Bear Alley: Comic Clippings - 10 February 2007

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"The narrative is packed with action and I think readers will have a lot of fun with [Hercules, Esq.] and there are some genuine moments of laugh out loud humour. I can understand why the film rights for this book were snapped up and even today I could envisage it being a very enjoyable one-off TV series." — Cross Examining Crime.
"Although there’s some criminous stuff going on and Bill often finds himself vying against or working with various lawbreakers, the stakes are never really life and death in this book ... There is some slam-bang action, though, as well as a smart, really likable protagonist and a lot of really clever plot twists, but what really makes HERCULES ESQ. work is Evans’s style, which is consistently breezy, fast-paced, and funny." — James Reasoner, Rough Edges.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Comic Clippings - 10 February 2007

BeanoMax is getting plenty of good copy out of teaming up Doctor Who with the Bash Street Kids. The first issue ties in with Red Nose Day and also features rubber-featured Rowan Atkinson, potato-faced Jamie Oliver and comic collector Jonathan Ross. Reports have appeared at the BBC.co.uk website (10 February), Daily Mirror (10 February), The Sun (10 February), Metro (9 February) and Daily Record (9 February). You can find pictures from the first issue at the cbbc newsround website.

Meanwhile, The Guardian (10 February) also notes that Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx are going to be appearing in a special edition set at London Fashion Week. The fashion issue of the quintessentially British comic will be given to front row guests attending the Giles Deacon show on Thursday at the Natural History Museum. (Please can I say it...? pleeeeeease can I say that the Natural History Museum is where these bags-of-bones supermodels deserve to be? Hope they don't get them mixed up with the exhibits!) In the storyline of the comic, the fashion police ban Dennis and Minnie from a catwalk show. Also making an appearance are Suzy Menkes, from the International Herald Tribune, and British supermodels Erin O'Connor and Naomi Campbell.

Roy of the Rovers' recent transfer to a football fanzine was featured in 'The Rover's return: Roy signs up for yet another season in the top flight' (The Independent, 7 February) which also mentioned a few other hits of the seventies -- including Look and Learn.

Stamford Museum (Broad Street, Stamford) is holding a 'mammoth' exhibition of comics featuring classics such as Roy of the Rovers, Dandy and Eagle according to this report, 'Museum treat for comic fans' (Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 7 February).

Jonah Weiland looks around David Lloyd's home studio for Comic Book Resources in 'Studio Tours' (7 February).

Neil Gaiman's Violent Cases (1987) comes under the spotlight in 'Examining Gaiman's "Violent Cases" with Peter Sanderson' (Comic Book Resources, 7 February).

Lew Stringer takes a look at Fantastic, the Odhams comic which is forty years old today (well, it would have been if it hadn't folded). He promises more on the comic tomorrow.

Alan Grant visited a classroom full of kids as part of his promotion for the recent release of Kidnapped. Gareth Edwards was there and reports on the event in 'Spreading the word in pictures' (Scotsman, 7 February).

Garth Ennis is interviewed at The Beat about the problems surrounding his series The Boys which has recently had to find a new home. 'Garth Ennis talks The Boys and more' (9 February).

ImageText is an online journal produced by the Department of English at the University of Florida. The latest issue (vol.3 no.2, 6 February 2007) contains an interview with Bryan Talbot and artwork by John Couthart as well as an essay on Alan Moore's "fearful symmetry" with William Blake.

Something I missed: Warren Ellis has a novel out this summer entitled Crooked Little Vein, to be published by William Morrow. There was an interview about it on Newsarama, 'Warren Ellis, Novelist' by Chris Arrant (30 January) and you can already pre-order it on amazon.co.uk.

David Hitchcock has released a hardback edition of his Eagle Award-winning series Springheel Jack, according to BugPowder (4 February, you'll have to scroll down).

John Wagner talks about Battle Picture Weekly on David Bishop's Vicious Imagery blog: part 1, part 2. The interview dates from 2003.

And finally... a plug for Spaceship Away... the Dan Dare fanzine that's now so much more. Issue 11 (Spring 2007) is out with three serials featuring 'Dan Dare', plus 'Journey Into Space' (reprints from Express Weekly) and 'Hal Starr', the new strip by Syd Jordan and John Ridgway. For more information visit Rod's website at spaceshipaway.org.uk.