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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Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 8
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One of the Most Beautiful Women in the World: Yvonne De Carlo
I was sorry to read about the death of actress Yvonne De Carlo, star of The Munsters, who died on Monday of natural causes aged 84. The Munsters, which ran for two seasons and enjoyed a couple of follow up… Read More ›
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Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 7
As part of this strip, I added the contents of a note using an image map in the version on the main part of the downthetubes site, but here it is in an easier to find display (plus I have… Read More ›
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New Comics Anthology, MC², Launches
(With thanks to Matthew Badham and Joe Gordon at FPI): MC², a new comics anthology, was launched in November and it’s something that was on my radar to plug but I’ve just been reminded about it thanks to number of related… Read More ›
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Free Classic Comic to Flood Edinburgh in February
(Updated 17/1/07 with thanks to Jeremy Briggs and Alan Grant): 25,000 free copies of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped – including a graphic novel version by Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy – are to be distributed throughout Edinburgh in February in a campaign to get… Read More ›
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Look and Learn Returns
(With thanks to Steve Holland): The first issue of the Look and Learn Company‘s limited run (48 issues) of a magazine made up of the best of the original Look and Learn has just been published and released to subscribers, printed to… Read More ›
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Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 6
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Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 5
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Comics Nostalgia
Cartoonist and writer Lew Stringer has just blasted us with the past on his new blog with a number of covers from fanzines, some going back as far as 1976 headlined with news of the death of Frank Bellamy. It’s… Read More ›
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High Praise for the “Worry Doll” by Matt Coyle
(With thanks to Liam Sharp): The Daily Telegraph has published in interview with Matt Coyle, creator of the forthcoming graphic novel from UK publisher Mam Tor, Worry Doll. The book is a noir story about three dolls who discover the horrific murder… Read More ›
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The Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 4
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The power of personal e-mail marketing…
Some good news from my friend Lou Anders, Editorial Director at US publisher Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books. Last year Lou wrote plugging one of Pyr’s authors, David Louis Edelman, whose novel Infoquake, described on America’s National Public Radio… Read More ›
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The Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 3
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The Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party 2
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Surely straight from the imagination of Charles Stross…
Dutch researchers have recently announced a piece of kit called “RFID Guardian“, which sounds like something straight out of the devilish imagination of SF author Charles Stross (I’m still trying to finish the mind-boggling Accelerando) and could be one in… Read More ›
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Rainbow Orchid wins award
Congratulations to Rainbow Orchid creator Garen Ewing, who I interviewed for downthetubes last year. Rainbow Orchid, a wonderful acrion adventure strip which makes an affectionate tip of the hat to Tin Tin (and has a loyal French comics fan following)… Read More ›
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Really Heavy Greatcoat – The Party
Nick and I started this Really heavy Greatcoat storyline last year but it got interrupted by (yay!) paid work. So I’m posting it here – adapting my blog design to better present the strip, hopefully – in its entirety over… Read More ›
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Credit cards for cats
This surely has to be a theme for a new Really Heavy Greatcoat, when I get time to write some. Reuters reports today that an Australian bank has been forced to apologize after it issued a credit card to a… Read More ›
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The Top Linked-To Blog Posts In 2006
Those infamous Danish cartoons, US TV channel Comedy Central’s news analysis mock-up, “The Colbert Report,” which orchestrated a “wikiality” check for Wikipedia, a petition by LiveJournal bloggers angry about interface changes, anti-Bush sentiment and Technorati proved to be the top… Read More ›
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Tourists ask the strangest things…
After the national press reported some of the strange questions asked of tourist offices across the country this week, including “Are there any lakes in the Lake District?”, “Is Wales closed in the Winter?” and ” What time of night… Read More ›