Coraline Game Released, New Trailer...

Games company D3Publisher, publishers of titles diverse as Shaun the Sheep and Ben 10: Alien Force (due for US launch February 2009) has released the Coraline videogame in the US for Wii, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2.

Based on Laika's new stop-motion/3D animated movie of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, the game allows players to take on the role of the adventurous Coraline and interact with the characters from the movie. It features the voices of Dakota Fanning (Coraline Jones), Keith David (Cat), and Robert Bailey Jr. (Wybie Lovat).

“The Coraline movie is absolutely mesmerizing," Bill Anker, vice president of business development, D3P said when development of the game was announced last October, "and we feel that the visual style and tone of the game will bring the amazing stop-motion animated film and thrilling storyline to life for players.

“We’re confident that Coraline will offer a truly immersive and interactive gameplay experience that gamers as well as fans of the movie and best-selling book will enjoy.”

Gaiman himself reveals he's been busy for the past few days, promoting the film as part of the international press junket. "While I am completely frazzled and braindead and hoping that room service will come while I am still awake, I am also happy that I can point to twitter.com/neilhimself for today, and to the blog of my ultracompetent assistant Cat Mihos, to tell you what happened," he notes on his blog.

Directed by Henry (The Nightmare Before Christmas) Selick the Coraline movie is released in the US on 6th February and 8th May in the UK. Here's a new trailer for the film...

New Asterix Tales on the Way

One of the longest-running gags in the Asterix books, created by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, has been given a revamped 'origin story' treatment in a new Asterix book, already on sale in France and due for release by Hodder in the UK in June.

New Asterix stories are also in the works for release later this year after the character's co-creator Albert Uderzo signed a deal with French publisher Hachette-Livre.

First released in English back in 1989, How Obelix Fell Into the Magic Potion When He Was A Little Boy reveals how Asterix' clumsy friend and menhir delivery man Obelix ended up in a cauldron of magic potion and was permanently imbued with super strength.

Ever since he fell into the magic potion, there has been something mysterious about Obelix… What was it that happened exactly? How did Obelix manage to escape druid Getafix's eagle eye and taste that magic beverage?

René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo first explained the mystery in 1965, in Issue 291 of the French comic magazine Pilote, in a text story illustrated by Albert Uderzo, which lifted the veil on the childhood of our Asterix and Obelix and, for the very first time, introduced the pair's mamy fans fans to their parents.

How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion When He Was A Little Boy reappeared in album form in 1989 after Albert Uderzo, having reread the text with nostalgia, decided the text deserved a richer set of illustrations. That album, re-published in French this month to mark the 20th anniversary of the story's first album publication, is the latest release in an extensive program of "re-mastering" of the Asterix albums and features a new cover immortalizing the moment before the fall,

Narrated by Asterix in person, the story offers up legions of scoops and unforgettable images. We learn, for example, that Obelix was a frail, timid and bullied child, who was constantly taken to task by his classmates.

• In December 2008, Albert Uderzo finally decided to entrust Asterix's future to publisher Hachette Livre, paving the way for new Asterix stories. Describing Hchetter as "a great publisher, financially stable, and capable of guaranteeing Asterix international renown and continuity, the move was also approved by Anne Goscinny, René Goscinny's daughter, who considers that this was "the best way to guarantee the work's continuity".

Uderzo is now working on an album of new Asterix stories, to be published on 22 October as part of the celebrations commemorating the 50 years since Asterix was first created in the pages of the Pilote magazine on 29 October 1959. Uderzo has also revealed he has an idea for a new 44 page new Asterix story.

• How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion When He Was A Little Boy is released in June in the UK. Available via amazon.co.uk

• Take a look at the original pencil drawing by Albert Uderzo for the new cover of "How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion When He Was A Little Boy" on the official web site

• Try your luck in an Asterix Quiz on the official Asterix web site and win a copy of the "How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion When He Was A Little Boy" album

Tube Surfing: 26 January 2009

• (with thanks to Chris Wasshuber): Who created Lucky Luke? The cowboy, published by Dargaud and the creation of Morris, has been a beloved fictitious cowboy in Europe for the past 60 years bringing joy and entertainment to many readers and audiences. A recent discovery reported on Lybarary.com has unveiled a Lucky Luke cowboy created by an American, Arthur A. Dailey, at least as early as 1934. Mr. Dailey, in 1934, created and wrote a series of radio programs for boys and girls called "Lucky Luke" – a cowboy who had many adventures in the Old West. Were the radio shows syndicated to Europe and heard by Morris? The Lybrary article points out some interesting similarities...

• Neill Cameron has posted some stunning Doctor Who samples on his blog, hoping someone, somewhere on the Internet will see them and, I'd argue, have the good sense to commission him. Neill sent me the pages a while back and I offered a few suggestions based on my past experience as a former Doctor Who Magazine editor which I'm sure he didn't really need. Check them out here

• Sean Phillips has just posted a cover sketch for the Incognito project he's working on, written by Ed Brubaker. Sean's been publishing several art pages at various stages of development on his blog which will be of interest not only to his fans but artists, too.

• For just 99p you can hear Simon Guerrier's first episode of his new Doctor Who play, The Judgement of Isskar. The accompanying Prisoner's Dilemma is also out now, too.

• Over the last 18 months, 2000AD artist Colin Wilson has been working closely with Melbourne playwright Tom Taylor on a variety of comic projects, and the first of these to surface looks like being in Flinch, a new anthology title of Australian comic talent published by Gestalt Comics. "This lovely little book, with contributions from, amongst other, Chris Bones, Christian Read, Bobby.N, Justin Randall," he notes on his blog. The anthology features a cover by Shaun Tan, has recently surfaced on amazon.com, with a planned publication date of May."

• (via FPI Blog): At the end of the week rumours started circulating that Captain Britain & MI-13, written by Paul Cornell, has been cancelled. The good news is that those rumours were just rumours; Captain Britain & MI-13 is not cancelled, and according to the piece on Newsarama, Marvel assures everyone that it’s a healthy book.
Paul himself notes the collected edition of the first four issues of Captain Britain and MI-13: Secret Invasion, has already sold out and will shortly be going to a second printing. "It seems we're currently at number five in the UK graphic novel sales charts! " he comments. "I'm thoroughly chuffed."

Preserving Our Comics Heritage

John Birch works for the National Library of Scotland located in Edinburgh, one of the UK's five legal deposit libraries, and curated their successful Local Heroes exhibition covering comics and graphic novels last year.

In an interview for downthtubes, he gives Jeremy Briggs the benefit of his experience in organising this exhibition and its related events, as well as the legal requirements regarding archiving small press comics and fanzines for the nation, which some publishers may not be aware of.

• Read the interview on the main downthetubes site
• Discuss the interview and ways to save our comics heritage on our forum