Hermann (2)

Published in March 1989 by Titan books (with design by Rian Hughes) this volume is an exact reprint of the volume we saw here yesterday.

Hermann (1)

The rape of a peasant girl begins a cycle of lust and death which draws in Sir Aymar, dispossessed heir to the lands of Bois-Maury who, with his squire Olivier, journeys across a medieval countryside on an endless quest for return to his family estates 'whose towers are the tallest and most beautiful in the whole land'.


First published in 1985 (paper back) - 46 pages.


Easy to acquire.


Front cover

Back cover

Catalan Communications (3)

My final Catalan Communications volume is 'Abominations' by Hermann, printed in February 1990 this contains 4 stories...
Massacre
Flight
The cage
Vengeance
...of things that go bump in the night

Hermann is the pen name of Belgian comic artist Hermann Huppen, more details here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Huppen


His official website is here...
http://www.hermannhuppen.be/


This wasn't the first time that Hermann's work had been printed in English, as we'll see tomorrow.

Catalan Communications (2)

Following on from yesterday's Catalan Communications post I thought I'd fish out my other books by Catalan...

First up is Burton & Cyb[org] from 1991. 46 pages, 6 stories from illustrator Jose Ortiz and author Antonio Segura;

Take a Fall (8 pages)

Make a Better God... (6 pages)

Jellyfish From Outer Space (8 pages)

The Invasion (8 pages)

Excalibur (8 pages)

Wonder Fish (8 pages)

6 stories of sci-fi comedy adventure


3 volumes were published but only this volume was translated into English.

Here's an interior page showing his distinctive figurework

The always useful http://www.eurocomics.info/ lists the following stories as being printed in Heavy Metal magazine...

1988

Summer: The First Round -- (8 pp.)


1989
March: The Next God Will Be A Better One -- (6 pp.)
July: The Jellyfish From Space -- (8 pp.)

1990
May: En Busca De La Hija Perdida -- (8 pp.)

1991
July: Brother Can You Spare A Dime? -- (8 pp.)
November: The Mine -- (8 pp.)

1994
March: Used Car Salesman" -- (8 pp.)

1995
Special Havoc: Tourist Business -- ( 8 p.)
September: Lolita, A Very Special Girl -- Lolita, una Chica Especial -- ( 8 p.)

1996
January: The Conquest Of The West -- (8 pp.)
May: Space Social Security -- (6 pp.)
July: Matrimonial Agency -- (8 pp.)
November: The Meltal Musical Virus -- (8 pp.)

1997
March: Terrorism In Green -- (6 pp.)

1999
May: Let Yourself Fall / The First Hit -- (8 pp.) 

Charlie Adlard art - (4)

So here it is then, Blue Moon, a fascinating title featuring art by some of Britain's top creators, including Charlie Adlard. I don't have the full run (I'm missing issue 1, 11 and 12) but you've seen all the Adlard art there is to see in the issues I own.


These are the 2 covers that Charlie Adlard drew.


We'll see more stuff from Blue Moon I'm sure.

Charlie Adlard - art (3)

And from issue 9

Any ideas yet? Leave a comment here or on facebook

Charlie Adlard - art (2)

So yesterday we had art from issue 7 of this title, today the art is from issue 8

any ideas yet? Leave a comment here on t'facebook

Charlie Adlard - art (1)

Following on from this evening's announcement that Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard will succeed Davie Gibbons in the role of UK comics laureate, I thought I'd pull out the only Charlie Adlard art I have in my collection...


For the full story pop over to Down the Tubes
http://downthetubes.net/?p=34406
but in the meantime here's that Adlard art...


Leave a comment below if you know where it comes from, here's a clue (sort of) - it's from a title that doesn't feature on his Wikipedia entry

More to come!

Blake & Mortimer (3)

And here's volume 6 (volume 1 in the Cinebook series) from January 1988

The only other publisher to tackle English language publication of B&M books were Catalan communications (under their comcat comics imprint) - they published 2 titles, I only have the first and it's shown below (volume 19 in the Cinebook series).

They also published a second volume, The Atlantis Mystery, which is volume 12 in the Cinebook series.

For more images you can't beat a trip to http://www.eurocomics.info/ which has masses of scans of English language reprints of European graphic novels. It's a fantastic site.

Blake & Mortimer (2)

Here's volume 5 (volume 3 in the Cinebook series) from August 1987, again the book is slightly larger than the Cinebook volume.

here's a page which could have come straight out of a Tintin volume - sparse dialogue, action sequence, pratfall

and yet the very next page is laden with dialogue and would be very out of place in a Tintin album

Blake & Mortimer - the first publications

Since we've looked at Alix I thought it might be interesting to show my (partial) collection of Blake & Mortimer reprints.

In recent years Cinebook (http://www.cinebook.co.uk/index.php) have been working their way through numerous continental comic strip adaptations. The series I've enjoyed most if that of Blake & Mortimer by (initially) Edgar P. Jacobs. You can find plenty more about the series here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_and_Mortimer

The main protagonists of the adventures are Philip Mortimer, a leading British scientist, and his friend Captain Francis Blake of MI5. The main antagonist is their sworn enemy, Colonel Olrik, who has appeared in almost every book. Their confrontations take them into the realms of detective investigation and science-fiction, dealing with such themes as time travel, Atlantis and espionage.

Jacobs worked for Hergé (more details here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_P._Jacobs) and his style is therefore very recognisable who has been brought up on the Tintin albums.

Cinebook have now published 23 B&M titles but they weren't the first to publish B&M books - in the late 1980s 6 volumes were published by "Blake and Mortimer editions - Brussels".

Here's the cover to volume 4 (volume 2 in the Cinebook series) from June 1987. The book is slightly bigger than the Cinebook volume but is otherwise identical.

Alix - the sacred helmet

Also published in 1971 is this volume, a translation of the 4th volume, La tiare d'Oribal.

As can be seen from the back cover to this volume there were due to be 2 other volumes published but that never happened. And so the series languishes in obscurity. I'd never even seen copies of the 2 volumes before I came across them in a 2nd hand bookshop (£1.50 each thanks very much!) and had no idea about them, only resources like http://www.eurocomics.info/ helped me find out what they were.



Bookfinder.com currently does not have any copies listed for sale. Happy hunting people!

Alix - the black claw

Published in 1971 this is the very rare first volume of Alix stories translated into English. It's an adaptation of the 5th book published - La griffe noire


As we saw from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Alix#Alix_in_English yesterday Alix stories revolve around a young Gallo-Roman man named Alix in the late Roman Republic. Although the series is renowned for its historical accuracy and stunning set detail, the hero has been known to wander into anachronistic situations up to two centuries out of his era. The stories unfold throughout the reaches of the Roman world, including the city of Rome, Gaul, the German frontier, Mesopotamia, Africa and Asia Minor. One voyage goes as far as China

Wikipedia also suggests that the reason for the failure of the series was "...A reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement [2 July 1971, p.774] found Alix singularly lacking in humour compared to Asterix, effectively killing prospects for continued publication in a market not yet accustomed to the wider Franco-Belgian tradition".


As Alix is really very different from Asterix this seems like the laziest sort of comparison you can make. Tintin is a better comparison but the story still pales in comparison, at times the story can move along at pace but too often it is slowed down by great blocks of exposition - see the page below for instance - this is not the clear and concise storytelling of a Hergé book. The font is also smaller than in a Tintin book, so the amount of  text to read takes longer, thus slowing down the story even further.

Only one copy is currently available on Bookfinder.com and is priced at $220

Theme 'week' will be Alix

So who's Alix then?
Well if you are familiar with European comics then he probably needs no introduction as he has been having adventures in the Roman empire for the last 50 years. I'm a huge fan of the ligne claire [clear line] style of European comics illustration, this style was popularised by Hergé in his Tintin stories and has been extremely influential.


There are more detail on Alix and his adventures here:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Alix#Alix_in_English


Tintin's adventures first appeared in the (original) Eagle magazine in 1951 with an adaptation of King Ottokar's sceptre. Asterix, on the other hand, had to wait until 1963 to be published in the UK (in Valiant). Both series went on to become well-established and extremely popular and still fill bookshelves up and down the country today.


So, if these two series worked then why not launch another series in the UK? One that mixes the adventure of Tintin with the setting of Asterix, what could go wrong?


We shall see.

Ravette (6) - Shinobi

Shinobi - the fear pavilion

This reprints the computer game tie-in that had originally appeared in Sonic the comic issues 1-6.
Art is by Jon Haward and this is by far away my favourite strip he worked on, I didn't like his Dan Dare work and his work in Stingray was just single page illustrations (of fish) rather than strip work.

This, on the other hand, is excellent - the panel layout, the details in the panels themselves, the use of colour, just fantastic to look at. A top-notch story of how to break into a pavilion and survive.

A very detailed plot synopsis from the Sonic the comic wiki [http://stc.wikia.com/wiki/The_Fear_Pavilion] says...

Ninja Joe Musashi is searching for his girlfriend, Naoko, who was kidnapped by the evil Neo Zeed organisation. Sneaking on to their premises, he non-fatally disposes of a guard dog and two human guards. Inside the main pagoda, he sneaks through the corridors and jumps down into a room where several soldiers are conversing.
One of them announces that Naoko is not here, before launching into an attack. Musashi easily blocks all their attacks and renders them all unable to fight. He grabs one of them by a chain around their neck and questions him on the whereabouts of his girlfriend. The choking soldier confesses that Naoko was never here. Joe releases him and his enemy reveals that this was all a trap to lure him here. Each floor of the pavilion contains a martial-arts expert and Joe must fight each one of them to escape. Down a darkened staircase, Musashi meets his first opponent.

On this floor, he meets a spirtual man meditating in a ring of candles. After giving Musashi 'warning' that the ninja cannot win, the fight begins. Musashi initially has trouble seeing him, but he grabs at the old man's robes, twisting him around, disorientating him. Joe continues by wrapping the man in his own robe, tying up so he eventually falls to the ground, helpless. On the next floor, Musashi faces someone dressed as the 'Monkey King', a popular opera character. Contemplating how a true Neo Zeed warrior would never betray his masters, the assassin beats Musashi severely. As he comes in for the final blow, Joe dodges and knocks the King to the floor. Walking away, the King gets back up and pounces at Musashi's back. However, Joe is ready and strikes him with his sword, winding the King badly.

In the next room, Musashi faces a man on stilts. The man is arrogant and Musashi feels he can get information from him. Musashi gets soundly beaten after an unexpected tactic from his tall opponent. He ends up with broken ribs, but also manages to wrestle information from him - that Naoko is on the next floor. With this in mind, he gets up and slashes the stilts from the enemy. Beaten, he points to the next room which is where Musashi next enters, unaware what he'll face next.
Finally, Musashi finds Naoko. He is confused, however, that nobody is here protecting her from being rescued. He searches the room but realises too late that Naoko's under-kimono was on display. The imposter leaps at Musashi and another fight begins. Able to fool Musashi's 'haragei', the ninja he was fighting must be very skillful indeed. Joe finds it hard to fight her, looking exactly the only woman he has ever loved. She eventually reveals herself as Water, one of the Four Elements, the law enforcers of Neo Zeed. He suddenly realises that it was all a trap, a lure to destroy him. Throwing a gas pellet, Musashi crashes out the window in a cloud of smoke, ready to fight another day

Going off-topic slightly here but here's a piece of fan art that Jon had published in the new Eagle (30/04/83)

Ravette (5) - Streets of rage

After the sedate adventures of a spinning blue hedgehog we now turn our attention to a slightly different proposition

with a cover adapted from issue 7 of Sonic the Comic [STC], yes, it's Streets of rage - bad city fighters.

Streets of Rage initially ran from issue 7-12 of STC and it's those 6 issues that are reprinted here. To be honest I'm not sure what this story is doing in the pages of Sonic.
According to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_of_Rage
The story (in which Axel, Blaze, and Max quit the highly corrupt police force to do more good as vigilantes, taking down Max's ex-partner, the crime lord and martial artist Hawk) is based on the video game Streets of Rage 2.


Really this is so much more violent than anything that ever featured that blue hedgehog, well worth picking up. On the other hand, this is quite hard to find, laughably, Bookfinder.com have 4 copies listed all at just under $1000 (each, obviously). Happy hunting!




Scripted by Mark Millar MBE, illustrated by Peter Richardson, lettering by Tom Frame

London comics calendar - updated 6th October 2016

London comics calendar - updated 20 Sep 2016

Thought it might be useful to try and pull together a listing of upcoming comics events, please let me know if I've missed any

note that new items are highlighted in red

London comics calendar

Exhibitions

The story of British comics so far cor, by gum, zarjaz, The Lightbox, Woking, until 31/12/16
http://www.thelightbox.org.uk/the-story-of-british-comics-so-far-cor-by-gum-zarjaz-2016

Pictures from Punch, Cartoon Museum, 2/11/16 – 22/01/17

http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/exhibitions/future-exhibitions

Future shock, Cartoon Museum, from 25/01/17

http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/

40 years of thrillpower – 1 day 2000ad festival, 11/02/17

http://2000adonline.com/40years

 

Tove Jansson @ Dulwich picture gallery, Oct 2017

https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/tove-jansson-exhibition-goes-europe/

 

Comic marts

Comiket @ The Lightbox, Woking, 08/10/16
http://comiket.comica.london/exhibitors/
 

Royal National hotel

November 20th 2016

March 5th 2017

April 2nd 2017

July 2nd 2017

September 3rd 2017

October 1st 2017

November 5th 2017

December 3rd 2017

http://londoncomicmart.co.uk/
 

Launches / signings

Benjamin Marra & Jonathan Chandler, 11/10/16

http://www.goshlondon.com/2016/10/benjamin-marra-jon-chandler-signing/

 

Joe Kelly @ Orbital comics, 17/10/16

http://www.orbitalcomics.com/joe-kelly-spider-mandeadpool-signing-monday-october-17/

Dave ‘Good dog, bad dog’ Shelton appears as part of this event @ Foyles, 19/10/16
http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=3007

Dave McKean @ Gosh, 21/10/16

http://www.goshlondon.com/2016/10/black-dog-launch-party-with-dave-mckean/

 

Ram V @ Orbital comics, 09/11/16

http://www.orbitalcomics.com/ram-v-signing-november-9/

 

 

Talks

Peter Hampson talks about his father Frank Hampson, 08/10/16
http://www.thelightbox.org.uk/Event/fundraising-talk-by-gum-dan-dare-in-conversation-with-peter-hampson

Isabel Greenberg & Tom Gauld, 13/10/16

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/the-future-of-the-graphic-nove-98695

Art ‘Maus’ Spiegelman at the Barbican, 11/11/16

https://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=19901

Alan Moore talks to Stewart Lee 07/11/16

https://membership.theguardian.com/event/an-evening-with-alan-moore-and-stewart-lee-27276217902


Where to buy original art
http://www.chrisbeetles.com/
https://www.bookpalace.com/cgi-bin/mf000001.pl?ACTION=SHOWFORM


Good places to buy (second-hand) British comics
http://30thcenturycomics.co.uk/
https://www.bookpalace.com/cgi-bin/mf000001.pl?ACTION=SHOWFORM
http://www.mgeshops.com/book-comic-exchange/
http://www.rayguncomics.co.uk/ [limited 2nd hand section but even so]
http://www.orbitalcomics.com/ [limited 2nd hand section but even so - also stocks small press titles]

Ravette (4) - Sonic the hedgehog

Sonic volume 2, subtitled "Spin Attack"

is based on the cover for issue 1

4 stories in this volume are as follows:

1). Attack on the death egg (reprinted from issue 6)

2). The origin of Sonic (reprinted from issue 8)

3). Back to reality (reprinted from issue 9)

4). Megatox (reprinted from issue 10)

Creators involved in this issue include:  Mark Millar, Woodrow Phoenix, Ed Hillyer, Tom Frame and  Jose Casanovas 



Ravette (3) - Sonic the Hedgehog

Ravette published 2 Sonic the Hedgehog reprint volumes, this is the first one (from 1994)

You get 28 pages of "Sonic the hedgehog beats the badniks" reprinted from Sonic comics published by Fleetway.


The cover is a slight adaptation of the cover used for issue 3 of the comic (see below).

Stories are as follows:
1. Enter: Sonic [reprinted from issue 1]
2. Robofox [from issue 2]
3. Mayhem in the marble zone [from issue 3]
4. Day of the badniks [from issue 4]




Creators involved include Mark Millar, Tom Frame, Woodrow Phoenix, Ed Hillyer, Casanovas and Nigel Kitching.


So that's the Mark Millar MBE then. It wasn't his only work for Sonic the comic as we shall soon see.

Ravette (2) - Roy of the Rovers

From 1993 we have "Eastern promise" a 45 page Roy of the Rovers adventure. This story isn't set in Melchester but in Japan (so it's not one of those 'the Melchester plane has crash-landed in a small South American country and the team have to win 10 games of football before they can make it back to the England just before the season starts').


In fact here Roy takes the Melchester Rovers youth squad to Japan to represent England in a world youth cup.


The team on the front cover here don't make an appearance in the story inside!

Art is by Barrie Mitchell

Peter Hampson talks Frank Hampson - Saturday 8th October 6-7pm

Peter Hampson talks Frank Hampson - Saturday 8th October 6-7pm

Just a quick reminder about this talk....


A quick shout-out for a talk in October at The Lightbox gallery in Woking who are hosting a fundraising chat between Frank Hampson's son, Peter Hampson, and Paul Gravett


Link to buy tickets is here:
http://www.thelightbox.org.uk/Event/fundraising-talk-by-gum-dan-dare-in-conversation-with-peter-hampson


I've just bought a ticket and it was pretty easy.


The talk is part of their current exhibition about the story of British comics so far (co-curated by Paul Gravett)
http://www.thelightbox.org.uk/the-story-of-british-comics-so-far-cor-by-gum-zarjaz-2016


The talk will be on the say day as the Comica Comikett
http://comiket.comica.london/
I've always been intrigued by this so will be hoping to go to this as well as the talk.


The comikett finishes at 5pm and the talk starts at 6pm, so plenty of time to pop into the exhibition as well!


There's a review of the exhibition here
http://downthetubes.net/?p=33175


And here's Peter's website devoted to his father's artwork
http://www.frankhampsonartwork.co.uk/

Ravette (1) - Roy of the Rovers

This is the first of two Roy of the Rovers albums that Ravette published. This volume contains 6 different stories, with a selection of artists used in its' 45 pages - including Barrie Mitchell & David Sque


Apart from the sight of 6 Melchester Rovers players in the showers (!) it's business as usual in the footballing world here.

More details of David's work can be found here
http://www.davidsque.co.uk/comic-strips/
and he's recently been illustrating the history of Preston North End, more details here
http://www.invinciblebooks.co.uk/

theme week will be...Ravette Books

Ravette Books publishing produced a lot of books in the early '90s, a lot of newspaper strip reprints (Garfield, Hagar) but they also published some pretty decent reprints of comic material. Some of these will be familiar to you I'm sure, as they must have been produced in huge quantities, but some of them are much less well-known. We'll see a selection of both this week.






Ravette are still publishing Garfield books and a few other titles...




http://ravettepublishing.tel/






Come back at noon for the first book!

Facebook group

Just a quick heads up that there's now a facebook group called 'Boys adventure comic blog' where there's the opportunity to meet other fans of the blog and to see some of the stuff that I don't get time to post here. It's a public group, so why not come and join, it'd be great to have you.

Here's Steve MacManus at Orbital comics at the start of September

Comic heroes issue 29

Just published, by Total Film it seems, is Comic Heroes issue 29. At £7.99, albeit quarterly, this is a magazine which often has to work hard to justify its place in my shopping basket, but this time around it has much to recommend it.

So there is:

• lead article on Rebellion's acquisition of the Fleetway archive
• a page on Hookjaw
• Warhammer 40k from Titan (2 pages)
• Leah Moore and John Reppion (2 pages)
• Simon Furman and Geoff Senior (2 pages) on To the death
• 8 pages on Brendan McCarthy
• 6 pages on Ben Haggarty & Adam Brockbank talking about Mezolith book 2 (you remember book one from the DFC comic right?)
• 8 pages on Jock
• and Flintlock issue 1 gets highlighted as one of the best indie comics around right now

And plenty more besides.



As ever, the pictures and big and the words well-spread out to help fill this out to a hefty 132 glossy pages. 

Roleplaying comics (12) - Thrud issue 5

From January 2007 comes the 5th and final issue of Thrud.


Subtitled 'Bungle in the jungle' this issues sees our hero travel deep into the jungle to battle a sun god (Hotlwotlbotl, geddit, geddit?), lizard men, a man who is part Jaguar plus all the usual assorted jungle creatures.


Front and rear covers are shown below.

Roleplaying comics (15) - Derek the troll

Sticking with the theme of reprints from White Dwarf, now is probably a good opportunity to give an honourable mentioned to the just-published 'Derek the troll' comic by Lew Stringer.


There are more details here
http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/derek-troll-launches-this-saturday.html


but basically Derek first appeared in Warlock magazine and then White Dwarf.


I've just got my copy of 'Derek' and can attest to the high production values of this new reprint from Lew. More please!

 Derek the troll comic by Lew Stringer

Derek the Troll postcard

Roleplaying comics (14) - Thrud bits and bobs 2

Two final postcards from Carl Critchlow advertising his self-published Thrud comics.

Roleplaying comics (13) - Thrud bits and bobs

ok, so to (very nearly) finish up with Thrud we'll have a quick look at some Thrud 'extras' that are out there.


The first is the volume that Titan books published in September 2013 (see below)

This reprints all 5 of Carl's comics plus you also get:

• Thrud shorts - reprints from 'Valkyrie Quarterly' role playing game magazine
• some White Dwarf reprints
• a coloured Bloodbowl strip from The Citadel Journal
• 2 pages of Thrud sketches from Carl's sketchbook

Here are 3 promotional postcards that Carl issued

Last Thrud post is tomorrow, sob!