Racing Rockets!

Anyone interested in getting costumes based on comics characters might be interested in this interview with designer Ruby Rocket, who has developed a deserved web-wide reputation for her creations based on the likes of Marvel's Black Cat etc.

Ruby has, not surprisingly, got some pretty stonking web traffic for her ComicSpace and MySpace sites but seems totally unphased by all the attention, even from mainstream magazines such as Maxim. (She's also got her own web site, rocketsagogo.com, but it's not live yet).

Speaking as someone who last dressed up in a costume back in the 1970s (Darth Vader, if you must know) - well, apart from appearing in a strange green costume from Blake's 7 during a convention auction while I was editing Doctor Who Magazine - I have to say the energy some genre fans put into this kind of stuff is pretty admirable, even if it is of course the one thing the news media always latches on to in an effort to keep us all firmly in the "nutter' category when reporting on science fiction, comics etc.

Strange then, that the same reporters who simply must have a Klingon for their next piece on Star Trek don't see football fans in scarves and England cricket team's "Barmy Army" in the same light but just harmless fun. C'est la vie....

This week's great Internet find...

I just found this on the Internet thing: a 'lost' Marvel UK Warheads strip, Loose Cannons, by Dan (Sinister Dexter) Abnett and Mark (Durham Red) Harrison

Edited by Jacqui Papp, the project - guest starring Death's Head II and Dark Angel - wasn't one I was involved in, despite being editor of the main Warheads book back in 1993 -- I'm pretty sure work had started on it before I left MUK, but I had enough to do on other titles.

Although almost completed -- Mark has restored all the pages he painted, lettered some that hadn't been lettered, including some final roughs on #4 -- Loose Cannons was never published because of the MUK Implosion and subsequent buyout by Panini which brought its US format titles for the US market to an end in 1993, after I left the company.

I had thought for years that the strip was probably the most prominent victim of what I'm told was a mass dumping of artwork when MUK/Panini moved to Tunbridge Wells so I'm really pleased to see Mark has recreated it.

Story-wise, its all out action from start to finish and Dan really goes to town on the villainous aspect of the amoral Mys-TECH board members featured: the sinsister cabal that backed the Warheads exploration of the universe(s) through technomagically-created wormholes to who knows where and who knows when. (before you ask, Warheads, developed by Paul Neary, predates the Stargate movie - he in turn was inspired by Frederick Pohl's Gateway saga).

Mark Harrison's work is simply terrific - he did several covers for Overkill, the weekly MUK title I edited which had a limited origination budget for new strips in addition to the simultaneous printing of the material being generated for the US format books such as Death's Head II, Warheads and others.

Included on site are a slew of designs for the book and the whole package leaves me feeling someone, somewhere, should be thinking about putting this out as a collection. Fab stuff.

Rebellion Buying Spree

Hot on the heels of their purchase of comics-to-ipod publisher Clickwheel comes news that 2000AD owner Rebellion Studios has acquired Ignition's Banbury development studio, formerly known as Awesome Developments and perhaps best known for developing the PSP puzzle game Archer Maclean's Mercury, as well as its more recent sequel for the PlayStation 2, Mercury Meltdown Remix.

Clickwheel and Ignition aren't their only purchases. Gamasutra reports that Rebellion also bought former Empire Interactive internal development studio Strangelite as well as former Tomb Raider developer Core Design.

Despite having access to 2000AD's characters the spin-off games, such as Rogue Trooper -- have only had limited success, but the acquisition takes Rebellion's staff levels to 280 full time members.

Thrud #5 - The Beer Necessities

Writer-artist-genius Carl Critchlow has just sent me a copy of Thrud the Barbarian #5: The Bear Necessities, the continuing four-colour adventures of the very stupid fantasy warrior he first created for fanzines which went on to become one of the only reasons for buing the fantasy ropleplaying magazine White Dwarf in the 1980s.

I'm pleased to report that the usual craziness is in abundance, from Heath Robinson flying machines to bizarre creatures for Thrud to (usually) kill. The artwork is a labour of love -- detailed, gorgeous and worthy of any major European bande dessines publisher, never mind being printed independently in Southport by a UK-based artist, paid for out of his own pocket, in a country where such producing such publications commercially are an uphill struggle in terms of cost, getting the right look to the printing, and distribution.

'The Beer Necessities' finds Thrud on a quest for ancient gold, parodying the Spanish quest for untold riches in Central and South America. Once again, the clever people in the tale get their (deserved) comeuppance and Thrud is at his very stupid best and outstandingly dangerous. (Eexcept when he suddenly turns clever after imbibing a weird jungle juice concoction, and then he becomes even more dangerous than ever!). I particularly liked the battle with snakes and dinosaurs, the name of the ancient god - buy the book and find out what it is for yourself - and the terrific manimal antagonist.

This is simply a funny romp, with a fun script, beautifully illustrated and coloured. Carl isn't pretending Thrud the Barbarian is something intellectually brilliant. This is no Love and Rockets or Watchmen and has no pretensions of being so. Thrud the Barbarian is simply fun comics at their very best, and it's to the author's credit that he continues to self publish to such a continuing, award-winning standard. Recommended!

Check the title out for yourselves at www.thrudthebarbarian.com