Lawless convention - a tribute to Carlos Ezquerra - part 2

And here's more of the amazing comics art by Carlos that was on display at Lawless last weekend... 

 from Crisis

 from Crisis

some lovely early Dredd 

UPDATED: Robin comic merchandise - an incomplete visual guide

Robin comic was one of the companion titles to the original Eagle comic (along with Girl and Swift) - Robin was aimed at the youngest demographic of the 4 titles. I don't collect Robin material but I thought I should try and record what sort of spin-off ephemera, games etc. exist for Robin.

The main problem with this is that is you google "Robin comic merchandise" you get an awful lot of stuff relating to Batman's young assistant, grrr.
The Robin book of pets

sold by COMPAL at lot 89 in ther Summer 2012 (British section) and described thus Robin (1953) 1 13-16 39 Robin Metal Club badge Swift Club badge 2 Robin Birthday Club Cards Robin Birthday Postcard Odeon Film Club postcard. With Boy's World (1963) Vol 1: No 5 and free gift Olympic Medal Ranger 18 June 1966 Victor Summer Special (1968) and Robin 1 (1986) Robin 1 (1953) [fn-] balance [vg/fn] (17) Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £134. No idea what the Robin book of pets is. 

This image is taken from here

and looks a lot like a simpler version of the Swift birthday books that I covered here

A Robin birthday postcard (front and back)...  

...including nice Swift 'stamp' - Swift had launched on 20th March 1954 and this was sent on 20th July 1954 - so exactly 4 months later. 

In the tradition of Eagle / Girl / Swift there were spin-off jigsaws, here's one that I've found so far...

And here's a money box...

I'm sure there must be more stuff out there - can you help?

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE

I've been pointed in the direction of the 'Dan Dare info' website (here) for some rare Robin merchandise - so here are 5 cards (presumably of set of 6)…

Number 1 - Richard Lion, Peggy, Henry and Pug

Number 2 - Dumpy, Golly and Honeybun

Number 3 - Woppit, Mokey and Tiptop 

Number 4 - Johnny Bull, Woppit, Mokey, Tiptop and Bingo, Bango and Bongo

Number 5 - Johnny Bull, Woppit, Mokey, Tiptop and Bingo, Bango and Bongo

Phil Shrimpton was also kind enough to share some picture of Robin items he's sold on ebay…

Not sure if this is the 6th book they produced or a book for a child's birthday - anyway, it's good to know it exists...now I just need ot find book 4 and 5 and add them in

There was a Robin club (just as there was an Eagle club, a Girl club and a Swift club), in the Eagle club if you were a member for more than a year you got a star to dangle from the hoop on the badge, presumably this was true of Robin as well (even if the symbol may not have been a star)

Not really merchandise but for the die-hard Robin collector out there...

Further images c/o friend of the blog Jeremy Briggs...here's a Robin club badge with a leaf (I think) denoting that the member has re-subscribed to the club...

Jigsaw #3 'At the zoo', now I just need to find images on jigsaw numbers 1, 2 and 4

Eagle & Picture Post gramophone records

I've seen lots of those lists of record / CD covers / bands produced (or inspired) by comic artists or characters and I've seen a lot of the Dan Dare / Eagle merchandise that exists over the years, but one item I've never seen is the gramophone record (!) that was produced to tie-in with the coronation (in 1953).

Here's the blurb (taken from a cassette recording that the Eagle Society produced some years back), itself from the advert in Eagle...

And here's what the centre of the record 'looked' like

Knowing that this existed I was rather surprised to spot these images on ebay the other day of a gramophone record that sounds identical, except that it's published in association with Picture Post (Hulton Press published both Picture Post and Eagle). Both records are produced by Oriole but have different reference numbers (the Picture Post reference is MG20003, whereas the Eagle advert references gramophone record CB1140). Both reference numbers are clearly visible on the records.

So there you have it - a glimpse into some obscure 1950s comics merchandise, plus the only chance you'll get to hear legendary editor Marcus Morris speak.

Geoff Senior exhibition and signing announced

London's Orbital comics have announced that they'll be hosting an exhibition of Geoff Senior's work from 'To the death' - this will be from Monday 1st - Wednesday 17th July 2019.

To round off the exhibition Geoff Senior and Simon Furman will be hosting a signing in store @ 5:30pm on Wednesday 17th July.

To the Death is covered extensively in the current issue (volume 2, #4) of ComicScene magazine.

Lawless convention - a tribute to Carlos Ezquerra - part 3

The final selection of Carlos Ezquerra art from the Lawless convention in Bristol, 18th May 2019...

Al's baby cover (from John Wagner's persona collection)

Graeme Neil Reid cover gallery

To celebrate the forthcoming release of yet another (!) Commando with a cover by Graeme Neil Reid I thought I'd rummage through my collection to see what examples of his art I have, so here we go with my small gallery of his art that I have...

To see more of his art you can follow him on Twitter @GraemeNeilReid and buy stuff from him here

Commando 5153

Commando 5187

Commando 5193

Commando 5225

And here's a blast from the past...it's Ian Wheeler's (@ianwheeler_who) early noughties new eagle fanzine, Eagle Flies Again. I only realised the other day that Graeme had contributed the covers to them, but here they are...

Issue 13

Issue 14

Dave Gibbons & John Higgins signing today

This is this afternoon people, don't forget!

Forbidden Planet (London megastore branch) have announced a signing by Dave Gibbons and John Higgins for the DC modern classics edition of Watchmen 

This has previously been announced as just a Dave Gibbons signing but that was postponed and now has been re-announced but with extra John Higgins.

The Date? Saturday 25th May 2019, 4-5pm, as it says on the website (here)...

DC introduces DC Modern Classics, collecting ground-breaking, genre-defining works in new hardcover editions, presented in a beautifully designed slipcase.

In a world where the mere presence of American super-heroes changed history, the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon is still president, and the Cold War is in effect.

WATCHMEN begins as a murder mystery, but it soon unfolds into a planet-altering conspiracy. As the resolution comes to a head, an unlikely group of reunited heroes - Rorschach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias - must test the limits of their convictions and ask themselves where the true line between good and evil lies.

Dave Gibbons is one of Britain’s finest comic artists, whose most famous work is the multi-award- winning Watchmen. He has also drawn series including Batman, Doctor Who and Give Me Liberty, and has written Batman vs. Predator, Green Lantern and World’s Finest, as well as his own graphic novel The Originals.

John Higgins is probably best known for colouring Watchmen and Batman The Killing Joke. He created, wrote, and drew, the acclaimed Razorjack series. He also wrote and designing an autobiographical art book, Beyond Watchmen & Judge Dredd: The Art of John Higgins, published by Liverpool University Press.

Signal comic #1 - cover by Don Harley

A while, while researching the Wonder comic from Esso (which is a blog post for another day entirely) I stumbled across an article on Lew Stringer's always excellent Blimey blog (here) about a comic called Signal.

Lew only had (has?) one issue - issue 4 - but what really piqued my interest is that the cover art is by Don 'Dan Dare' Harley. There's no information on the comic in any of Denis Gifford's reference books so the comic looked likely to remain a mystery...I don't claim to have solved the mystery but I have recently acquired another copy of Signal comic - this time #1, so let's have a look at it...

The format is just the same as issue 4 (so, 8 pages, photogravure printing, size is slightly larger than A4)…

The kids in this adventure are different from the kids that in issue 4

The adventure strip (artist looks like Pat Williams to me) Castle Glorious and the white knight is there on page 3 

John 'Captain Pugwash' Ryan is another ex-Eagle alumni who gets to contribute a strip to Signal

The Holiday Adventure strip continues on the back page...

On page 7 there is a competition that has a closing date of 31st October 1961 - so that's a better idea of a date than we had previously. Lew has confirmed that he's dated #4 as 1963 because the editorial says "...now that 1963 is here". So issue #1 in 1961, 2 issues in 1962 and (at least) one issue in 1963. The editorial comment in #1 says "...your chums will be able to get their own copies - but only of course when they go for their six-monthly check-up". So maybe it only came out every 6 months? Anyway, we've found out a little more but I'd still love to find issue 2 and 3 - can you help?