Comic Clippings - 22 October

I'm taking a break from writing an article so don't expect too much!

• 'Black Celebration' (Wizarduniverse.com, 18 October 2006). An interview with Alan Moore about the upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier graphic novel due out next Wednesday from WildStorm/ABC. "Basically it's a source book, but taking the idea of a source book to an entirely new level, in that all the things that make up the source-book part of it are all wonderful little fully realized narratives in their own right, and then wrapped around those source-book sections, there is this narrative that involves a couple of those characters from the League stealing this source book from MI5 in 1958 and then going on the run, pursued by a bunch of British intelligence agents of a 1958 vintage."

• Ian Rankin, of Rebus novels fame, is to write Hellblazer for DC Comics. Not new news but he discusses his love of comics in an interview in The Independent (22 October 2006). Says interviewer Danuta Kean: "It will mark a dream fulfilled: the nine-year-old Rankin gave up creating comics when he realised he couldn't draw. He hasn't stopped reading them."

• Andy Diggle, former 2000AD editor, is interviewed at The Pulse (19 October 2006) about his upcoming work on Batman Confidential. You'll have to scroll down the page to the headline "Confidentially Speaking: Andy Diggle & Batman".

• Bryan Talbot was recently at KomiksFest 2006 in Prague to promote the Czech version of Heart of Empire. An interesting little biographical sketch mentions that Bryan's first published illustration appeared in the British Tolkein Society Magazine in 1969, which may be common knowledge but it's something I never knew.

• Talking of first work, here's the opening page of Sean Phillips' first professionally published work: the strip was 'Simple Simon' and it appeared in Judy Annual (inks by Ken Houghton). Amazingly confident for a 15-year-old and, astonishingly, Sean was already a three-year veteran! You'll find an example of 'The Size Changer' on the same page, published in a local newspaper in 1977 when Sean was only 12. Sean has gone on to become one of our finest exports, working mostly for DC Comics (most recently on Criminal, written by Ed Brubaker). He has a fine website and a blog if you want to see more of his work.