Comics Cuts

I'm pleased to announce that Oliver Frey will be joining us at ComICA on Sunday 23rd to discuss British comics. Oliver is best-know to comic fans as the artist who took over from Don Lawrence on the Trigan Empire strip in Look and Learn in 1976 and he would later spend a 12-week stint as the artist of Dan Dare in the (New) Eagle in 1983. Aside from his stunning illustrations for Look and Learn and Speed & Power, the first I knew of his work was the comic strip "S.O.S. International", also in Speed & Power, in 1975. Of course, Oliver had been working for the Fleetway War libraries for some years by then as well as painting the covers for various annuals.

Examples of Oliver's original artwork for The Trigan Empire have recently appeared in The Art of the Trigan Empire catalogue (see above for a sample).

Full details of the talk, which will involve me, David Roach and David Leach talking about British comics, can be found here.

This could be your chance to ask some of the team behind The DFC about the upcoming experiment to distribute the comic via Tesco supermarkets. From 26 November, for one week only, the subscription-only comic will be available at Tescos for £1.99. John Freeman's Down the Tubes has more details.

Not available yet, but Ken Barr has completed work on a second painting in his series of wartime following the release of "Para-Sarge". The new print, "Long Range Desert Group" will be available from comicsmagazines.com on the same 350g print stock. The second print will not be numbered and is a little way off yet.

comicsmagazines.com has also set up a gallery of Ken's Commando covers which is well worth a look.