My blogging activity has slowed down a bit because I'm hard at work on various projects which are all coming to the boil at the same time. First and foremost is Look and Learn. The new magazine is going down a storm and the third fortnightly issue has just been released. Subscriptions are still coming in and it's nice to note that we're getting subs in on the strength of the first issues that went out. At the moment, my focus is on the website's picture gallery which is now up to 13,388 images with a couple of hundred more already winging their way into the office. A lot of the latest pages to go up are high quality digital photographs of original boards, some owned by LLM and other loaned by the Illustration Art Gallery. Lots of astonishing artwork by Jesus Blasco, Wilf Hardy, Nadir Quinto, C. L. Doughty and many others. The gallery is searchable so please drop by and take a look... browse around or search for your favourite artist.Coming soon from Don Lawrence Collection are the sixth volume of Storm -- The Collection and the eighth volume of Trigan Empire. We're now starting work on Storm 7, which contains 'The Slayer of Eriban' and 'The Hounds of Marduk', and Trigan 9, which, chronologically, will be the sixth volume, 'The Five Labours of Trigo'. The latter is due out in June. Not sure when the Storm book will be out but probably around the same time.
New to the DLC line-up will be Karl the Viking. The plan is to release the whole series of 13 stories -- 12 of them drawn by Don Lawrence -- this summer as a box set in four deluxe hardback volumes. The strip originally ran in Lion in 1960-64 and six stories were reprinted in Smash! as 'Erik the Viking' in 1969-71. This will be the first time in over forty years that the whole series has been made available. For hardcore fans, the good news is that when the artwork that IPC had in storage was catalogued, we found 258 original art boards for Karl. Rob van Bavel came over from Holland armed with a scanner last March and scanned all the pages, which will form the basis for the new volumes.
Back in January 2006, I put together a wish-list of stories that I would include in a collection of the best of War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library. Well... coming soon from Carlton Books will be two such books in the same format of their Commando books. Each volume will contain 12 stories with a short introduction by yours truly.
And finally... The War Libraries index is almost done. We've still got three holiday specials to find, so if you have, or know someone who has, copies of Battle Picture Library Holiday Special 1966 (Battle for Freedom) and 1977 or War Picture Library Holiday Special 1975, drop me a line.
Some of these projects date back years -- the Index has been twenty years in the making and I still have the 1999 draft of the introduction! -- so I'm incredibly excited to see them nearing completion.
- John Freeman interviews John Reppion & Leah Moore on Down the Tubes in 'Forever Albion' (7 February 2007) about the release of Albion by Titan Books. John reports that interviews with artist Shane Oakley and IPC's Andrew Sumner will follow soon.
- Rich Johnson's Lying in the Gutters carries the news that Paul Gravett and David Lloyd are presenting a Graphic Novel Event at Streatham Library next Saturday (10 February). Details from the Lambeth library services website:
Date: Saturday 10 February 6.30pm – 9.30pm
Tickets: Free entry
Venue: Streatham Library, 63 Streatham High Road, SW16 1PL
Lambeth Libraries are again proud to host an evening with some of the best writers of comic, or ‘graphic’, novels.
David Lloyd, author of V for Vendetta, will be talking about his new novel Kickback
Gwen Kortsen and Angela Wraight are two young comics creators making their mark on the UK scene, while Paul Gravett is the godfather of the British comic world, writing for countless periodicals, author of Great British Comics and curator for Comica.
The event will include refreshments and a chance for informal discussion with the authors.
If you read graphic novels - don’t miss this– a real night of headliners.
For more information on this event or on Lambeth Library’s Graphic Novel book group contact pdunne@lambeth.gov.uk or pgalvao@lambeth.gov.uk. - the story of a cop haunted by his past and his life as part of a corrupt police force.
- Also via Rich Johnson: Bryan Talbot will be signing copies of Alice in Sunderland at Gosh! Comics on 5 April, followed by a presentation at the Cartoon Museum who are also hosting an exhibition of artwork from the book.
- Alex Fitch , interviewer and host of 'I'm Ready For My Podcast', has posted part 2 and part 3 of his interview with Alan Moore, 'The Magic of Alan Moore'.
- Chris Smillie of Spitfire Comics, shortly to be publishing the Collected Hookjaw, is interviewed on the Forbidden Planet Blog, 'New UK publisher Chris Smillie on his classic and banned comic reprints' (8 February).
The Trigan Empire was fantastic, nay, still is fantstic!
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say...? I'm with you all the way!
ReplyDelete[...]the best of War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library.! Oh my aching bookshelves! I hope you'll tip us off as to the release date and contents (fingers crossed for lots of Hugo Pratt!)
ReplyDeleteAs for the War Picture Library Holiday Special 1975 issue that's missing, I've one from the mid 70s but there are no obvious dates on it - the indica, at the back, just has the publisher's details. It's 25p and starts with the story "The Last Command"
As soon as I get any news I'll let you know -- the final line-up is down to Carlton but will hopefully include some of the best of the Italian war artists, Nevio Zeccara, Gino D'Antonio, Anibale Casabianca, Jose Ortiz (Spanish)... and Hugo Pratt. The stories were selected for the stories themselves and to give a wide range of tales (not all set around Dunkirk or D-Day or whatever). That said, youcould pretty-much run anything from the first ten or twelve years of both series and you wouldn't find many duds.
ReplyDeleteI've now got the War 1975 (the one you have is 1976), so we're down to two missing, both Battle PL Holiday Specials -- 1966 and 1977. It would be a shame if we can't fill those little gaps in the index but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it; it's only 8 or 10 lines in a 160-page, closely typeset book, after all.