Author Archives
John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War" and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as 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.
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Comics for Windows Wanted
Mantle Arts, a small UK based arts organisation, is running an interesting project to brighten up a town centre – and is looking for comics artists to get involved. The project is employing artists to create artwork for empty shop… Read More ›
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Fallen Angel Slips from Murky Depths!
Fans of Luke Cooper’s The Dark Gospel series, which appears in the speculative fiction quarterly Murky Depths, who can’t get enough of the cigarette-smoking, alcohol-swigging angel, Halo Slipping, will be please to know that The House Of Murky Depths (Murky… Read More ›
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Future to launch Comic Heroes magazine in March
Bolstered by the sales success of an SFX comics special last year, UK publishers Future have announced a March launch for Comic Heroes, a premium-priced quarterly magazine title that promises to take an in-depth look at the latest superhero movies,… Read More ›
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Crikey! regroups after Borders collapse
The editor of British comics magazine Crikey! has revealed the recent collapse of Borders UK has proved a bit of a catastrophe for the magazine, as the loss of that chain and its affiliates took away about 70% of its… Read More ›
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Tube Surfing: Marvel, Disney, Stan Lee and possible iTablet launch
• Marvel Entertainment stockholders approved the company’s merger with Disney at a special meeting held last Thursday (31st December). Under the agreement, valued at an estimated $4.3 billion, Marvel becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney. Whether this will ultimately have… Read More ›
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Don’t Get Lost webcomic blog launched
Andrew Luke has launched his strip blog, Don’t Get Lost, which he describes as a 300-page tale of abuse and survival through the self and friendship. The tale begins as a man flees from potential violence at the hand of… Read More ›
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Félicitations – Anthea Bell OBE
Our belated congratulations to Anthea Bell for receiving her Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours list for “services to Literature and Literary Translations.” Anthea is best known to us for the English language… Read More ›
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DC Thomson bids farewell to Bill Graham
DC Thomson editor Bill Graham – whose credits include Starblazer, Warlord and Spike and had a long and varied career with the Dundee-based company – has just retired. Previously interviewed by Jeremy Briggs for the site, what we haven’t published… Read More ›
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Comic Book Alliance launches logo competition
The Comic Book Alliance – a UK-based not-for-profit organisation – has just launched a competition for creators to come up with a logo, which runs until the end of January 2010. The competition, intended to find an iconic logo for… Read More ›
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Dan Dare Figures: Sneek Peek
Award-winning toy figure maker Day2Day Trading has just sent us these impressive shots of their new Dan Dare prototype figure, due for release next year (2010). The Dare figure is just the start of a full Dan Dare range from… Read More ›
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Seek and Strike out for the new Commandos…
The latest issues of DC Thomson’s Commando went on sale a day early this week as we bid goodbye to 2009. There’s also some advance news for the next round of issues on sale in January 2010. “We’ll be starting… Read More ›
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Merry Christmas
Well hopefully Santa arrived at your house last night and didn’t look too much like this. New Eagle’s most popular character was of course Dan Dare but its most popular new character was Doomlord.The alien Doomlord Vek from the planet… Read More ›
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Merry Christmas: 1 Day To Go
Our run of Christmas covers continue as we countdown to Christmas Day. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a good Look and Learn Santa cover and this one comes from issue 728 in 1975. With Santa speeding over the snow on… Read More ›
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New Sandman Collections Announced
DC Comics imprint Vertigo has announced new, re-mastered editions of Neil Gaiman’s critically-acclaimed series, Sandman. Beginning next year, Vertigo will publish new trade paperback editions of Sandman in ten volumes – remastered and corrected versions of the comic the Los… Read More ›
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Merry Christmas: 2 Days To Go
Our run of Christmas covers continue as we countdown to Christmas Day. There wasn’t much Christmas cheer on display on the Christmas cover for Bunty in 1987. Indeed it seemed to be all doom and gloom – a miserable Christmas… Read More ›
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Paul Cornell: Hanging with the Captain
Back in 2008, during the publication run of Captain Britain and MI13 by Marvel Comics, downthetubes regular contributor and Judge Dredd: The Megazine feature writer Matt Badham conducted an interview with novelist, comics and TV writer Paul Cornell, as research… Read More ›
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Tube Surfing: Wallace and Gromit, Insomnia on PSP, Free Digital Comics and Christmas Covers
• Titan Publishing’s Wallace & Gromit digital comic has taken the iPhone by storm with over half a million downloads of its first free app – and the company is surely hoping to repeat the success with its release on… Read More ›
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Merry Christmas: 3 Days To Go
Our run of Christmas covers continue as we countdown to Christmas Day. “Merry Christmas, Mortals!” Does anyone actually remember this short run, toy tie-in title from Christmas 1987? Ian Kennedy does his typically superlative full colour cover for the fifth… Read More ›
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In Review: Smart Bomb
(Our apologies to both reviewer Dave Hailwood and the Smart Bomb team for the delay posting this item) Smart Bomb is a brand new all ages anthology that fuses computer game geekiness with comic-style nerdiness. You can be forgiven for… Read More ›
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Striker Returns
Long-running football strip Striker is set to return – this time as a weekly strip in an as yet unnamed magazine. A Striker movie is also again in development. Announcing the return on the official Striker forum (membership required to… Read More ›