Illustrators - Brian Bolland special announced

Book Palace have announced a 144pages Illustrators special dedicated to the art of Brian Bolland...here's what they have to say about it...

In-depth interview with Brian Bolland

Brian Boland's memory montages

Reproductions of some of the most iconic Brian Bolland artwork

Recollections from friends and fans.

And much more … more details to follow!

More like a book than a magazine, illustrators is the art quarterly devoted to the finest illustration art ever published. It guides you through the stories behind the artists and their art, with features written by some of the leading authorities on this important art form.

As well as building into an indispensable reference library, illustrators gives readers an insight into the creative process, from the initial idea to the image potentially seen by millions.

Truly fabulous artwork abounds in every issue, much of the art taken from scans of the original work.

Priced at £25 it's available to pre-order here - now if they could only organise a signing...

UPDATED: Beano calendars

Following on from a previous post (here) about Oor Wullie calendars I realised that there must be other DC Thomson calendars out there so I set off to google Beano calendars - so here's my guide to collecting them...

Don't forget you can review Commando calendars here and Judge Dredd calendars here

New material is highlighted in red

Interestingly the 1992 edition has a reference that says "Number 7" in the top right cover - indicating that this is the 7th edition of the calendar...

...hmmm, and the 1993 calendar says "Number 8"...

...hmmm, and the 1994 calendar says "Number 9"...

...thingk the 1995 one says 'number 10' in the top right corner

no sign of 1996 

Here's the 1997 calendar - you'll see from the back cover picture that this is (helpfully) number as number 12 so there must have been a calendar for 1996 (to be number 11)

The 1998 calendar

The 1999 calendar (left) and the envelope it came in (right)

The 2000 calendar (right) and the envelope it came in (left)

Here's the 2002 calendar

2003 calendar

Then a gap again to 2004...

No 2005 calendar (I think!) so here's the 2006 edition... 

From ebay - but here's evidence of the 2008 calendar

...And then a long gap until 2018

Whizzer and Chips flyer for issue 2

From Lion & Eagle dated 29th October 1969 here's a flyer for Whizzer and Chips issue 2

Signal comic #5

I've covered Signal comic before here and here (and John Freeman has provided an excellent overview here) but I've now been able to access the previously missing issues in my Signal collection, first up was issue 2 (here), then issue 3 (here), issue 4 (here) and today we have issue 5 of this 'Eagle-lite' comic...

Cover art is again by Don Harley...

Norman Willaims again provides some interior art...

John Ryan again illustrates 'Little Ruth, Sweet of Tooth'

What makes this particular issue stand-out (an in fact be EVEN MORE Eagle-like) is the inclusion (below) of a cutaway drawing! Not only that but the art is by Eagle cutaway artis Roy Cross. As far as I'm aware this was Roy's only cutaway work that didn't appear in Eagle.

Powerman #18 - Dave Gibbons & Brian Bolland

I've looked at Powerman before (here) trying to gather together all the images I can find of this rare Nigerian comic by Brian Bolland & Dave Gibbons. Some more images recently became available (thanks ebay!) so I've swiped them for posterity and will present them one issue at a time.

Today we have Powerman issue 18...

Cartoon Musuem - glimpses inside, part 3

A final random selection of images of the inside of the Cartoon Museum's new home...

The museum can be found at 63 Wells Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1A 3AE and their website is here