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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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 ›
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Merry Christmas: 4 Days To Go
Our run of Christmas covers continue as we countdown to Christmas Day. By far the oldest of our Christmas covers for this year, the girl’s comic School Friend wished their readers “A Very Happy Christmas” in December 1962 with this… Read More ›
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Merry Christmas: 5 Days To Go
Our run of Christmas covers continue as we countdown to Christmas Day. DC Thomson’s humour comics can always be relied on to do Christmas issues. Christmas 1984 brought these offerings from the digest sized Beano Comic Library. Pup Parade are… Read More ›
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Merry Christmas: 6 Days To Go
As the 25th of December rapidly bears down on us, each day for the next week downthetubes will be taking a look at a selection of comics and magazines from past Christmases.Speed and Power was Look and Learn’s sibling, using… Read More ›
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Strip! – Cartoons in Classrooms
In the last of this month’s shows looking at the use of comics in education, the Strip! radio show, broadcast on Resonance FM and now available as a podcast, have interviews with a variety of practitioners and tutors with an… Read More ›
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Tube Surfing: Mike Collins Draws New Who, Harker, Alternative Press News…
Some quick, short items today, as I’m immersed in some research for Titan and other things… • A slew of updates from ever busy comics artist Mike Collins, which are mostly Doctor Who related, including an original graphic novel for… Read More ›
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Simon Mackie: Positively Christmas
downthetubes gets a lot of eCards, and we put all the artist contributuons here on Flickr, because we can’t think of anywhere else to display them. But this year Simon Mackie has again outdone others with a whole Christmas-inspired comic… Read More ›
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Eagle Times Warms Up Winter (Volume 22 Number 4, Winter 2009)
The latest issue of Eagle Times (Volume 22 Number 4, Winter 2009) is now available from the Eagle Society, wrapped in this cheery winter scene that illustrated an article titled ‘He wants to be a Postman’ from the Christmas issue… Read More ›
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Fractal Friction springs from love of 2000AD
A number of long-time fans of 2000AD have banded together to launch Fractal Friction, an online collaborative storytelling venture, a story that starts when a man turns up for a job interview only for it to lead to something altogether… Read More ›
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Mirabalis Christmas Ghost Story is an Online Gem
We plugged the Mirabilis team’s free-to-download Year of Wonders PDF comic just yesterday, but we’re so knocked out by the Henry James-styled Christmas ghost story that we’re urging you all to head over and grab your own copy – described… Read More ›
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British Comic Creator Interviews on SciFiPulse
Longtime downthetubes readers know this site trades news items with the superb science fiction TV, film and genre site SciFiPulse, but what with recent holidays here in the tubes, we’ve missed some of their coverage of British comics. So here’s… Read More ›
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Tube Surfing: Death’s Head, Poot, Chattyman and a Christmas Competition
• Death’s Head is back! And not some Johnny-Come-Lately Death’s Head II or III, or even the bit-on-the-small-side Version I, the result of an encounter with the good Doctor and his TARDIS. No, Marvel’s new S.W.O.R.D. title features everyone’s favourite… Read More ›
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SciFi Art Now book gets green light
ILEX Books have given the green light to SciFi Art Now, a book project assembling outstanding examples of the very best in science fiction art, which is being edited by downthetubes webmaster John Freeman. John hopes plenty of illustrators from… Read More ›
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The Really Heavy Greatcoat Review of the Year 2009
Yes – a new Really Heavy Greatcoat! Longtime downthetubes readers will know the Greatcoat strip was the joint creation of myself and Nick Miller back in 1987 (more info here), but what with other work commitments and the assumed demise… Read More ›
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Road of Courage film in the works
A film adaptation of the life of Christ inspired by The Road of Courage, a strip that first appeared in Eagle in the 1960s, is apparently in production. Re-titled Jerusalem A.D., the project, based on the illustrations of Frank Hampson,… Read More ›