Mohawk Media announces Dick Turpin project

Publisher Mohawk Media has announced the release of a preview issue of its upcoming project, starring history’s most notorious masked highwayman, Dick Turpin.

Not to be confused with Time Bomb Comics similar-sounding title (see news story), the issue is available exclusively via the publisher’s groundbreaking line of paperless Eco Comics.

“It’s every writer’s dream to write such a famous, or should I say, infamous character as Dick Turpin," enthuses writer Chris Bunting."His multi-layered, unpredictable nature makes for great drama.

"Expect some startling revelations about the life of this legendary lawbreaker," he hints.

Born in England in 1706, Dick Turpin became one of history’s most notorious highwaymen. Reports of the day ranged from branding him a ruthless thief to a charming and gallant highwayman. 

“Turpin lived at a time when England was more like the Wild West, and criminals faced the death penalty at the gallows. Highwaymen led a very exciting life but often a very short one.

“This 18th Century swashbuckling firebrand was born to be a 21st Century complex comic book character. Dick Turpin’s return is a case of perfect timing.”


Writer Chris Bunting seems to be on a quest to make literary and cultural giants accessible to a new generation, while simultaneously pleasing established fans. Legendary names already on his résumé include Mr. T, Action Man, Dracula, Robin Hood and Jekyll & Hyde.

A Fine Arts Bachelor Graduate, Salvador Velázquez has worked under a pseudonym as a gallery artist, advertisement illustrator, and graphic designer. His comic books include Swords of Suburbia, while Dick Turpin is his first international project.

The digital and paperless Dick Turpin: Pencil-Only Preview features pencil-art from the first instalment of the upcoming title.

“This format allows the reader the opportunity to see Dick Turpin ride again in the untouched, gorgeous art of Salvador Velázquez," explains editor Stuart Buckley. “The creative team gives us a taste of what is to come: forget stuffy historical fiction, this is a comic book cocktail of action-adventure and mystery-thriller featuring one of Britain’s, if not the world’s, most recognisable rogues.

“With his mask and famous steed, Turpin has been the archetype for many highwaymen and outlaws: even the Lone Ranger bears remarkable parallels.”


Further details on the Dick Turpin project are due to be announced.


Mohawk Media launched in 2008 with the top-selling graphic novel adventures of one of Hollywood’s most instantly recognisable superstars, Mr. T. The publisher followed up with a range of new titles, including Dracula vs. Robin Hood vs. Jekyll & Hyde. Eco Comics is a new range of paperless comic books designed with the specific purpose of having a minimal carbon footprint. Eco Comics titles are also available via digital platforms Graphicly and MyDigitalComics. Further information: www.facebook.com/ecocomics

• Dick Turpin: Pencil-Only Preview is a 16-page issue featuring lettered pencil art only, and is available now in various digital formats via the Eco Comics store: www.mohawkmedia.co.uk/ecocomics for $1.95 (approximately £1.20).
 
• Preview art and images: http://blog.mohawkmedia.co.uk/ and www.facebook.com/official.dickturpin

Commando haunts the newsagents once more...

Here's details of the latest issues of DC Thomson's war comic, Commando, on sale in all good newsagents now. It's another cracking relase of both old and new tales - some featuring men haunted by ghosts, some soldiers haunted by their own fears - and still at the bargain price of just £1.50 an issue.

Commando: 4447: Colours of Courage
Originally Commando No 1182 (December 1977), re-issued as No 2412 (October 1990)
Story: Cyril Walker Art: Arthur Fleming Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

The proudest possessions of any regiment are its colours - the flags which it carries into battle. Its history is recorded on these colours, the victories it has won.

A regiment guards its colours fiercely. To have them captured by the enemy is a terrible thing. But when a man hands over the colours to save his own skin it is a disgrace that brave soldiers can hardly bear think about...

"If there are two things difficult to get right in a Commando they are French Resistance stories and ghosts," says Commando Editor Calum Laird of this reprint issue. "Resistance stories could easily be 63 pages of skulking about avoiding searching German soldiers and ghosts could easily look like normal characters drawn without enough ink.

"Thanks to ace story-teller Cyril Walker, 'Colours Of Courage' cracks along with plenty of action to break up the tension. And Arthur Fleming - an art teacher from Glasgow - manages to skilfully depict a glowing figure despite only having black ink and white paper to work with.

"Wrapped in one of Ian Kennedy's superbly drawn and laid-out covers it's got all it needs for a cracking Commando."

Commando No 4448: The Four Scars
Originally Commando No 185 (October 1965), re-issued as No 831 (April 1974)
Story: Eric Hebden Art: Victor de la Fuente Cover Art: Ken Barr

Corporal Bill Kirk felt the tiny life-raft rock lazily as the Jap struggled aboard. Both turned to look at the sinking Jap prison-ship they'd been on - Bill a prisoner, the Jap a guard. Then they turned back, to look at each other; and what that Jap read in Bill Kirk's eyes made him start back in fear.

But there was no escape for him. With only the vast empty ocean and the sharks circling the raft for witnesses, they grappled in a fight to the finish...

"I've mentioned before that I found my childhood Commando issues at the back of the garage a few years ago," says Calum Laird of ths story. "Some I had to look at again to refresh my memory, but not this one. I don't know how many times I read and re-read this in the 1960s but it must have been a lot because I had almost total recall.

"Ken Barr's cover with its ethereal hand hovering over the action, Victor de la Fuente's action-packed, high-energy inside art and Eric Hebden's crackerjack of a story with its startling twist were just what the doctor ordered in 1965 and are equally so today. I think so anyway and I hope you'll agree.

"As an aside, Ken Barr used a sheet of transparent plastic sheet with the outline of the hand painted on it to get that ghostly effect. I certainly didn't know that in 1965."

Commando 4449: Days Of Danger
Story: Stephen Walsh Art: Vila Cover Art: Nicholas Forder

Simon Katz was a young German and a fervent anti-Nazi. A brilliant mathematician, he escaped Germany by the skin of his teeth and went to work as a code-breaker for the British.

Not long after, Sergeant Barney Taft also made an escape - from the bullet-strafed beaches of Dunkirk.

Though they were on the same side, when circumstances threw the pair together, they clashed bitterly. But could they manage to work together against a ruthless enemy? They would have to if they were to survive.

Commando No 4450: The Nightmare War
Story: Mac MacDonald Art: Keith Page Cover Art: Keith Page

Private Franz Bauer, a German Army engineer wounded during the invasion of France, was haunted by the deaths of his comrades in the same battle - wiped out by a mine. When he recovered he threw himself into his new job developing the remote-controlled Borgward IV demolition vehicle, hoping it might save other German lives.

His chance to save thousands of lives would come, but he would be working alongside an unlikely ally - someone who had nightmares every bit as bad as Franz's.

• The Draw Your Weapons exhibition featuring art from Commando continues at the National Army Museum in London this month and runs until 30th April 2012. For the latest information visit: www.nam.ac.uk/exhibitions/special-displays/draw-your-weapons-art-commando-comics


• Official Commando web site: http://www.commandocomics.com/


• Commando Official Facebook page


• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846


• Commando is also available for iPad and iPhone. The apps are free to download through the Apple iTunes App Store and a digital subscription is priced at £4.99 per month, compared to a £99 annual print subscription. For those not sure there are four free issues to download prior to making a purchase.


• Commando Comics iPhone App on iTunes


• Commando Comics iPad App on iTunes

Panel Borders: The Danger of Romance

Concluding a months of shows about genre in comics, Panel Borders Alex Fitch talks to writer and manga translator Sean Michael Wilson and lecturer and author Ian Rakoff about romance comics this Sunday.

Sean is the editor of AX Volume 1: A collection of Alternative Manga and author of The Story of Lee and Yakuza Moon, two manga novels with varying degrees of biography about the fortunes of young women encountering different cultures across Asia.

Ian is about to give his latest lecture about comics (on 30th November) at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and this month is discussing the subject of romance comics, with a focus on how they were an antidote to McCarthyism in 1950s America.

Online later this month from panel Borders are three sperate talks recorded at Laydeez do Comics - cartoonists Woodrow Phoenix, Kripa Joshi and Mawil (Markus Witzel) discussing their work. If there is a common theme between the three, it's a sense of magical realism in their art which juxtaposes the ordinary with the out of the ordinary, from Woodrow's use of road furniture in Rumble Strip, to Kripa's use of Indian mythology in her tales of domestic incidents and Mawil's blue collar stories of life in Germany through the lens of his alter-ego Sparky O'Hare.

The interviews were recorded by Nicola Streeten and Alex Fitch and are introduced by Nicola Streeten.

• Panel Borders: The Danger of Romance airs at 8.00pm, 27th November 2011, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / extended podcast after broadcast at www.panelborders.wordpress.com

• Laydeez do comics: Magical Realism is online from 29th November 2011 at laydeezdopodcasts.wordpress.com

In Review: Thought Bubble 2011

Comics writer Cy Dethan was one of many creators at this year's Thought Bubble event in Leeds earlier this month and has kindly agreed to let us post his thoughts on the vent on downthetubes, first published on his own blog...

Thought Bubble has always been considered a creator-friendly convention, so it was a massive kick to be launching three separate ventures at this one. Firstly, we had the long-awaited print release of The Indifference Engine: A Holographic Novel, which I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Having Rob Carey, the book’s artist, at the table over the weekend was deeply cool, as the man’s a total dynamo.

(Under the heading of “speaking in whispers so we don’t jinx it,” a brief conversation with Markosia suddenly means work on an I sequel is likely to kick off in earnest very soon...)

Next up was Broadcast: the TV Doodles of Henry Flint. Being a dedicated art book, this is really Henry’s show. In providing a sort of contextual commentary to the work, my role is pretty much that of a DVD extra. That said, I had an incredible time wrapping my skull around the disarming, disturbing weirdness that Henry so masterfully orchestrates, and hopefully some of that comes across in my contribution to the completed book.

Finally, there was Barry Nugent’s Tales of the Fallen anthology. Barry’s development of the Unseen Shadows property from self-published cult hit to full-on transmedia empire has proven a masterclass in what a creator with a clear vision can accomplish. With scripts from Richmond Clements, Pete Rogers, Dan Thompson and myself, and art by Steve Penfold, Conor Boyle, Roy Stewart and my Indifference Engine co-creator, Rob Carey, Tales of the Fallen fleshes out the backgrounds of several key figures from the Unseen Shadows universe while retaining a stand-alone independence that requires no prior knowledge of the novel. It was an extraordinary project to have been involved in, and I’m looking forward to getting my second bite soon.

The pre-ordering system Markosia has been operating turned out to have been a virtual necessity, as both their entire stock and ours of Indifference Engine and Slaughterman’s Creed were wiped out at the convention, due in no small part to comic shop owners looking to take large bundles of books from the tables. With more and more shops now opting to deal more directly with publishers, initiatives like pre-ordering and Stuart Gould’s excellent UK Comics service (whose first catalogue is now available) are becoming increasingly central to the indie scene.
 

My partner, Nic Wilkinson, was saved from performing a 50-minute lettering solo at the Saturday afternoon lettering workshop when she was joined by Ian Sharman in his hard-rocking steampunk hat. What emerged from this was one of the most interesting convention panels I’ve ever seen, with Nic and Ian taking attendees through the broad concepts and tiny details that underly comic book lettering, demonstrating that attention and forethought given to lettering strategy at every stage of a comic’s production make all the difference between seamless, fluid storytelling and becoming unreadable. For the rest of the show there was a steady stream of people coming up to the table with more questions about lettering, or asking for advice on the artistic and technical side of things. (Jim Campbell was sadly prevented from making the show this year due to a sudden deadline crunch but check out his blog for some of the best tutorials and info around).

On Sunday it was my turn to take a minor corner of that same stage (at the Alea Casino Cinema Room, straight across the gaming hall, turn left at the 1970s and take the lift t0 the second floor – if you saw the place you’d understand) for the Unseen Shadows panel. In the company of (almost) the whole creative squad, Barry took the audience through the evolution of the project from first principles to the verge of total media domination. I got to rattle off a few words about my Wrath of God story, which is a multi-narrative piece told almost entirely through the medium of gunplay. Great fun to write, and the art team of Steve Penfold and Gat Melvyn did a stunning job of bringing it to life. In a surprise move, Barry took the opportunity to announce a four-part miniseries involving Wrath of God’s protagonist, The Reverend, with the same creative team, along with a similar venture for Napoleon Stone by Fragments of Fate creators Pete Rogers and Roy Stewart.

Along with our launch books, Nic and I had taken along digital previews of Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours and White Knuckle. Thanks to everyone who asked about those. The level of interest and responses we got were really stunning, with the terms “dark”, “haunting” and “ominous” providing recurrent themes. I’ll be posting more as things develop on these projects, and both books are looking solid for launches in the first half of 2012.

In the “great to finally meet” category, we have Starburst columnist and horror writer, Philip Buchan (whose work combines Romantic Poet sensibilities with balls-out body-shock atrocity), artist Alwyn Talbot, whom I seriously need to work with right now, and both Conor Boyle and Roy Stewart, with whom I am currently working but can’t really talk about yet. Outstanding to catch up with all of these guys.

Another key figure in this category would be Jacob Welby, a writer I’ve been in email contact with for a while. Jacob’s got what I consider to be a really strong, deeply original story to tell, and an artist ideally suited to tell it with him, so I was excited to be able to introduce him to Markosia boss, Harry Markos, and watch him deliver his pitch. Best of luck to you, mate.

As far as weekend purchases go, my personal highlights would have to include a double-shot of Time Bomb Comics’ Dick Turpin books (by Steve Tanner, Andrew Dodd and Cancertown 2’s Graeme Howard), Jennifer Wilde #1 (Maura McHugh and Stephen Downey) and Dark Judgement 2, the second all-Rich McAuliffe and Conor Boyle Dark Judges book from Futurequake.

Random personal highlights would also feature tag-teaming with Corey Brotherson to introduce Jennie Gyllblad to the underlying concepts of professional wrestling, watching David Monteith win at life as he toured the convention with his wife and new child (described at one point as a baby wearing a full-size Predator backpack), Nic developing a new life goal of becoming a professional Roller Derby player while I snagged an incredible piece of art from Vicky Stonebridge as a present for her and reuniting the Digital Wolfpack when Paul Richardson arrived at the table.

In summary, I can’t stress enough how smoothly and professionally Thought Bubble is run. It basically doubled in size this year and there wasn’t a single sign of strain from where I was sitting. Congratulations, gratitude and a permanent slot in my convention schedule are most certainly due.

In fact, my only slightly shaky experience over the entire weekend was a minor Highlander moment I had during the Saturday night mid-convention party, on receiving the ominous warning, “Gary’s brought his cards”. This seemingly innocuous comment instantly brought the Quickening upon me, as it could mean only one thing: another magician was on the premises. It is a little-known fact that when two magicians meet on non-consecrated grounds, they must duel for The Prize. 

Luckily for all involved, I never found out who the mysterious “Gary” was, and his cards appear to have remained safely in their scabbard for the duration of my stay. There can, after all, be only one...

• Cy Dethan is a British comics writer whose credits include Cancertown, Slaughterman's Creed and the Starship Troopers Ongoing Series, currently kicking bloody great lumps out of the British comics industry. Check out his blog at http://theraggedman.blogspot.com

• Check out info on Thought Bubble at: http://thoughtbubblefestival.com

• Blogomatic 3000: Thought Bubble - Day 1 in Pictures

More Reviews

• Kristyna Baczynski: Thought Bubble 2011
"... Always the highlight of my creative year both productively, working to release new content for the festival, and socially, meeting and talking to more excellent people in the festival week than cumulatively across the other fifty-one of the year. This year was super special, as I had the honour of being Thought Bubble's first Artist In Residence..."

• Comic Conventions UK

• Forbidden Planet International Blog, Part One

• Forbidden Planet International Blog, Part Two

• Lee Robson: Random Thoughts on Thought Bubble 
"The key thing about this year's Thought Bubble for me (apart from an aching pair of feet), was that I've come away from it feeling more energised and upbeat about comics and writing in general."

• SFX: Thought Bubble - a Comic Convention for all the Family  
"There was all the usual fabulousness that Thought Bubble offers, and loads more beside: interesting and informative panels; dealer rooms that are like comicky caverns filled with a delicious mixture of small/indie and mainstream press selling their wares; signing tables with everyone from Gail Simone and Jeff Lemire to Mick McMahon and Roger Langridge; and the more unusual things like Planet Replicas where I picked up a brilliant Dredd badge keyring."