James Jirat Patradoon

I like this guy's art, it reminds me of the work of several of the guys I champion here. An Aussie, apparently.  His blog is over at this clickety-link.

Recommended viewing.

I really am terribly fond of this blog. And this one, too.

Frank Quitely cranks the Messianic Knob up to 11 on his cover for ABSOLUTE ALL-STAR SUPERMAN.

Another Shaky Kane/BULLETPROOF COFFIN cover

In the immortal words of Aerosmith: "Pink is my favourite colour".

EDMUND BAGWELL's four colours good

The unbelievably tasty Edmund Bagwell finally has a web presence! He's started a blog, four colours good,and you'll find it over here.

TRIPWIRE is coming back. Cheese it!

Two things I love coming back soon, FUTURAMA and TRIPWIRE.

Frank Quitely's JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #301 cover art.

Nice. After the Tim Bradstreet commission, it's heartening to see Tharg getting the chequebook out again so soon for another interesting cover artist. I've written before of my love for the handful of covers Quitely did for THE COMPLETE JUDGE DREDD, and the subtle and very workable redesign of the Mega-City 1 Judge uniform they included.  What may well make the issue a real must-buy though is the 64-page Mick McMahon Collection supplement bagged with it.

Been caught soliciting: DC, September 2010.

After a few months of these covers, I now really want a Pete Milligan/Simon Bisley SHADE THE CHANGING MAN comic. Come on, universe, do your stuff!

Meanwhile, David Finch channels his inner Biz.

And Bolland gives us his Mademoiselle Marie. Hilarious.

(All DC solicits via CBR)

Is this thing on? GORILLAZ - On Melancholy Hill

Two of this blog's major themes crashing headlong.

Fingers crossed.

(Via Jason's Tumblr)

Gorillaz/Alan Moore collaboration nixed.

So the John Dee opera planned as a collaboration between the Gorillaz and Alan Moore has crashed and burned (read Moore's side of the story here).  Moore complains that he was doing all of the heavy lifting on the project, but one has to ask: what did he expect? The Gorillaz are in the middle of the life-cycle of  PLASTIC BEACH -  Albarn is leading a stellar touring band around the world's festival circuit, Hewlett is producing a constant flow of video and illustrative artwork for the group.  Besides, the chosen subject matter was always clearly all Moore's handiwork, with nothing in Albarn or Hewlett's past bodies of work indicating they give a fuck about the occult, let alone be willing to set aside their workloads in order to meet the deadline for the next issue of Moore's dreadful DODGEM LOGIC.

Hey, Hey (My, My)

Another CBR link: Joshua Dysart talks about his Neil Young GREENDALE adaptation OGN, with a handful of Cliff Chiang preview pages.

A six-page preview of Brendan McCarthy's FEVER #3 up at CBR

...right here.

Ralph Niese's Judge Dredd

Leipzig-based lowbrow deranger Ralph Niese can only half-remember what Judge Dredd looks like, and so he produced this.

WJC's ABCs is A-Okay

WJC does the ABCs. Originally ran in the real good lookin' Failboat Press mini-comic NU EARTH #1 (pester Will Kirkby for a free copy here). I've praised this strip up and down on Twitter; I've emailed it to everyone I thought would like it; I even printed out a copy with my own fair hands to give to Pat Mills at the 2D Festival.  Basically, I won't stop until Tharg relents and slips Warwick at least a Future Shock. C'mon, Green Bonce - do the right thing!

Too effin' cute

Plush Scott and Ramona. Probably bad for your teeth.

Plush Rickenbacker bass sadly not included.

Blast from the past.

BAD LIBRARIANSHIP old hand Walter Simonson drew a cover for Titan once, back in the day. And it was good.

(Via B.A.R.N.E.Y.)

Tim Bradstreet draws Dredd

This image is interesting for a number of reasons - it's really good to see Rebellion commissioning someone simpatico from outside their comfort zone to produce new work for their collections, rather than just recycle existing imagery (I remember the thrill I got as a lad when Titan hired Bill Sienkiewicz to do covers for their Dredd series), here's hoping they keep this up; it's also good to see Bradstreet produce something so different to his usual heavily referenced realism; it's good to see him visually alluding so clearly to Bolland; and it's good to see Dredd drawn with a big fuck-off assault rifle,though I personally would have given him the proper hard bastard's gun of choice, the Franchi Spas-12. 

Selling Sambas to the nerds.

"2D was the greatest". Oh Lordy, I've made a Smashing Pumpkins-based pun.

Hey, everybody who was at the Everyone's A Critic panel at the 2D Festival (as per photo below), here's those links I mentioned. The title of the panel was painfully on the nose - every dam fule with an internet connection these days is reviewing comics, but finding the stuff worth reading/hearing remains the challenge.  I'm a man who remains very fond of his own opinions, but being bothered to express them remains another matter, so while I denied being a critic these days, I mentioned a few blogs whose criticism I did enjoy: those were Paul Rainey's now-completed 2000AD Prog Slog; Sean Witzke's Supervillain; and Tucker Stone's The Factual Opinion. Paul's blog was a Quixotic romp through my generation's golden age of British comics history; Sean's is ostensibly a work blog, but for which he just happens to throw away some fantastically insightful criticism as a side-product of his creative process; and Tucker is the funniest, angriest, but most truthful critic writing about comics right now. 

When I do think objectively about what my blog is for (which is seldom, but being asked to do the panel brought it somewhat into focus in my mind), I think of it in terms of promotion. Sometimes of artists who just don't need it (Mignola, Cooke, Johnson - I'm looking at you),  but when my blog is at its best, it is promoting and encouraging talent that has either never had any press before, or has been forgotten or under-appreciated. In my more deranged and pretentious moments, I like to think I'm one of the secret taste-makers whose influence is felt by the world rather than observed. I even like to think that I've actually helped a few careers out here and there on occasion, even if I did (accidentally, I swear) try and ruin Gary Erskine's.  I mentioned some artist's blogs worth checking out, and was pleased when a couple of names got appreciative reactions rippling across the audience: Warwick Johnson Cadwell and Dan McDaid, my work is done. You guys are huge in Derry.

Anyway that's some of the stuff I tried to say in Stroke City, but usually forgot to in my haste to hand out stickers and make dirty jokes at Leigh Gallagher's expense.  I enjoyed the panel tremendously, and was struck by the warm, loving atmosphere there - an institution develops its values and ethos from the top down, and Dave Campbell is a warm, lovely man. Who kept trying to force free drinks on me. The horror, the horror.

Just saw this page: anyone know what it was from?

Good news, bad news.

Bad news, everybody. Only one of Jacko's shots from the 2D Festival came out useable. The good news? It's this 'un.

Philip J Bond's VELMA

A sturdy unit.  Partly in honour of Ron Abernethy's crush on Linda Cardellini, but mainly because it's. y'know, Phil effin' Bond.

I wasn't terribly pushed on this, until I saw who they'd cast as David Bowie...

...and then I laughed like a drain.

I was just waiting for this to show up somewhere other than bloody Facebook.