EastEnder Ross Kemp). He also produced a strip for the final issue of the popular independent comic Northern Lightz.

"The research that has already gone into this piece is phenemonal," Nic told downthetubes.

Insomnia's other new project, still shrouded in secrecy, should be announced soon.

Tube Surfing: 28 October 2008

• Voting is now open for the 2008 podcast awards (www.podcastawards.com) and comics podcast Geek Syndicate has been nominated in the best entertainment category, which is great nes -- the team there have done a brilliant job of promoting British comics this year. If you've been following and enjoying their work, you can vote once every 24 hours and voting closes on 6th November 2008.
The team were at the MCM expo in London on Saturday and will be reporting on several of the panels including the press Q & A sessions for Heroes, Primeval, Demons, Merlin and Battlestar Galactica. "Once I've sorted out the quality a little more I'll be sticking them up on our website for people to listen to," the Syndicate's Barry Nugent tells downthetubes.

• Part works publisher GE Fabbri are fireld testing a new magazine devoted to Indiana Jones in the North East of the UK, which features comic strip by John Royle which looks superb. More news as we get it.

• 2000AD artist Dave Taylor has posted a sneek peek of his Christmas Judge Dredd story for the weekly comic, written by John Wagner. Like many other comics artists, his blog is a useful stoop if you're interested in seeing how he works on a strip from blue line to finished images.

• (with thanks to Forbidden Planet International): Simon Mayo’s Radio 5 show included a feature on Graphic Novels earlier today, with guests Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons and Paul Gravett discussing what a graphic novel is, the relationship to Hollywood and more. Here's the BBC's listen again link, which will be live for seven days.

• With Hallowe'en on its way, regular Forbidden Planet International contributor and top cartoonist Rod McKie and the FPI team have published The Ballad of Jack Palance, a little spooky tale of tall tales , movie stars, ghosts, an ancient churchyard and, this being set in Edinburgh, a good pub. For those who have never visited the city, Greyfriar’s Bobby is an old pub only a few minutes walk from the Forbidden Planet store in Edinburgh’s Old Town, named for the famously loyal dog who stayed by the grave of his master until his own death, eventually being adopted by the city so he wouldn’t be treated as a stray under law.
Rod’s put it into a good resolution PDF which you can grab from the FPI site and read free online or download it and print it off to read; there's also a Comic Book Reader version (as a mini comic) so if you use the CBR viewer or GonVisor you can use those to download it here. (Downloadable files are by and © Rod McKie).

Tube Surfing: 27 October 2008

• Comics artist Neil Edwards sent us a sneak peek from an upcoming Iron Man strip for Panin's new Marvel Heroes. Here's a panel from the strip, which see Iron Man battling more than one costumed hero.

• Hot on the heels of our foray into British girls comics with our feature by Jenny McDade on wriitng for Tammy, Artist Sean Phillips has just posted some pages for his The Secret of Penny Farthing he drew for Bunty, aged just 16. Here's the first post, and the second... The first part was inked by Ken Houghton who pencilled and inked the first episode, then Sean took over pencils for the rest of the story.

• Theres' a new episode of the brilliant FreakAngels online from Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield, with Warren suggesting this might be a good starting point for those of you who haven't read it before. (I went and read it and am not so sure, but maybe he's hinting at things to come...)

• Determined that more people should subscribe to The DFC, Neill Cameron has posted the first episode of his gorgeous school strip Mo-Bot High, on his blog.

• The first part of a new interview with Starship Troopers writer Cy Dethan has just been posted on SciFi Pulse. Well worth a read if you're an aspiring wirtyer or artist as Cy offers some useful comment on breaking into the business.

• (via Lew Stringer): Another popular British comics artist is no longer with us. Ken Hunter, whose strips adorned many issues of The Topper and The Beezer died on October 20th aged 91. Our sympathies to his family and friends.

• Steve Holland has profiled Valiant anti-hero One-Eyed Jack, brought to life by John Cooper, over on Bear Alley.

• Artist Tim Perkins has posted some designs for his strip for Hot Wheels comic on his blog. The comic is published by Oldham-based Lucky Bag and the strips written by former Marvel UK and IPC editor Ian Rimmer.

• (via BugPowder): Phill Elliott, who really should have become far more famous, is posting his Tales From Gimbley online, starting with his earliest work and continuing one a day until up to the most recent. The Tales From Gimbley strips were printed around the world, but most of them appeared in Phill's own self-published titles which had very limited print-runs so many of the strips you'll find on this site have been lost in transit.
" This could almost be considered one of the founding documents of the UK small-press movement of the 1980s, I suspect," comments Eddie Campbell on his blog, who also offer a rare insight into the original small press boom back then. "The thing about the original small press comics scene is that there was a seeking to make comics into a kind of café thing. The exciting challenge was to make the medium interact with the regular passing parade.
"Objects were creatively undefined, and poetry music and mail-art were in the mix. Getting an exhibition in a coffee house or a Mayfair gallery, or a review or interview in the music press or in an arts context, or selling stuff at the Saturday open air market or at CND rallies were a few of our opportunities to connect, as I recall."

• Ellerbisms from Marc Ellerby is now online on its own dedicated site at www.ellerbisms.com and well worth a visit. Marc’s promising regularly updated strips Monday and Thursday and has moved all his previous Ellerbisms previously found on his Live Journal to this new site.

• US comics site Newsarama currently has a long, ongoing 10-part interview with Grant Morrison his recently finished and quite brilliant All Star Superman. Here's Part One