It's The Dandy Show! Final print issue to be celebrated at London Mart

With the final print edition of The Dandy comic imminent - a 100-page special that includes a facsimile of the first issue - the London Comic Mart is marking its transition to a digital format on Sunday 2nd December by hosting a special Dandy-themed day to celebrate 75 years of the much loved comic.

Launched on 4th December 1937, The Dandy hits 75 years at the beginning of December – but, sadly, the anniversary will see an end to the print edition. Hopefully, the move to an entirely digital comic will prove a success – DC Thomson have been working on it for months, so fingers crossed!

To celebrate the anniversary and to tie-in with the final print issue of the iconic DC Thomson comic, Showmasters is hosting a special edition of its ABC Show. Held on 2nd December from noon to 4.00pm at the Royal National Hotel, Bedford Way, London WC1, the festivities are an addition to the regular London Comic Marts held at the same venue.

In attendance will be such contemporary Dandy artists as Henry Davis, Laura Howell, Gary Northfield, Lew Stringer and others.

Original artwork from The Dandy from the 1930s to the 1960s will be on display, as well as issues of The Dandy from the same period.

Organisers say this is a unique opportunity to meet the people behind The Dandy, hear them talk about their experiences working on the comic and see some of the rarities from the weekly’s history.

In addition, Hunt Emerson - also a Dandy contributor - will be at the event, signing copies of his new book, Dante's Inferno; and author David Ashford will be signing copies of his latest book The Art of Denis McLoughlin, published by exhibitor Book Palace, who will also be showing off the first issue of illustrators , the quarterly publication devoted to the finest European illustration.

Dealers at the event will also be offering comics and memorabilia from across the wide range of British comics in general.

• London Comic Mart, Noon - 4.00pm Sunday 2nd December 2012. For more details visit the Showmasters website here: http://londoncomicmart.co.uk

Electric Man Film Special Screening In Sheffield

The Sheffield Space Centre comic shop is helping to promote The Electric Man independent film we've covered in the past on downthetubes, which is having a special screening at the Showroom Cinema Sheffield on Thursday 22nd November at 6.00pm.

In Electric Man Movie (12A), Jazz and Wolf run Deadhead Comics. They owe their landlord £5,000 but they don’t have it and it seems the shop is doomed. But, when Issue No 1 of Electric Man mysteriously appears in the shop it seems their problems are solved.

Far from it. Worth £100,000, the comic is being sought by a number of people who’ll stop at nothing to get it for themsleves - the strange and alluring Lauren McCall, Electric Man obsessive Edison Bolt and Lauren’s Uncle Jimmy, a violent thug.

Add to the mix, the return of Wolf’s girlfriend Victoria and you have all the elements for what’s been described as The Maltese Falcon meets Clerks.

Writer Scott MacKay and Director David Barras will be at Sheffield Space Centre, 33 The Wicker, Sheffield S3 8HS between 2-3.00 pm Thursday 22nd November and will be available to chat, answer questions and sign copies of the DVD of the film, we will then have a free prize draw for 2 free tickets to see the film at the showroom that evening at 6.00pm.

The film will be shown at 6.00pm and this will be followed by a Q & A session at the Showroom with Scott Mackay and David Barras with a raffle for two £20 gift vouchers to use in the Sheffield Space Centre.

New Thunder Super Soap Division breaks into our quantum reality

The third issue of Paul Rainey's Thunder Brother: Soap Division is now available to order from his online shop. Like both of the previous two, copies of which are still available to buy, it features a complete Thunder Brother: Soap Division story which, on this occasion, is called "The Two Ronnies". But this edition also features rare and previously unseen comic strip extras, including the Jeremy Kyle Show/Doctor Who mash-up strip, Doctor Kyle.

In Ghost.Zombie! one character's a ghost, one's a zombie - and together they are Ghost.Zombie. Plus, In full colour for the first time, West: Badwater Lake, written by the mighty Andrew Cheverton on loan from Angry Candy.

Richard Bruton had this to say about the brand new issue on the Forbidden Planet Blog: "Rainey’s doing that brilliant thing he does so easily it seems; taking a simple enough sci-fi idea and really, really thinking it through, getting into all those troublesome details that it’s all too easy to ignore in favour of shifting that plot forwards. Rainey takes another view, that there’s a story within those troublesome details. Of course, it does help that Rainey’s storytelling and art match up to his clever ideas all the way."

Each issue of Thunder Brother: Soap Division is 24 pages long, is full colour throughout and costs only £3. (Price includes free P&P to the UK)

Thunder Brother: Soap Division started appearing during September 2011 and a new page of this science fiction/superhero adventure now appears every Sunday. As well as the print collections, you can also the story so far online via the links below. To do this, click on the following links in order, and read each story starting with the page that loads at the bottom. Note that you need to read each story from the bottom page upwards.

• The Apprentice

• Going Straight


• The Two Ronnies

• Big Break

• Mind Your Language

• To buy or find out more, visit: www.pbrainey.com

 

British Comic Awards: The Winners

(Updated 19/11/12): The winners of the first British Comic Awards were announced at Thought Bubble last night. If you were at the Awards Ceremony, I hope you were pleased by the results.

This was the first year of the BCAs and I was honoured to be asked to be a judge and I'm delighted by the quality of the nominees and the winners, especially Luke Pearson's Hilda and the Midnight Giant, which I was genuinely moved by when I read it.

It was hard to 'grade' such distinctive work from all those nominated, all of it terrific in its own right but for very different reasons.

The winners were as follows:


  Best Book: Nelson edited by Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix (Blank Slate Books)

The other nominees were:

• Science Tales by Darryl Cunningham (Myriad Editions)

• Don Quixote Volume 1 by Rob Davis (SelfMadeHero)

• Goliath by Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly)

• Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson (Nobrow)

In a post on their Facebook page, Blank Slate commented: "We're so proud to have taken home the first Best Book award at the British Comic Awards. Huge congratulations go out to everyone involved with the book, especially the readers and retailers who helped make Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix's experiment such a success."

Best Comic - Bad Machinery: The Case Of The Fire Inside by John Allison
Published online at scarygoround.com, January 9th – June 28th 2012

The other nominees were:

• Accidental Salad by Joe Decie (Blank Slate Books)

• Girl & Boy by Andrew Tunney - www.andrewtunney.com/comics/girlandboy/

• Hemlock Issue 3 by Josceline Fenton

• Tuk Tuk Issue 1 by Will Kirkby

Emerging Talent - Josceline Fenton

The other nominees were:

• Kristyna Baczynski – www.kristyna.co.uk

• Will Kirkby – http://chamonkee.livejournal.com

• Louis Roskosch – www.louisroskosch.com

• Jack Teagle - http://jackteagle.co.uk

Young People's Comic Award - Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson

The other nominees were:

• Bad Machinery: The Case of The Fire Inside by John Allison

• The Lost Boy by Kate BrownPublished in The Phoenix by David Fickling Books, January 7th – 1st September 2012

• Dinopopolous by Nick Edwards
Published by Blank Slate Publishing (Chalk Marks), October 2011

• Gum Girl 1: Catastrophe Calling by Andi Watson
Published by Walker Books

The first member of the BCA's Hall of Fame is Fungus the Bogeyman and The Snowman creator Raymond Briggs.

The judges this year were comic creator Hunt Emerson, Page 45 comic shop owner Steve L. Holland, academics Dr. Mel Gibson and Roger Sabin, and Stacey Whittle, writer at SFX Magazine website, long-running indie/small press comics podcaster; and myself, comics editor and writer John Freeman.

One thing that I will publicly say as one of the judges is that several comic creators contacted me when the nominees were first announced and questioned the choices. It was noted in particular that (aside from one strip that ran in The Phoenix) there were no nominations for strips that feature in any of the remaining originated mainstream British comics such as The Dandy or 2000AD.

As someone who has promoted both "mainstream" and "independent" comics on downthetubes and elsewhere (and given the quality of work that was nominated, not only in terms of content but production values, such distinctions are by no means easy to define), I did ask about this at an early stage of the judging process.

I was told the philosophy of the Awards is to include any and all work being made by British creators, to commend the best and highlight them for a wider audience. There was no attempt to promote only "independent" comics or creators.

Suggestions for nomination was open to anyone who submitted their views on the BCA web site. The BCA Committee, comprising lecturer and artist Dan Berry, columnist and comics retailer Richard Bruton, Clark Burscough, BCA Founder Adam Cadwell, comics writer Matthew Sheret, artist and illustrator Vicky Stonebridge and ThoughtBubble founder Lisa Wood, looked at strips running in The Beano, The Dandy and 2000AD and looked for comics that stood as being some of the best work being produced in the last year.

"Jaime Smart's Desperate Dan was mentioned, as was the Judge Dredd: Day of Chaos story which got some votes from committee members," Adam Cadwell told me, "but in the end we decided that work being done in The Phoenix, online comics and some self published work stood out more and were the type of stories that could be enjoyed by anyone."

Opinions on creative work are by their very nature subjective but in my personal view, I hope that next year, British publishers large and small will again have (and take) the opportunity to send the committee their qualifying titles for consideration, as well as the BCA allowing for online nomination from visitors to the BCA web site.

• More info: http://britishcomicawards.com