The fourth Lakes International Comic Art Festival will run from 14-16 October 2016 in Kendal, Cumbria, celebrating great comic art from across the world – and the full details for every ticketed event have now been announced. Here’s a “Flash Guide”… Read More ›
Featured News
Major new stories on downthetubes – or simply things we feel are major!
Celebrating the British Small Press: 60 Great Small Comic Press (Part Three)
When Marvel UK shrunk its original strip output in the mid-1990s, not being a 2000AD reader, comic creator and reader Andy Luke had nowhere to go. He came to find that the small press, often photocopied works, were a core… Read More ›
In Review: Spaceship Away Issue 39 – highlights Ian Kennedy, offers new Dan Dare adventures
The latest issue of Spaceship Away, the magazine devoted to Dan Dare, Eagle and its many creators is out now, offering a great line up of strips and features behind a cover by the late Frank Bellamy. Tim Booth continues… Read More ›
In Memoriam: Comic Creator Alan Joseph Mitchell
The sudden passing of the inspiring comics creator Alan Mitchell, perhaps best known for co-writing “Third World War” with Pat Mills for Crisis, aged just 55, came as a tremendous shock to both family and friends. Although we met only a couple of… Read More ›
In Review: Underpants by Alex Potts
by Alex Potts Underpants is a selfppublished collection of mostly autobiographical short stories from the creator of last year’s excellent A Quiet Disaster, telling tales of the life and interests of its laconically sarcastic and observant creator. Some of my favourites were… Read More ›
A Box of Delights: London’s Cartoon Museum
Alan Russell visits London’s Cartoon Museum, revealing some of its treasures for British comic fans… I’ve been a comics fan since I was a young child back in the early 1970s. In those days of course, there were far fewer things… Read More ›
In Review: Dan Dare at The Atkinson, Southport
Dan Whitehead visited The Atkinson in Southport, Merseyside – the town where Eagle comic was first created by Frank Hampson and Marcus Morris – and offers his take on the permanent Dan Dare exhibition there… I have an almost lifelong affection… Read More ›
Eagle Daze: The Life and Times of Leonard James Matthews – Part Eleven
Leonard Matthews, General Managing Editor of Fleetway and the Eagle Group of Comics, was a Creative Visionary… but that, Roger Perry argues in his extensive biography of the man which continues here on downthetubes, is only due to him having… Read More ›
Thank You, Doctor Who (Magazine) – You Kickstarted My Comics Career
Doctor Who Magazine, the longest running TV-tie in magazine in the world, as recognised by Guinness World Records, reaches its 500th issue today, Thursday 26th May 2016… And I’m proud to have been one of its many editors. Back in… Read More ›
Comic Creator Spotlight: The Art of Gordon Livingstone
Artist Gordon Livingstone is another unsung hero of British comics. Born on 17th August 1934, he grew up in the tenements of Lochee, Dundee. As a school leaver, Gordon ended up working as an office boy for a local law firm… Read More ›