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Friday, 25 February 2011

2000AD, TV21 and Whoopee art offered in latest Compalcomics auction

Bionic Woman art for Look-In 13 by John Bolton. Lot details here

There's artwork and British comic rarities in the Spring 2011 auction at Compalcomics, which has just opened, including 2000AD art by Ron Smith and superb work by artists such as John Bolton, Frank Bellamy, Ken Reid, Robert Nixon and Italian artist Giorgio de Gaspari.

There are 292 lots in the winter catalogue, including a Thunderbirds page by Frank Bellamy published in TV Century 21 Issue 168, and a continuation of individually lotted Dandy Comic war years issues, many not seen at auction before.

The British section also includes Film Fun Issue 1, complete with its incredibly rare free 'Fatty Arbuckle' gift and a rare Beano No 2 is at lot 26 (only a handful of copies are known to exist) and there's a beautifully fresh second Dandy Monster Comic at lot 58, published in 1940.

The Compal team have also unearthed a Radio Fun first issue graded Very Fine for your consideration at lot 19, the comic that introduced readers to comic strip versions of the likes of George The Jolly Gee-Gee, Flanagan & Allen, Sandy Powell, Will Fyffe and brought them the Clark Gable Picture Story ‘Along Paths of Peril’, back in 1938.

Denis Gifford was a comics historian of great importance whose input was well known and the auction featuresa collection of his Gerald G Swan albums and comics as well as an unpublished 1944 album by him entitled 'Corker Comics issues 1-12' for which all of the page settings and original artwork is included.

There is also a minor contribution of artwork characters Larry, Horace and Pop and Percy Pig by RAM, a talented young artist and writer later going on to international comedic fame as one Robert A Monkhouse. Surel a unique piece of British comics history.

This Corker Comics lot features comic strip by the late, great Bob Monkhouse

Dick Daring cover art by Giorgio de Gaspari
for Thriiler Picture Library 244
While there are some terrific lots of comics - both individual and collected, including TV Century 21, Eagle, Junior Express Weekly and many more, it's the art in this auction that is sure to attract attention, not least from Western comics fans who might be salivating over several pieces of cover art for Cowboy Comics and Thriller Picture Library by Italian artist Giorgio de Gaspari whose atmospheric action style is well captured with Kit Carson, The Kansas Kid, Dick Daring and Spy 13.

There's also some 2000AD art on offer - including a page of Judge Dredd by Ron Smith, Ant Wars art by Alfonso Azpiri, and a joint lot featuring art by Adrian D. Beeton and John Stokes.

The Broons and Oor Wullie by Dudley Watkins are up to their usual tricks along with Frankie Stein and the World Wide Weirdies by Ken Reid, and a Frankie Stein piece by Robert Nixon - plus a special Viz artwork that ComPal is  offering on behalf of the charity Sunshine Project International.

You may notice that Simon Donald's snowman theme is well blessed in the testosterone department.  If you don't fancy that there's always the Dennis The Menace Clickity Clicker, given away in an issue of The Beano in 1960 -- in full annoying working order!

• Bids will be accepted until Tuesday 15 March at 8 PM UK time. Catalogue at:  www.compalcomics.com/catalogue/index.htm

(With thanks to Graeme Neil Reid for additional info)

Tube Surfing: British Artists - Interviews and Unpublished Art

There has been a small flurry of British artists getting interviewed recently.

Alex Ronald, who has worked as an artdroid for 2000AD in the past and is now getting a lot of attention for the Vampire Vixens Of The Wehrmacht strip just started in Wasted, talks about VVW on the the Wasted blog.

Also short and sweet is an interview by Lew Stringer over on Blimey with Commando and Spaceship Away artist Martin Baines about the colouring work he has done on the Frank Bellamy Garth strips now being published by the Daily Mirror.

If those two have whetted your appetite then David Robertson, of Fred Egg Comics and organiser of the war comics exhibition now touring Angus Council libraries, presents an absolute beanfeast of an interview with Doctor Who and Hellblazer artist John Ridgway over on The Comics Journal. The interview is so long and detailed that TCJ split it over two postings, here and here (and managed to spell David's surname wrong in the title of the first one).

And finally... Our brothers in arms in the Commando office have discovered some unpublished art in their files by the late Jeff Bevan whose favourite subject to illustrate was ships. Pre-internet, when references for ships were less easy to come by, Commando used DC Thomson staff artist Bevan to create ship reference art that could be sent out to freelancer artists to use when drawing their Commando stories. The artwork has been declassified for the first time and is available to view on the Commando website, here and here.

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Happy Fifth Birthday, Panel Borders!

We plugged the latest Panel Borders show earlier today, but presenter and producer Alex Fitch has just let us know that yesterday marked his 5th anniversary of making programmes for Resonance FM in London, so here's a look back at just some of the people he's talked to since 2006, with links to the podcasts...

Actors include Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead), Philip Glenister (Life on Mars / Ashes to Ashes), Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange / Never Apologise), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Susannah York (They shoot horses don't they? / The Struggles for Poland)

Artists: Ray Harryhausen (Animator: Jason and the Argonauts / Clash of the Titans), Raymond Briggs (The Snowman / When the Wind Blows), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen / Give me Liberty), David Lloyd (V for Vendetta / Kickback), Gilbert Shelton (The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers)

Writers: Chris Carter (The X-Files), Paul Cornell (Doctor Who), Chris Claremont (X-Men/Captain Britain), Cory Doctorow (Little Brother / Overclocked), Dev Hynes (Lightspeed Champion / Ctrl Alt Shift Unmasks Corruption), Charlie Higson (The Fast Show / The Enemy / Young Bond), Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, New York / Being John Malkovich), Alan Moore (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen / From Hell), Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials / The DFC) /

Directors: Gerry Anderson (Thunderbirds / UFO), Dario Argento (Suspiria / Tenebre), Marc Caro (The City of Lost Children / Dante 01), Joe Dante (Gremlins / The Movie Orgy), Peter Greenaway (Nightwatching / The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover), Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre / Eggshells), Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy / I'm a Cyborg, but it's okay) and Michael Winterbottom (Code 46 / 24 hour party people)

It's an impressive list, so I think a round of applause is hereby in order. Here's to five more, Alex - at least!

• Full alphabetical list at http://panelborders.wordpress.com/index with a handful of videos at http://www.youtube.com/panelborders

Panel Borders: Women of Caption

Concluding Women in Comics month on Panel Borders, Alex Fitch presents three interviews conducted at the small press comics convention Caption, held in Oxford last Summer. Selina Lock and Jeremy Day discuss the history of the convention, how it has changed over the years and the various events they've been involved with at the East Oxford Community Centre.

My Cardboard Life by Philippa Rice: read the strip at http://mycardboardlife.com
Alex also talks to Philippa Rice, creator of the comic My Cardboard Life, who was one of the people involved in running a collectible dinosaur sticker game at this convention and at other comics events.

• Panel Borders: Women of Caption broadcasts tonight at 5.00pm on Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

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