DWM 480 preview

As posted on Facebook today, here's the cover to Doctor Who Magazine No.480, which will be in shops this Thursday (Nov.13th). It features the final part of The Eye of Torment comic strip by Scott Gray, Martin Geraghty, and David Roach, and another Daft Dimension mini-strip by me. Here's a glimpse of part of one panel, enlarged. I can't show any more or it might spoil the joke.

There's also a wealth of news, reviews and exclusive feature pages too of course, including an interview with Michelle Gomez, who played Missy so brilliantly in the new series. 

Doctor Who Magazine No.480. 84 pages for £4.99. On sale 13th November. Available from newsagents, supermarkets, comic shops etc.  

Miller Western Comic Books: Exclusive Preview (UPDATED)

It's always fascinating for comic enthusiasts to discover more about the rich history of comics, and this new book from Midlands-based Ugly Duckling Press sets out to provide solid information about another little pocket of British comics history. Miller Western Comic Books is a full colour 272 page softback covering the cowboy comics published by L.Miller in the 1950s. Westerns were hugely popular at the time, but American comics were not being distributed into the UK. Len Miller had the rights to publish British editions of many cowboy comics, and later initiated the creation of some home grown Western strips. 

The book has been written by John Fairclough and designed by Mike Higgs. The print run is very limited and the price is £20 including postage and packing. You can order your copy by paying £20 via PayPal to blasebooks@aol.com or by cheque made payable to Blasé, and posted to:
Blasé Books,
Hazelwood,
Birchfield Road,
Redditch,
B97 6PU.

Overseas customers please contact Blasé for international postage rates. 

Thanks to Blasé Books I've been sent an exclusive preview of a few pages to showcase on this blog. Enjoy, and Go West, Young Fan! 

UPDATE 9th November 2014: Having now seen a copy of the book I can see it's certainly a worthy volume for any comic enthusiast's bookshelf. Bearing in mind this only covers the cowboy comics published by L.Miller, there were an incredible number of different titles on the newsagent's shelves back in the Fifties. 

John Fairclough takes us on a journey through the comics, giving background information on the movie stars various titles were based on, plus essential info on the comics of course, and any differences between the original American comics and the reprints. (It seems Len Miller could be a bit conservative at times, and he censored some of the pre-code strips before reprinting them.) 

The book has a clear layout by Mike Higgs and hundreds of comic covers are shown. In fact it's closer to over 1,000 covers I would guess, as there are an average of four or five covers to most pages.

This is a superb window into the past and a book well worth buying. 

The Gerry Anderson Comic Collection

Last year, Egmont UK published Thunderbirds: The Comic Collection (reviewed here) and now there's a companion volume in their Classic Comics series, The Gerry Anderson Comic Collection which expands to cover other 1960s strips such as Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Lady Penelope, Joe 90 and more.

Hardback, 288 pages on top quality paper, it's a hefty book. It has a selection of strips for each series, and begins with three Fireball XL5 serials, including Mike Noble's first work on the strip from the early issues of TV21. The art has been shot from the comics, so the quality depends on how good the reproduction was back then. Most times it's excellent (TV21 was printed Photogravure, the best method available) bar from some slightly off-register pages that were evident in the original comics. However, for some reason one story, (the memorable serial about giant animals and ants invading New York) seems to be over-saturated and too harsh. It's a problem that also befalls the five page Angels story reprinted from Lady Penelope. I'm guessing that in trying to bleach out any browning of the old pages, it also knocked out some finer aspects of the painted art. I don't mean to be too critical, as reproducing artwork for print can be a fiddly task, and more complex than simply scanning something for a blog. I should stress that the majority of the book has very good reproduction and is close to the original printings.

There's a good selection of Frank Bellamy's Thunderbirds strips here too, including the very last ones he did for the combined TV21 and Joe 90 in 1969. Some nice Ron Embleton Stingray pages too, and the first Stingray serial that Ron's brother Gerry Embleton drew.

Lady Penelope is well represented with two serials from 1965 illustrated by Eric Eden. There's also a complete Marina story drawn by Rab Hamilton, from the first 23 issues of Lady Penelope's own comic.

A few Captain Scarlet stories are here too, from 1968 when the strip featured on the cover of TV21, although he book has chosen to omit the TV21 logo. There does seem to be a mistake in crediting both Ron Embleton and Mike Noble on one story which looks entirely like Embleton's work to me. 

The great Mike Noble is well represented with not only his Fireball XL5 strips but also two of his Zero X serials. There's also a short article on the artist's career, as well a spotlight on Frank Bellamy and background information on the original comics.

The book ends with a couple of Joe 90 strips. Unfortunately they're scanned from the colourised 1990s reprints rather than from the original 1969 comic, but that's a minor flaw and it's only a few pages.

Overall, The Gerry Anderson Comic Collection is a worthy addition to the bookshelves of anyone interested in the best of British comics. It's available from November 6th 2014, with a R.R.P. of £25. ISBN 978-1-4052-7266-7

There's also a companion volume released at the same time: Inside the Worlds of Gerry Anderson by Graham Bleathman, which I've reviewed here:
http://comiconline24h.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/review-inside-worlds-of-gerry-anderson.html

Review: Inside the Worlds of Gerry Anderson

I've known the artist Graham Bleathman since the late 1970s, when we were both doing our individual fanzines. Mine was After Image, and his was The Magazine of Tomorrow. Over the years we've focused on our particular careers, mine in humour comics, and Graham excelling at the art of the cutaway for various publications as well as illustrating numerous covers for The People's Friend. 

Back in the 1990s, Graham provided many double page cutaway paintings for Fleetway's Thunderbirds the Comic, and now Egmont have gathered them into a spectacular hardback collection, Inside the Worlds of Gerry Anderson.

Fortunately Graham still had a lot of the artwork, so the book could be shot from his original boards and the reproduction is excellent. The 128 pages cover the vehicles and locations seen from Fireball XL5 to Joe 90, including superb cutaways of all the Thunderbirds craft, Tracy Island, Cloudbase, Marineville Control Tower, and many more.

The cutaways proved so popular that they went beyond what we saw on TV, and included places and vehicles only seen in the TV21 comic strips, such as Katannia, Capital of Bereznik, the Eastern Block country used as the villains in the strips. We also get to see the inside of a Bereznik Battle Tank! 

Graham based his cutaways on what we know from the TV shows, but of course the level of detail meant that he also had to go further than that, creating mechanics and interiors never seen in the shows or comics. It's all good fun, and the fantastic artwork is worth poring over for hours. 

Inside the Worlds of Gerry Anderson is published by Egmont on November 6th 2014 as part of their Classic Comics range. R.R.P. £17.99. ISBN 978-1-4052-7265-0

A related book, The Gerry Anderson Comic Collection, is also available, which I've reviewed here:
http://comiconline24h.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-gerry-anderson-comic-collection.html

Adventure comics, Viz style!

If you were a fan of comics such as Victor and Hotspur, or even if you hated them, you'll be sure to get a kick out of The Big Viz Book of Adventure! The 224 page softback collects a stack of the strips from Viz that spoofed that style of boys adventure stories. 

I haven't seen the book myself yet but it'll be sure to feature a good selection of strips drawn by the brilliant Simon Ecob. (Check out his website here.) 

I'll post a review on this blog when I have a copy, but don't wait for that. If you're familiar with those strips you know it's good stuff, so buy a copy today! Available for £10.99 R.R.P. or cheaper from online sellers:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Big-Viz-Book-Adventure/dp/1781063710  

Tharg's horror comic hits the shops

I'm a bit too busy to research old comics at the moment, so my apologies for the lack of any posts on classic strips. However, here's a quick plug for the new 2000AD Winter Special that's in the shops now. This issue has a horror theme to the stories and contains 52 pages of all new strips featuring Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, The Alienest, Terror Tales, Defoe, and Anderson, Psi-Division. 

Look out for the Ben Templesmith cover of Zombie Dredd! Out now for only £3.50. 

Today's extra Beano

Just a quick reminder that today's Daily Mirror contains a free 32 page Beano, and they certainly aren't shy of announcing that, as shown by the cover above. (A shame they chose to run with a header about perverts immediately beneath it though but you can't predict what'll hit the headlines on the day of a promotion.) 

The free comic contains all new material and is packed with strips by Nigel Parkinson, Laura Howell, and more. None of my strips are in there unfortunately but one of the numerous Joe King vignettes I supplied is used throughout the comic.

The comic also features a cut-out coupon to save readers £1 on the next issue (which goes on sale on Wednesday). 

Daily Mirror No.15,171. On sale now. 80p