Elephantmen web site revamped

By John Freeman on September 26, 2013

Active Images, run by British creator Richard Starkings, have been busy this month. Not only do they have Elephantmen #54 on sale and are busy plugging the Tenth Anniversary Collection of Hip Flask: Unnatural Selection, but the company has also totally revamped its Elephantmen web site, adding story summary, preview pages and links to purchase each issue and a new timeline takes you through the Elephantmen story issue by issue.

It also features biographies and appearance lists for all characters and you you can read five free issues in their entirety – so what better way to find out more about this hugely popular title?

In Elephantmen #54, are Jack Farrell’s hands blood red, or are there memories buried in his subconscious that throw his investigations into a whole new light? Story by Richard Starkings, art by Axel Medellin and cover: Tula Lotay. More info, sample pages and ordering info here

The Hip Flask: Unnatural Selection 10th Anniversary hardcover by Starkings, Casey & Ladrönn features the art of Eisner award winner Ladrönn, collecting the long out of print Hip Flask: Unnatural Selection in a remastered and expanded ‘widescreen’ art and story edition, as well as pages and covers from Hip Flask: Elephantmen. More info and ordering details here

Eisner award winning comic creator Richard is one of many guests at this year’s Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds in November. His lettering credits are diverse, ranging from work on Dez Skinn’s Warrior to Transformers and The Ballad of Halo Jones. As a group editor at Marvel UK of the Boys’ Adventure titles he supervised weeklies such as Secret Wars, The Real Ghostbusters, Thundercats and strips for Doctor Who Magazine, which he occasionally wrote under the pen name Richard Alan.

During his time at Marvel UK Starkings broke in talent such as Bryan Hitch, Doug Braithwaite, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.

After moving to the US, he created the Comicraft studio because he just couldn’t bring myself to hack out pen lettering to meet the punishing deadlines imposed by Marvel and DC – digitizing his lettering style allowed him to preserve the quality of his work and still deliver it on time. Comicraft fonts are now the mainstay of the comic book lettering industry and over 250 font families are available at Comicraft’s online store, comicbookfonts.com.

But it was always Starkings intention to create and publish his own comic. Image Comics’ sleeper hit, Elephantmen, is that – in spades.

• Elephantmen web site: www.hipflask.com

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.