If you’ve been in any branch of WH Smiths or a local supermarket of late it can’t have escaped your attention that retailers have launched their first forays in the 2014 Christmas Offensive – and that includes offerings of calendars and diaries. But you don’t want to be buying the latest Meerkats Calendar of some other mass-produced offering featuring the latest boy band!
No, what you need to be doing is support your favourite comic artist savvy enough to spot an opportunity in the market and check their web site to see it they’re offering their own 2015 calendar. Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll discover one of your favourite cartoonists has been lucky enough to be commissioned to produce a calendar that’s rubbing shoulders with those boy band offerings.
By way of example, here’s the Football Earth 2015 Calendar from Carousel Calendars by cartoonist Steve English, based on his panel cartoon about how animals might play… well, football (the Natural Game, as Steve, the winner of the ROK Comics humour competition 2007 and the Tartan Bucket Prize 2011, likes to call it).
Football Earth has been running for six years and is still going strong. In that time it has had a short stint in BeanoMAX, and as a ROK Comic. Currently, it features regularly in two national football papers and a New York soccer magazine, as well as being translated into Italian for a publication in Rome.
The 2015 calendar features twelve of the best of Steve’s early cartoons and is available from The Calendar Club, or those calendar stalls (and shops) that spring up in shopping malls in the run up to Christmas.
Steve tells us he’s pleased to say that he has just been offered a contract for a 2016 calendar by Carousel, the UK’s largest calendar publisher. Yes, these companies plan that far ahead…
• Buy the Football Earth 2015 Calendar direct from The Calendar Club
• Steve’s website is www.footballearth.net
• To Steve’s his current collection of cartoons visit gocomics.com, run by Universal, where there is a full archive of cartoons and an opportunity to get Football Earth (renamed Soccer Earth for the US) delivered to your inbox every week
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.
Categories: British Comics, downthetubes Comics News, Featured News, Merchandise
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