New Biography of Showbiz Legend Lew Grade

A new biography of British media entrepeneur Lew Grade - without whom shows such as Thunderbirds, UFO and The Muppets might never have been made - is to be published by Aurum Press next month.

All My Shows are Great is the first biography of a giant of British show business and the story of a pioneer of commercial television. A portrait of a genuinely larger-than-life figure legendary for his witticisms, Lew Grade was the last of the old-time media moguls – a genuine show business tycoon. From humble Jewish immigrant beginnings in east London, he became the world Charleston dance champion (and could dance it well into his eighties), from which he drifted into theatrical agenting, at which he discovered he was extremely good.

Soon he was a top impresario, with his brothers Bernard (Delfont) and Leslie Grade putting together variety bills, owning theatres, and eventually booking showbiz’s biggest names from both sides of the Atlantic.

The birth of commercial television saw him win a franchise with ATV, where Grade was a pioneer of popular culture, responsible for such TV hits as Saturday Night at the London Palladium, Robert Powell’s epic portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth and bringing shows like Thunderbirds, Space:1999 and The Muppets to British TV screens. It was his genius that also, then, paved the way for fan favourite comics such as TV Century 21 to reach the news stands.

Grade then went into films, most notoriously with Raise the Titantic! whose cost over-runs inspired his most memorable witticism, that “It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”.

Grade was still working until he died in his early nineties, in the office at dawn, puffing on his trademark giant Montecristo cigars, and never losing his love of a deal. “Some of my shows are good, some are bad,” he once said. “All of them are great”.

Former Sunday Times journalist Lew Chester’s biography – the first to be written, is an entertaining portrait of someone who was truly larger than life.

• All My Shows are Great by Lewis Chester is published by Aurum Press on 18th February at £20 in the UK

How to create comics the Steve Whitaker way

The late, great Steve Whitaker drew this guide to creating comics back in the 1990s and it's available online via Flickr if people want to use it for teaching purposes, published under a Creative Commons license.

Printed in the Society of Strip Illustrators newsletter for September 1992, it's a terrific instructional page about how comics works that was presumably intended for use in the London Cartoon Centre classes which Steve ran.

Strangely, this is the second time Steve has cropped up in online happenings for me this week: this time it's the result of an appeal by Bryan Talbot, who plans to use the art as part of a presentation on comic storytelling next week to a secondary school whose, pupils are doing a graphic novel on their local history inspired by his graphic novel, Alice in Sunderland.

The first time it was a social networking site suggesting I become his friend, which was really spooky given that he's not been with us since 2008...

Arthur Ranson exhibition opens at Orbital

Tonight (Thursday 14th January) sees the opening of an exhibition of art by 2000AD contributor Arthur Ranson at London's Orbital Comics.

The exhibition spans his 30-year comic career: Arthur's credits are numerous, including, of course, "Button Man", "Judge Anderson" and "Mazeworld" for 2000AD; but also strips such as "Sapphire and Steel" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" for the Junior TV Times title Look-In (sadly, no longer published). His first ever strip appeared in that title - "Les Dawson - Superflop" but other credits on that comic include "CHiPs", "The Beatles", Dangermouse" and "Michael Bentine's Potty Time".

As well as his work for 2000AD, he's drawn issues of Batman - Dark Legends for DC Comics; and X-Factor and Xtreme X-Men for Marvel Comics.

Arthur recently launched his own web site and is currently on the hunt for examples of his work for Look-In.

"For completeness I would like the Look-in section to have an example of every strip I did for them," he says, but "Due to not having access to some of the work this is presently not possible."

If any one out here has examples of unrepresented strips - The missing titles are "Doctor on the Go", "The A-Team", "Logan's Run", and "CHiPs" - they could be emailed to the contact address on the web site.

"A "Worzel Gummidge" and a "Just William" pic with the eponymous hero in would be nice too," says Arthur.

In December, Arthur posted a sort update on the much-rumoured Button Man movie, based on the 2000AD strip created by John Wagner. "Despite what you might see on the internet, there is not as yet a Button Man movie, not even one starring Leonardo di Caprio," he noted.

"Dreamworks have a few months to decide whether to either go ahead, pay for more time to decide, or drop it. You will be informed."

• Arthur Ranson's Official web site: www.arthurranson.com

• Orbital Comics is at 8 Great Newport Street, London, WC2H 7JA. Tel: 02072400591. Web: www.orbitalcomics.com. It's open every day from 10.30 - 7.00pm except Sundays, when it's 11.30-5.00pm

British Comic Creators support fundraising for Haiti Earthquake victims

Comic creators across the globe are already coming up with ideas to help raise money for the Haiti Earthquake disaster - if you're a British creator or retailer who's doing something, let us know and we'll try and plug it here as soon as we can.

Please include your name, address and telephone number in any such correspondence - sadly, we gather there are already people out there scamming people who genuinely want to help.

The comics medium already helps Haiti: comics have been used, for example, to help combat illiteracy.

The Marvel Database lists eight characters from Haiti: maybe they'll spend donate money...

The Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti Earthquake Appeal is to launch with the support of major UK broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Al-Jazeera.

The money raised will support the efforts of the DEC’s members which are the major UK aid agencies.

They expect the appeal to be broadcast on Friday but donation lines and the website are already open for donations.

The donation line is 0370 60 60 900 and website is dec.org.uk

Donation Points

• UK Disasters Emergency Committee: dec.org.uk
The Disasters Emergency Committee brings together the leading UK aid agencies to raise money at times of humanitarian crisis in poorer countries

• UK Disaster Emergency Appeal on Twitter: http://twitter.com/decappeal
• UK Disaster Emergency Appeal on Facebook

• List of other donation points on the BBC web site