Saturday, 24 December 2011
AP NEWSLETTER
MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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First of all, thank you, to everyone involved in AP events this year, without you, they wouldn’t happen…
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Finally, we need some help in organising AP stuff next year,
particularly in web building and admin, so if you have the time, we’d
love to hear from you enquiries@alternativepress.org.uk
So, take care, enjoy the rest of the holidays and see you in 2012!
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Alternative Press /// London /// alternativepress.org.uk
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Egyptian Comic “Installation”
Thanks To Van Reid for this via the scanarama group:
“BARCELONA.- Fundació Suñol’s Nivell Zero presents ACTE 21: Francesc Ruiz, The Paper Trail, an installation originally presented at the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo on 15 October 2010. The various pieces took shape in spring 2010, a time when the artist was researching the unique network of authors, characters, magazines, bookshops, publishers, leaders and censors that make up the social history of comic books in Egypt, as well as the world of print media, which let him explore the country’s complex political and religious sides in depth.
Within this fairly clearly defined research setting he was able to record the changes that were already taking place in the subjective perspectives of the reporters and other people he talked to and worked with, as well as events such as the extension of the emergency law, the police brutality against Khaled Saeed and the widespread corruption, amongst many others, followed by the domino effect sparked by the protests in Tunisia, which led to the popular uprising on 25 January 2011. The pieces presented here can be read as a portrait of prerevolutionary Cairo and, to a certain extent, offer thoughts on both the past and future of the country.
The
Green Detour is a multiple-issue comic book that acts as a crossover
between the Cairo adventures of four of the main characters in the
history of Egyptian comics: Tintin, Donald Duck, Samir and the Crushed
Citizen. These characters also symbolise key moments in the history of
the country and the city of Cairo: Tintin represents its colonial past;
Donald Duck, the United States’ presence and control of the region;
Samir, Nassar’s 1952 revolution; and the Crushed Citizen, who appeared
in the late 1980s in Flash! comic, a starving civil servant in a country
where the revolution appears to have failed. Each issue was distributed at a different point and readers were guided from one place to the next by the story in the comic itself, following in the characters’ footsteps through some of the key locations for potentially telling a story of Egyptian comics.
Cairo Newsstand reproduces one of the typical kiosks found on pavements across the city. A community of paperweights seems to have taken over this space and is using speech bubbles to voice their opinions on the city, life in the newsstand and the news around them, with comments ranging from folklore to political allegory: “Both money and newspapers are made of paper”, “The earth trembles every time someone buys a newspaper”, “Oh, my love, I’d like to marry you and go and live in a faraway newsstand”, neatly subverting the general journalistic tone of ever-present propaganda and censorship.
The First Comic Shop in Egypt, is ultimately a reflection on what was to be the first specialist comic shop ever in Egypt, a project that came up against many hurdles and wasn’t actually able to be carried out.
Francesc Ruiz (Barcelona, 1971) is a plastic artist. Since the 1990s his work has centred on drawing and he now uses comics as an expanded medium. By applying a series of strategies from conceptual art and situationism traditions, he creates installations and interventions linked to specific contexts. His latest solo exhibitions include The Yaois (Galeria Estrany – de la Mota, Barcelona, 2011), 100 i més (etHall, Barcelona, 2011), Gasworks Yaoi (Gasworks, London, 2010), The Paper Trail (Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo, 2010) and Big Boom (Centre d’Art La Panera, Lleida, 2008).
Comic Bits Online: Current And 2012 Black Tower Comics & Books Releas...
Comic Bits Online: Current And 2012 Black Tower Comics & Books Releas...: Hello and here is wishing all of you out there a Merry Christmas and great 2012 (unless the Mayas got it right in which cas...
Current And 2012 Black Tower Comics & Books Releases
Hello and here is wishing all of you out there a Merry Christmas
and great 2012 (unless the Mayas got it right in which case we’re all
stuffed)!
There are currently three new releases from BT Comics and they are:
Paperback,
A4
B&W
95 pages
| Price: | £6.00 |
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Ships in 3–5 business days
What can you possibly say about John Erasmus? He is a very under-rated artistic genius. And Dervish Ropey?
One of the great action/adventure characters to emerge from the UK
in the last 25 years apart from Denizen Ark (which also happens to be an
Erasmus creation). Join Dervish on his latest adventure and kick
yourself if you never got a copy of The Maximin Sword!
TALES OF TERROR 3
B.R. Dilworth, P.A. Brown, Darron Northall etc.
Paperback,
A4
62 pages
B&W
| Price: | £5.00 |
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Ships in 3–5 business days
Each year Black Tower likes to bring you a little bit of extra horror/ghostly goodness in Tales of Terror.
In the third volume there are contributions by Ben R. Dilworth
-Krakos and Merriwether. While Paul Ashley Brown brings us the tales of
The Worlds Best Mom and revisits his fear of trees!
Darron Northall and Danny Jenkins bring us the horrific tale of Bud
and Lou Go To Hell while George McQueens The Bat deals out justice and
Art Wetherell’s one pager is designed to make men wince!
And, preparing for a big 2012 event, Terry Hooper-Scharf finally
includes issue 1 of The Paranormals to make this a true horror/ghost
fest book!
D-Gruppe 4
b&w
Comic Album (A3)
£3.50
Ships in 3–5 business days
This is it! The final showdown with Zeitgeist -but with heroes
already dead can D-Gruppe and the other heroes stop the world
destroyer??
Plus -Kopfmann’s first appearance before D-Gruppe and the origin of
The Mummy -and a new feature The D-Gruppe Fact File. You want more????
You ain’t getting it!
Now, these are all at the usual “just published” discount.
For 2012 three new prose books are planned: Strange & Weird -A Naturalists Viewpoint as well as The Naturalist At Home and one big project we are not telling anyone about yet!
Comic-wise, Black Tower Adventure will continue and, to celebrate
the past couple decades or so we’ll be up-dating and republishing the
origin tale of no less a personnage than Chronos: Watchman. Illustrated
by Ben Dilworth and based on Terry Hooper’s 1983 origin strip. another
one-off from BTCG.
There is more in the way of Dilworth work for 2012 including the
Dark Night Detectives (so plenty of violence and harsh words from the
Big Man).
Fingers crossed that the long-awaited Krakos versus The Bat one off will appear around May. Ahh, but which Bat you ask??
There is more news but I’m worried you’ve eaten too much trifle and
might get over excited and vomit. So, relax…you’ll read about it all
soon enough!
And I’m off for a two day stay with Donald Hamilton and an interview to follow…I hope!
Ebenezer Hooper
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Michael Golden “Spawn 200″ Originals on Ebay– Just in time for Christmas!
Artist Michael Golden is known as one of the best storytellers in the Comic Book industry, with his cover work and interiors in high demand. As such, Michael Golden was tapped by Todd McFarlane to pencil and breakdown the interiors of the top selling “Spawn #200,” featuring some of Golden’s first interior storytelling in many years. Because Michael did not ink the interiors, this collection of original art serves as the only record of Michael’s interior pencils and storytelling for the Issue of “Spawn #200,” which also marked a spike in the series sells by 278 percent.
Michael’s interiors for this issue will be sold as a set, and because of the rarity of these pages, we will not be able to send out jpegs of the complete issue because of the collectibility of this work. A few sample pages are above.
As far as the Issue 200 Breakdowns are concerned, there are a total of seventeen (17), 8.5 X 11 pages. Ten (10) are four story pages per sheet of paper; most are complete/tight breakdowns, some are roughs or double-page spreads. The other seven (7) are a single story page per sheet of paper, with some of the panels being full pencil renderings.
Today, they comprise all of Michael’s work on Issue #200 of Spawn.
Again, these breakdowns are extremely rare, since of course this is the only original art that exists for this milestone issue.
View the Ebay Auction Here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150723974418
For more information, contact Renee at: evaink@aol.com
AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL YOU COMICKERS!
I would like to say an even more special THANK YOU to all of the regular CBO visitors who have made Comic Bits Online the top site for Independent comics, the Small Press and comics in general! You’ve all broken the counter at times but I love you all!
And another THANK YOU for those of you who have been visiting t6he Blogger site that will eventually take over from this one. Thank you (yesterday 5378 visits!).
Now, though I don’t do Christmas -off with you and enjoy your Christmas and New Year fun!!
Terry
Bandage: A Diary of Sorts -Work Of A Real Talent!
Bandage: A Diary of Sorts
written and illustrated by Kate Glasheen
Hardcover: 104 pages
Black and White
Publisher: Katiecrimespree Pictures and Words; 1st edition (July 14, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0578085887
ISBN-13: 978-0578085883
Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Website:http://www.bandagegn.com
$14.99
Footsteps etch a map from one summer to the next. A nameless young man stands at the threshold of adulthood, and he stands with all the love and support of the years that nurtured him. But as he steps through, the faces and places he grew with begin to exit one by one. The everyday tragedy of loss leads a forced march towards the uncertainty and loneliness of the future. Hopelessness starts to override the urge to heal, and he must ask himself, if what can be gained is worth what has been lost.
This coming-of-age graphic novel acts as his diary, documenting a stream of conscious narrative and surreal visual interpretations of the year’s events.
Come on now -how many times do I have to say it? Kate Glasheen is one of those artists who will inevitably become a big name in the future. Yeah, becoming a big name means starving first (I’m still trying to get out of that stage!). But there is no exaggeration in saying that Glasheen could have the same impact and effect on comics that Bill Sienkiewicz had in the 1980s and that was enormous.
I’ve seen artwork in comics from China, Russia, Malaysia, Finland -well, you name the place so long as its not Papua New Guinea- and there is some great stuff out there. But -but- when it comes to a unique artstyle that makes me sit down and look long and hard there are only two artists I list in that category -both female. One is Donna Barr and the other Kate Glasheen.
I mean look at that art!!
This is a privately published book, too which takes a lot of guts. Marvel and DC want to prove they have “alternative” art credentials as well as the regular super hero stuff -get Glasheen to do some work for you! Along with Hybrid Bastards (written by Tom Pinchuk), Bandage will become one of those books future comic collectors are going to be desperate to get their hands on. At $14.99 this book is a steal and I wish I could make people buy it!
So, want to show people you have taste? Show you recognise a talent before it explodes onto the scene?
BUY THIS BOOK!!!!
PLEASE.
Classical Comics -BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA!
If you haven’t got a copy yet -do! It’s a great book. A Great Christmas Present!
This time I’m overjoyed!
It’s been about forty years since I read Dracula as a novel. A very thick book with more pages than I care to remember. But I did read it in a week. And at my age I have seen many comic book adaptions of the novel -some quite fun some pretty poor. Don’t get me started on the 1970s BBC TV adaption (19…77? with Louis Jordan).
Now, there is a certain Classical omics writer who repeatedly took me to task over not bigging up his writing. But I think I always mention the writers fairly -or I hope I do. Now a onfession. When I heard Jason Cobley was to write the adaption I thought “Oh!” I know of his work in the Small Press but I questioned whether he could adapt such a huge work into 150 pages.
In fact, he’s done an excellent job.
Staz Johnson’s art is probably the best I have seen from him in his long career. The colour work by Offredi is spot on. The combination of both men’s work and Cobley’s script make this probably the most commercial book so far. The story pacing as well as the art should appeal to the general comic fan and certainly to American fans who might like to see more action and well paced stories but who are not into the classic works of English literature.
I do seriously doubt that either Marvel or DC comics could have produced a better adaption.
There is also the Bram Stoker biography at the rear of the book and for schools I think this is excellent because the art alone will catch the eye of pupils and, craftily, lure them into reading a classic. As usual the number of projects a school could make as a spin-off from this book are only limited by the teachers imagination!
If the term “graphic novel” has to be applied to a comic strip adaption then Dracula is that book.
And all in time for Christmas! If you are a horror film/comic/book fan then this is the graphic novel you need to grab. In fact I’d just say “buy the book!!” and if you see it pop up in any comic award lists -VOTE!
Proof that UK creators CAN produce great comics.
check out the links to see sample art.
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| Original Text Version ISBN: 978-1-906332-25-9Click here to buy from:amazon.co.uk  |
Quick Text Version ISBN: 978-1-906332-26-6Click here to buy from:amazon.co.uk  |
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| Original Text Version ISBN: 978-1-906332-67-9 (pub date: February 2012) |
Quick Text Version ISBN: 978-1-906332-68-6 (pub date: February 2012) |
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Bram Stoker
“I went down into the vaults. There lay the Count!
He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which –
for the eyes were open and stony but without the glassiness of death.”
Bram Stoker’s gothic masterpiece was first published in 1897, and has spawned so many classic films, all based on the character he invented when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Like Frankenstein, the films have pushed the characters into the very fabric of our society, so it is with great pride that we bring you a visual treatment that is true to the original – made even more exciting by the wonderous talent that is Staz Johnson!
| Script Adaptation: | Jason Cobley |
| Linework: | Staz Johnson |
| Colouring: | James Offredi |
| Lettering: | Jim Campbell |
| UK Publication Date: | 21st November 2011 |
| Format: | 152 pages full colour paperback 246x168mm |
| Versions: (click here for info) |
Original Text (abridged) Quick Text |