Fantastic Adventures probes British Comics “Roads Not Travelled”

Hibernia has just launched the fifth volume in its superb Comic Archive series – Fantastic Adventures – delivering a gem of trip back to comics projects that, for different reasons, never saw the light of day, alongside more great interviews with key creators.

Fantastic Adventures - Cover

The Comic Archive series explores the lesser known and forgotten hidden gems of British comics, full of interviews, articles, lost and previously unpublished art – and they have certainly done that here.

I was delighted to have played small part in helping gather some of the material for this new book – but I was blown away at seeing the pages, with some great design work from Ricard Pearce.

Featuring a great cover by Dean Ormston, the focus of the 92-page Fantastic Adventures is on comics that never quite made it, failures on the launchpad such as the late Tony Luke‘s Renga, (previously featured here in downthetubes), David Lloyd‘s stunning-looking project Fantastic Adventure, the much-talked about 20000AD sister title Zarjaz (not to be confused with the FutureQuake Press’ fan comic zine of the same name) and the Judge Dredd Comic, which featured Alan Moore‘s “Badlander” and much more.

  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page
  • Fantastic Adventures - Sample Page

Also included are interviews with creators such as writer Gerry Finley Day, the Spanish artist known as ‘Vanyo‘, an archive interview with the late humour artist Robert Nixon – and Battle editor Terry Magee.

Not only featuring contributions from Peter Hogan, Frank Wynne, Si Spencer and unpublished art from Steve Yeowell, Robin Smith, Dean Ormston, Will Simpson and Mike Western, there’s also four more unpublished pages from the legendary Scream comic, too.

If that’s not enough, the new title offer an in-depth look at Fleetway’s Revolver, including a plethora of pages of unpublished art from that publications, a Brian Bolland board game and the Manga Judge Dredd – which I have to confess I was unaware of before reading this book.

The team at Hibernia – David McDonald (publisher, editor and writer), Richard Pearce (designer, reprographics and writer), and Mike Donachie, (editor) have again pulled out all the stops with Fantastic Adventures and it’s well worth a look.

Print editions of Hibernia’s titles sell out fast, so don’t delay, grab a copy now, before it’s too late!

Hibernia is an independent publisher based in Ireland, and has long championed classic British comics. Over the years, alongside the Comic Archive series, Hibernia has published several comic collections, including Doomlord, The 13th Floor, The Tower King and more. Last year they teamed up with The Treasury of British Comics to publish the superb Cosmic Comics, a glorious Kevin O’Neill miscellany which was Hibernia’s fastest selling title and sold out within weeks. Future collaborations with the ‘Treasury of British comics’ are in the works.

• Print copies of Fantastic Adventures are only available from Comicsy – www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia | Digital editions are also available for £5 as a PDF. Contact Hibernia directly at hiberniabook@eircom.net – the PDF will be emailed within the day

• Follow Hibernia on Twitter @hiberniabooks | Facebook @hiberniacomics | Instagram @hiberniabook



Categories: 2000AD, Books, British Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds

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