Watch that man

Came across two Aladdin Sane riffs on Behance earlier, one by mash-up maestro Butcher Billy, the other by illustrator Astor Alexander. What's the chances of that, eh?

Worra beauty

Back GOLDTIGER on Kickstarter - I get a great looking book, and YOU get free original art!

Over at Robot 6, I recently did an interview with Jimmy Broxton and Guy Adams about their proposed Goldtiger comic which they're currently fundraising for over at Kickstarter.  The interview turned out well, they're a very witty couple of guys. It's an amazing-looking project, I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway, if you head over there and back them for £25 quid or more, and tell them I sent you, they'll throw you in a free sketch card. So go for it!

Everybody Loves Tank Girl

In more UK comics news, I interviewed Alan Martin again.

And here's the USA side of the story: Jim Mahfood interviewed by Amanda Dyar.

Dave Gibbons still defending comics from Roy Lichtenstein's thieving ways

 
On Sunday night, BBC4 broadcast WHAAM! Roy Lichtenstein at Tate Modern, Alistair Sooke's documentary focused on the career-spanning retrospective of the pop art giant currently running at the London gallery. Here's the link to the full documentary, running for a week on BBC's iPlayer.

At the 35 minute mark, artist Dave Gibbons turns up to debate with Sooke on the age-old issue of Lichtenstein's plagiarism from comic books, all while standing in front of Lichtenstein's WHAAM!, the painting appropriated from a panel by Irv Novick. Gibbons makes a spirited case for the superiority of Novick's original image over Lichtenstein's, while the host Sooke argues for Lichtenstein, all the while thumbing a-little-bit-too dismissively through an issue of DC's All-American Men Of War #89.  Sooke's main argument for the superiority of the pop artist's work over the comic artist is that his researcher picked up a ragged back issue of the original for under six pounds, while if WHAAM! went to auction, it would sell for tens of millions of dollars. To Gibbon's credit, he states he'd take the six quid comic over the multi-million bucks canvas. I dunno Dave, $45 million could buy an awful lot of comics. Or sports cars.

For a full take-down of Lichtenstein's thievery from comics, there's always David Barsalou's Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein. I don't think there's a single panel in that collection that doesn't contain more power and dynamism in its execution than Lichtenstein's "transformation" of them.

This year's Christmas card from me (Front cover and Page 3).

Created using the WYSIWYG design website Recite, and then I hacked off their watermarks with GIMP 2. Merry Christmas everybody.

"Today on this program you will hear gospel, and rhythm and blues, and jazz. All those are just labels. We know that music is music"

The thing about calling these things "the Best Of 2012" is they're really just "the Best Of 2012 that's available through Spotify right now". But sod it, it's a flavour of what I've liked this year. I've noticed this year has been a hip hop-light, garage rock and torch songs-heavy, kind-of-vintage.

Tim Doyle draws one mean MF (Massey Ferguson).

Eric Church means nothing to me, but hell, Tim Doyle can draw a helluva rusty old TED-20.

This year's Christmas card from PJ McQuade.

As is becoming usual with Patrick, I got an entire Jiffy bag full of Christmas cards from the guy. 

What an absolute sweetheart. Buy 'em (and all his others) over at his webstore.

This year's Christmas card from Alfie Gallagher.

Cheers, Alfie - it's on the mantelpiece right now!

This year's Christmas card from Brendan McCarthy.

"Hope you have a great holiday and a successful and healthy New Year.  

May your bells jingle and your angels sing. Yo Ho Ho, Brendan"

Phil Bond draws some actual Doctor Who comics.

Phillip Bond drawing Doctor Who comics. If there was ever something more definitively Bad Librarianship than that, I don't know what it was.

Also in news relevant to the obsessions of this blog: Hellboy In Hell #1 in shops tomorrow.

Fu*king Hell!

Hellboy In Hell #1 solicited. Awr yeah.

Greedophiles.

WJC

 

Phil Bond

Don't worry baby.

Sorry I've been derelict in my duties here for a while, but I've been blogging over at Robot 6. I'm sure you've all got that site bookmarked already, it's one of only about two blogs I'd ever have neglected this place for. Posting here may become more intermittent, though I'm sure I'll still post the less-newsworthy and more idiosyncratic stuff here.

Again with the new Jamie Hewlett stuff.

Something about these new Jamie Hewlett pieces leaking out via Alan Martin's Facebook account reminds me of those watercolour sketches Hugo Pratt used to do as preparatory work for the Corto strips.

Pat Mills will probably approve of this image.

I loved this image Dan McDaid recently ran over at his blog. Judge Dredd, the apotheosis of how the cynical Europeans view the USA, gets the drop on Captain America, the embodiment of how a pair of optimistic second generation immigrant Jewish kids viewed their homeland.

Oh and for grud's sake Tharg, get Dan to draw some Dredd for 2000AD, you massive green bell-end. How many more times do I have to ask?

Fighting the marginal propensity to consume.

Seen a lot of stuff I've considered buying these last couple of weeks, instead of clearing my credit card balance.

1. "Still Sane" by Incwel. Appeals to my inner iconoclast and some recessive, vestigial, hard-to-kill, Ulster protestantism. God save your mad parade!

2. Alfie Gallagher's Super Beatles. Oh yes. I've got a spot picked out for this 'un.

3. Batman baby-grow. Must brainwash my nephew into the ways of our people.

4. Uncle Ben Caldwell's new sketchbook is out soon. Tasty.

5. Joe Casey and Nathan Fox produced one of my favourite superhero comics of recent years, and so I'll probably release the moths from my wallet for this. RELEASE THE MOTHS!

6. I've never bought an Archie comic in my life, but cop a load of this cover by Fiona Staples. Rock and roll, stops the traffic.

Mo' new Hewl.

As a public service for those of you who (in all fairness, probably correctly) hate and fear Facebook, I thought I'd re-blog a couple of new pieces by Jamie Hewlett that Alan Martin has recently posted.

 Lubberly!

Thinking about Ditko.

Brendan McCarthy sent along a link to this Ditko blog the other morning, singling out this entry in an email with the subject heading "The Door To Eternity".

Woah. Which in turn got me thinking of this recent post at Edmund Bagwell's blog, where he kind-of mashes up DC fifth stringer Kid Eternity with Ditko's similarly named creation for Marvel.

And which Bag-E then followed up with a dashed decent go at Ditko's style with this Dr Strange.

Alright!

Rennie & Trevallion's ABSALOM: GHOSTS OF LONDON.

I love Gordon Rennie and Tiernen Trevallion's Absalom in 2000AD. It's a strip that does that Mignola thing, examining the hinterlands between folklore, history, and horror, but it does it resolutely from a British tradition. It also marries a classic disillusioned UK police procedural tone into this mix, making for a strip that hits all kinds of the right pop culture notes for me. It's like THE SWEENEY rewritten by Ramsey Campbell - Rennie even invokes Jack Regan by name within. Or maybe Ian Rankin having a punch-up with Dennis Wheatley round the back of John Constantine's gaff, if you can forgive me yet another terrible dissimile.

Anyway, now that it's about to be collected as an album, I'm recommending it thoroughly. Buy it, you'll thank me for it, it's the best thing published by Rebellion since CRADLEGRAVE. Here's the cover, and Tiernen successfully manages to condense the strip's entire milieu into one image - it's Scary Old London Town (Cobbles! Spellbooks! Demons!), but it's modern, too (Graffiti! Tesco's bag! Burberry coats! Adidas trackie!).