Kate Holden from IndieManga has been in touch to let us know she's running another Manga workshop in Barrow.
"Bookings won't be open for a week or two yet, but it's still free of charge and will be at Barrow Library (upstairs) on February 18th (during half term hols)," she says.
"I moved the age limit up, because there were a few twenty year olds wanting to come last time!"
The last workshop covered the basics of character design, scripting, panelling and pencilling your own doujinshi (that’s Japanese for a self-publication).
UK indie publisher TimeBomb Comics has gotten off to a great start in 2009 with their Dick Turpin comic listed in this month's UK Section of Diamond Previews, making it available to order from all UK and European comic shops.
Since it debuted in September Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead has been getting some great reviews. Most recently SFX Magazine described it as "A darkly whimsical engaging read" which pretty much sums it up! (Read our review here)
"Ask your local comic shop (or shops, if you're fortunate enough to live somewhere where there's more than one!) to order some copies if they haven't already done so," urges publisher Steve Tanner.
The Poopsheet Foundation, a US-based organisation whose primary focus is mini-comics and their history, from their underground/new wave "birth" in the 1970s to the current scene of today, is actively seeking comics collections both for use in their web site's History Archive and for the Poopsheet Shop (the part of the site that ultimately allows the rest to exist).
Wanted are mini-comics, underground comix, alternative comics, fanzines, APAs and mainstream comics. "Generally speaking, we're looking for material published in the 1980s or earlier," says founder Rick Bradford, "but there are always exceptions.
"We pay in cash or trade."
If you're a fan of fanzines or worked on them either now or in the past it's worth checking out the Foundation web site.
• (via Andrew Moreton): Paul Rainey has started a new weekly strip on his site at: www.pbrainey.com. His There's no Time Like the Present series is highly recommended, as is his 2000AD blog progslog at: www.progslog.blogspot.com
• (via Warren Ellis' blog): David Langford notes via Ansible that Gordon van Gelder's The Magazine of Fantasy & SF is switching to bi-monthly publication. "Rising costs — especially postal costs — and the economy put us in a position where we either had to raise our rates severely or cut back somewhere," Gelder explains. "Given the state of the economy, I decided a cutback on frequency made the most sense. "We’ll lose a little more than 10% of our content this year, but publishing on a bimonthly schedule should put us in a great position for the coming years."
• Gez Kelly, organiser of the Golden Orbit Sci Fi and Comic Fairs around the UK has been in touch to give us the latest dates (see our events page for these) and to say he's offering some free exhibiton space to creators / small press publishers at several of the of the venues in February and March. For further info please contact Gez via the Golden Orbit web site. The next Fair is on Saturday 17 January at the Nautical Club, Bishopsgate Street, off Broad Street and a short walk from Smallbrook Queensway in Birmingham, followed on Saturday 24 January with an event at Sachas Hotel, Tibb Street, Piccadilly, Manchester. Both events start at 12 noon.
• Dave taylor has joined a taleneted line up of comics artists contributing to the online comic HUZZAH!, which itself follows hot on the heels of Who Killed Round Robin. A simple parlour game where creators take it in turns to tell a story, in HUZZAH's case its theme is Space Opera. "Not all available artist slots have been filled as yet but so far we have a great line-up," says Dave. "Ian Culbard, Colin Fawcett, Faz Choudhury, D'Israeli, Rob Davis, Stetchybeast and little old me." See the epic evolve here: huzzah2009.blogspot.com
• Neill Cameron's strip Mo-Bot High recently won the Golden Oinky award for Best Strip in The DFC, as voted for by the readers of that august periodical. "I even got to appear in the comic, collecting my award in person, as illustrated by the very talented Zak Simmonds-Hurn," he reveals on his blog. "I kept my 'acceptance speech' on the brief-and-flippant side as, y'know, I thought that would be funnier, but I just wanted to say here how genuinely thrilled and just absolutely bowled over I was by the whole thing."
• And finally, an extended interview with new Doctor Who Matt Smith from Doctor Who Confidential has been made available online via YouTube and the BBC website. Meanwhile, Forbidden Planet International notes that just a couple of short hours since the announcement PJ Holden (he of Judge Dredd, the ‘86ers, DeadSignal and more) already had the first Matt Smith illo up online... The Observer got in touch with me on Saturday night to ask me what I thought of the casting (the reporter is an old friend), but my comments didn't make it to the paper, it seems. Hardly surprising since just as the media were digesting the casting news, Israel went into Gaza tanks ablazing.
Kate Holden from IndieManga has been in touch to let us know she's running another Manga workshop in Barrow.
