UPDATED: The wasteful family comics

I've looked at plenty of advertising comics before (see them all here) but these recent images from ace ebay seller https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/philcomics were new to me...

UPDATE...cover images for issue 1+6 now added as well as artist details

The Wasteful family #1

image c/o https://www.comics.org/issue/1066596/cover/4/

The Wasteful family #2

The Wastefu(e)l family #3

image not to hand - can you help?

The Wastefuel family #4

The Wastefuel family #5

image not to hand - can you help?

The Wastefuel family #6

image c/o https://www.comics.org/issue/1066596/cover/6/

8 pages long and 8.5 x 6 inches in size.

Denis Gifford records there being 6 comics in total produced 1980-4 - so clearly a few more examples of this British Gas comic are out there for me to find. 

You can find all other example of advertising comics on the blog here

The artist here has now been confirmed as Jeremy Simmonds (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-simmonds-43a70466/details/experience/)

The Cartoon Museum Conference 2023

Just a reminder that this is today...and there are still tickets available

Tickets can now be booked (here) for the Cartoon Museum conference 2023. As it says here...

Join us at Cartoon Conference 2023 for ideas and inspiration for how you can use your skills to survive and thrive as an artist. Learn from industry experts and specialists.

Speakers include (we will add more details to the line up as we have them):

Posy Simmonds - Renowned for her witty satire, Posy has published numerous books for both adults and children and most recently won the Lakes Comic Art Festival Sergio Aragones Award.

Andy Oliver - Editor in Chief and site owner of the go-to site for comics fans: Broken Frontier. He champions small press, alternative comics and self-published comics and co-organises the UK's Small Press Day.

Society of Authors - 'Negotiating with publishers' - Join Nicola Solomon, Chief Executive of the SoA and discover phrases that are guaranteed to make money, how to get funding and negotiate, following the money and getting out when things go wrong.

Association of Illustrators - 'Publishing Contracts Masterclass' The AOI will guide you through copyright, contracts, rights, advances, royalties and important clauses to watch out for.

Sarah Akinterinwa - The first black British woman to be a New Yorker cartoonist, and creator of Oyin and Kojo. Her work is currently showing at The Cartoon Museum..

Shazleen Khan - A London based Illustrator specialising in Comics and Narrative work and creator of webcomic Buuza!

Jemma Webster Sharp -“Jemma's an exciting artist, with a pointillist style of rendering horrific sexual imagery, often in proximity to uncomprehending girlhood, reminiscent of eary Renee French or Melinda Gebbie”

Brian Bolland signing 'It's about time'

Gosh comics have announced a signing with Brian Bolland on Saturday 22nd April 1-2pm to celebrate the publication of his 'memoir in words and pictures' 

Tiny Toon Adventures comic - 1992/3

This is a Marvel UK series from 1992/3 and is not to be confused with a later (1994) series (with the same name) that I looked at here. 31 issues in total. 

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #1, 28th Feb 1992, 55p

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #2, 11th Mar 1992, 55p

image not to hand - can you help?

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #3, 27th Mar 1992, 55p

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #4, 10th Apr 1992, 55p

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #5, 24th Apr 1992, 55p

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #6, 8th May 1992, 55p

cover by Paul Gamble

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #7, 22nd May 1992, 55p

image not to hand - can you help?

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #8, 5th Jun 1992, 55p

image not to hand - can you help?

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #9, 19th Jun 1992, 55p

Later issues...

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #20 20th Nov 1992, 60p

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #25 29th Jan 1993, 60p

Tiny Toon Adventures, Marvel UK, issue #29 26th Mar 1993, 60p

cover by Paul Gamble

crisp!

crisp! was a 'celebration for contemporary comic art' that ran 8th-22nd July 1997. It was accompanied by this 60 page booklet/catalogue that features examples of comic art by an array of comics talents (some examples shown below) & features an introduction by Paul Gravett (who was then the Director of the Cartoon Art Trust). It was funded by Arts Council England. 

Anyway, well worth checking out

Art by Carl Flint

Art by Mark Stafford

Art by Steve Marchant

Art by Roger Langridge

How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future - Cartoon Museum

Just a reminder that this talk is this evening (and this book is published today)...note that the talk is now sold out.

Thursday 23rd February sees Michael Molcher, in conjunction with The Art Fund (and broadcaster Ian Dunt), talking about his new book at the Cartoon Museum. Tickets are £15 and include a free copy of the book. Tickets can be booked here - and here's what they have to say about the talk...

Did Judge Dredd predict our modern world? Almost three years since protests erupted worldwide over the murder of George Floyd in the US, in the shadow of the ‘Kill The Bill’ movement in the UK, and with Western democracies threatened by authoritarians and anti-democratic riots, new non-fiction book I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future examines how a British comic book from the 1970s warned about the endgame of ‘tough on crime’ politics.

Author Michael Molcher will be interviewed by political commentator and author Ian Dunt about how Judge Dredd represents the intersection of comics, politics and history, what an extreme lawman from the future can teach us about policing today, and how comics provided a unique warning about how ‘law and order’ politics would remake our world: from ‘zero tolerance’ policing to the rise of the surveillance state, from the hollowing out of democracy to the power over life and death itself.

Published in paperback by Rebellion, I Am The Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future is out on 23 February.

Tank Girl - manga (1995/6)

I only recently became aware of this short-lived (only 8 issues) Tank Girl comic from 1995/6. This is a large comic (so British sized rather than US comic sized) with mainly Tank Girl reprints - what a surprise. I've acquired issue 1 so far and I'll be on the look out for the other issues.

Tank Girl, issue 1, July 1995

Tank Girl, issue 2, August 1995

Tank Girl, issue 3, September 1995

Tank Girl, issue 4, October 1995

Tank Girl, issue 5, November 1995

cover not to hand - can you help?

Tank Girl, issue 6, December 1995

Tank Girl, issue 7, January 1996

Tank Girl, issue 8, February 1996

cover by Brian Bolland

Short Fuse - Cliff Robinson & Glenn Fabry

Some day I'll look in more detail at Short Fuse comic fanzine - I just need to get hold of some issues of it first! The problem being that they always seem to go for high prices whenever I (rarely) see them listed on eBay. Hey-ho. 

Instead, here's are some Short Fuse images from something I do actually own, yes it's ArkenSword #19. As it says on page 3 "...the last issue of Short Fuse is not be published, so some of that material has been transferred to these pages"). So here are the 2 'bomb' images plus an Alan Davis/Paul Neary piece...

Cliff Robinson draws Judge Dredd and a short fuse

The cover to Arken Sword issue #19

Here's Glenn Fabry's Sláine and a short fuse...plus John Bolton's Wolverine

and here's that Alan Davis / Paul Neary piece I mentioned earlier...

Comics festival 2000 - part 2

I've previously looked at the great spin-off 'decks of cards' that Kev Sutherland put together for the comics festivals he ran in the early '00s. So far I've looked at... 

The (2001) hearts suit of cards is here
The (2001) diamonds suit of cards is here
The (2001) clubs suit of cards is here
The (2001) spades suit of cards is here

He then repeated the exercise in 2003... 
Part 1 of the 2003 deck of cards is here
Part 2 of the 2003 deck of cards is here
Part 3 of the 2003 deck of cards is here

And the 2003 London (winter) comics festival here
And then some extra items here
And then the cards from the 2003 London (winter) comics festival here
And then my first look at the 2004 charity deck of trump cards here and part two is here

Comics festival 2004 calendar is here

And now the A2 leaflet /programme for the Comics 2000 festival has been found and the 'deck of cards' theme is present, but just in terms of illustrations provided for the programme. So without further ado let's see who's in here...Part 1 was here and now on with part 2...

Ok, so here we have art (in descending order) by Sean Phillips, Charlie Adlard, Neil Googe (drawing Bazooka Jules), Roger Langridge (centred, Doctors Who) Marc Laming draws 2 people in coats, Methaphrog (yellow person - this is actually Martin Nitram from their first comic series Strange weather lately), Hunt Emerson draws his characters and Terry Wiley draws a King Kong themed image. 

and again from top to bottom...

Shaun Bryan draws Octobriana, Staz Johnson draws Bat-women, Simon Perrins draws a man with a colourful coat, John Higgins draws Razorjack (centre, black & white image), Steve Yeowell draws daffodils, George draws Judge Dredd, Tim Perkins draws a warrior nun, Al Davison draws a man with a pendant and Andrew Livesey draws a superhero all in blue.

Thanks to Simon Miller for allowing me to share this with you all...

UPDATED: British comic conventions, 1970-1976

I've looked at a whole lot of comic conventions previously...

Bristol comic expo (2004-2014) is here

London comic festival 2003 is here
Kev Sutherland festival original art is here
A 'Lawless 2019' miscellany is here
Boys and Girls exhibitions of the 1950s and '60s is here
Glasgow comic art convention is here
Edinburgh art convention is here
Hi-Ex convention is here

UKCAC - part 1 - is here
UKCAC - part 2 - is here

UKCAC - part 3 - is here

BICS convention is here

Glasgow comic con is here 

Kapow! con is here

So now we're on the final 'lap' of this series and so it's back to the dim and distant past with a look at some of the very earliest comic conventions...

Now updated with some images of the 1975 convention programme

1970 comic convention, Sheffield, cover art by Simpson

Interior art by Trevor Goring, Mike Higgs, Fletcher. Nearly A5 sized, 8 pages.

1971 comic convention, London, cover art by Dave Gibbons

Interior art by Mike Higgs, Paul Neary, Dave Gibbons, Jim Baikie. 16 pages, slightly larger than A5 size.

1972 comic convention, London, cover art is uncredited

Interior art by Kev O'Neill, Mike Higgs, Dave Gibbons. A5 sized, 32 pages.

1973 comic convention, London

no souvenir programme produced

1974 comic convention, London

no souvenir programme produced

1975 comic convention, London

1976 comic convention, London, cover by Trevor Goring

Interior art by Martin Asbury, Brian Bolland, John Bolton, John Burns, Ron Embleton, Hunt Emerson, Trev Goring, Dave Gibbons, Denis Gifford, Frank Hampson, Mike Higgs, Brian Lewis, Steve Mitchell, Paul Milliner, Paul Neary, Kevin O'Neill, John Romita Sr, Ken Simpson, Barry (Windsor-)Smith. A5 sized, 44 pages.

Dave Gibbons signs at Chaos City

Don't forget that this is happening today - have fun if you're going!

Good news for all Dave Gibbons fans (especially those based in St Albans), he'll be signing copies of his autobiography, "Confabulaton" a Chaos City comics next month

The signing is on Saturday 18th February 1-3pm

Dave Gibbons - wallpaper designer

If you read this blog you're quite possibly a fan of Dave Gibbons and are therefore (like me) excited about his very recently published autobiography. The book is now out and as a teaser I'm going to give you this image - swiped from a Rufus Dayglo tweet on September 9th - of a roll of wallpaper that Dave designed!

Dave promises all is revealed in the book - so go order it now!

UPDATED: Keith Burns covers for Commando

I first came across Keith Burns art when he illustrated the Titan comics Johnny Red series, since then he's just started illustrating Commando covers and the covers are fantastic. Here are the covers he's done so far...

Commando 5209 - American avenger

Commando 5215 - a matter of honour

Commando 5229 - shadow in the storm!

Commando 5241 - steel inferno

Commando 5251 - Radar raiders

Commando 5259 - Braddock

Commando 5267 - Braddock demons

Commando 5289 - the Wombat and the Tiger

Commando 5297 - fog of war

Commando 5299 - Sladen's promise

Commando 5307 - Stealing Stukas

Commando 5315 - Ironhide

Commando 5329 - Blitzkrieg west

Commando 5335 - Durand's Dunkirk

Commando 5337 - Dodger's Dunkirk

This issue is interconnected with issue 5337 Durand's Dunkirk but told from the perspective of the British fighting to stop their retreat.

Commando 5353 - Outgunned!

Commando 5355 - Bullseye Bruno

Commando 5377 - Third time lucky

Commando 5385 - The flying emu

Commando 5395 - HMAS Expendable

Commando 5411 - Ready for Anything!

Commando 5417 - The girls on the guns

Commando 5448 - Die-or walk!

Check out the third of our nine 60th Anniversary specials Issue 5448 Die — or Walk! Former editor Calum Laird's sequel to Commando Issue 1 Walk — or Die! has the table turned with the Brit carrying the Jerry!

Commando 5463 - Target Tomcat

Commando 5481 - Vengeance

Commando 5497 - Pearl Harbor

Commando 5511 - Escape from Java

Commando 5525 - Sink the Shokaku!

published March 15th 2022

Commando 5547 - Stay behind squad

published June 9th 2022

Commando 5559 - Wild weasel!

to be published July 21st 2022

Commando 5607 - Combat air patrol

Commando 5619 - Achtung, destroyer!

this should be available in the shops from today