I’ll be breaking out the vinyl for this one! Fumetto is the most important comic festival in Switzerland and I’ll be playing the final party this Saturday.
Comics
The Electric Hoax Pt.14 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
There’s a Kickstarter that just, er… started for a new Tank Girl book. Maybe this is nothing special because Alan Martin has been churning them out with an revolving door of artists for a few years now.
This time though, Jamie Hewlett is back on board, = and no, this is not an April Fool. Firstly for a cover (two actually) but also for his first strip for nearly 20 years. Add to this a line up of Philip Bond, Jim Mahfood, Jonathan Edwards and more and you get what could be the ultimate Xmas present come it’s projected Nov 2014 release date.
This is only if they reach their goal of £57,000 in the next 29 days though. They’re off to a strong start with over £16k pledged already after less than a day but there’s a long way to go. You can check their progress and even pledge yourself HERE – the basic hard back book package is a very reasonable £23 + postage and there are all sorts of other extras and incentives to be had as add-ons too.
A few artists are conspicuous by their absence – Rufus Dayglo for one who helped (ahem) kick start TG back into the public eye all those years back as well as Ashley Wood and Mike McMahon. Check Hewlett’s Kickstarter-only cover below with a huge blue-veiner of a space ship.
*UPDATE* – Funded in 48 hours!
The Electric Hoax Pt.13 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
The Electric Hoax Pt.12 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version.
Dark Horse Presents is currently running Brendan’s new creation, ‘The Deleted’ which is up to chapter 3. The latest Judge Dredd Megazine issue 346 has a huge interview with Pete Milligan about his writing career.
Here are two new Jamie Hewlett images made especially for the British Library which will be running a comics history exhibit from May 2nd.
“Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, runs from May 2nd to August 19th 2014. Comics Unmasked traces the history of the British comic book and explores how comics and graphic novels have uncompromisingly addressed such subjects as violence, sexuality and drugs, breaking social boundaries with the innovative form that marries literature and visual art.
The exhibition highlights the trend set internationally by British comic creators, whereby comics are used to subvert and challenge stereotypes. It features original artwork and video montage of Jamie Hewlett’s most celebrated creations, Tank Girl and Gorillaz, alongside other exciting examples of original British comic art.”
More info from Paul Gravett who helped curate the exhibition.
Exactly what is says in the header – staggering work of course and including some of Kirby’s collage work too – view them all here.
The Electric Hoax Pt.11 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
The Electric Hoax Pt.10 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
The Electric Hoax Pt.9 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
Humanoids (Les Humanoïdes Associés – roughly translated as ‘United Humanoids’), the French publishing imprint set up by Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, Phillip Druilett and others in 1974 has recently opened a UK office.
Instantly recognisable on shelves by their large HUMANOIDS logo on each book spine, they produce beautiful hardback editions of French and European comics include oversize versions of Moebius and Jodorowsky‘s ‘The Incal’. This year is their 40th anniversary and it looks like they have big plans for the international market.
Last week they had the chance to buy the original art for their first logo, drawn by Moebius and long thought lost, from an auction in Manhattan (above right).
Now that they have a UK office (as well as relocating their French HQ to LA and opening one in Japan) I hope we will see lots of new issues of classic material associated with their founders. Moebius’ ’40 Days In The Desert’ and ‘Quatre-vingt huit’ would be top of my list and I think the English translation of the ‘Final Incal’ book is due any time soon (cover below not final and taken from Robot 6).
The Electric Hoax Pt.8 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
The Electric Hoax Pt.7 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
The Electric Hoax Pt.6 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
Available Feb 13th from 3A
The second volume of Ed Piskor‘s ‘Hip Hop Family Tree‘ – a history of rap music in comic book form – is out this summer. It features another round of guest artist pin ups and a few of these have leaked on the web in the past week or so. There will also be a free issue, drawing from both volumes and sporting a new cover, out for Free Comic Book Day this May.
I’ve shamelessly stolen this from Steve Cook‘s Secret Oranges site. This version of Black Widow may not be pleasing the purists online but, as a Scarlett fan, all I can say is, ‘Damn!’.
Looks like they seriously upped the budget on this one too after the success of The Avengers.
The Electric Hoax Pt.5 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version
The Electric Hoax Pt.4 by Pete Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. This strip appeared in the weekly UK music paper, Sounds, in 24 parts sometime between mid ’78 and ’79. Click image for larger version.
Also – just in stores – a new strip by McCarthy, ‘The Deleted’, just debuted in Dark Horse Presents no.32.
One of the recent trends in comics has been the over-sized deluxe ‘original art’ edition of a book or artist’s work. These are reproductions of the original pages, sans colour, with all the pencil marks, printer mark up and notes, reproduced at the original size – usually ‘half up’ from the final printed size. Usually expensive (around the £100 mark) these beautiful tombs are fascinating artifacts and show how much detail is lost in the print process.
If there’s one issue that needs collecting in this way it’s Jon Totleben‘s work on issue 60 of Alan Moore‘s run on Swamp Thing from 1987. This self-contained story is a standalone in that it’s all collage rather than a straighter pen and ink style and features a sci-fi plot where Swampy is basically raped in space by an alien entity with the horn (I think).
Anyway, the terrible reproduction and flat colours flattened all the subtleties out of the art as these scans of some of the original art from the Cool Lines Artwork website reveal (where you can actually still buy some of the art if you have deep pockets).
Some of it has objects like metal chains and watch innards attached to it but it’s doubtful if this could ever be collected as the art is now scattered to different owners after Steve from Cool Lines bought the majority of it it from the artist. Maybe DC has decent quality scans of it with all the separations somewhere and will see an opportunity milk some more of the Moore cash cow at some stage.
