Articles on creating comics, how tos, reference information and more
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival Podcast team have just released Episode 32, which features a great interview with crime novelist and comics writer Ian Rankin. The creator of the Rebus novels chats about his career, his love of comics… Read More ›
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has announced this year’s “Friday Sessions” – a full day of talks and discussions exploring comic art in all its guises, taking place Friday 12th October 2018 as part of the Festival weekend in Kendal. The… Read More ›
Artist Chris Weston created the cover for this week’s 2000AD, on sale now in all good newsagents and comic shops, and he kindly gave downthetubes permission to share his Work in Progress work that led to the final cover. Featured… Read More ›
Artist and writer Keith Page shines a light on the work and impact of Corto Maltese creator Hugo Pratt, on his own work and that of others… Hugo Pratt (1927 – 1995) was a most unusual comics creator by British… Read More ›
Comic artist Frank Bellamy died suddenly on 5th July 1976, at the height of his powers. He left behind a body of work that included strips such as “Heros the Spartan” and “Dan Dare” for Eagle, “Thunderbirds” for TV Century… Read More ›
Small Press Day, a celebration of self-publishing, DIY culture, and grassroots comics across the UK and Ireland is back for a third outing this Saturday, 7th July 2018 – and there are a whole host of happenings taking place around… Read More ›
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival Podcast team visited Macc-Pow in Macclesfield last month, now in its third year. Podcast co-host Nikki Bates stood behind the table selling comics for the first time, while Ian Loxam had a great chat with… Read More ›
Stan Lee has been a hero of Tim Quinn’s since he read one of his comics when he was just seven…
Back in the early 1990s, just before Marvel UK went a bit crazy with multiple US titles with the word “Death” in them, artist and writer Brian Williamson and I co-created Shadow Riders, who eventually were drawn by Ross Dearsley… Read More ›
Will Eisner is one of the comic industry’s all-time greats. He has been held in high regard by fans and pros alike for many years to the point where the most prestigious awards in the comic industry were named after… Read More ›
Donald L. “Don” Heck was an American comics artist best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics character Iron Man (not the character’s design, but plenty more that shaped him), and for his long run penciling the Marvel superhero-team series The… Read More ›
The latest 2000AD Sci Fi Special was released last week and I mentioned how much I enjoyed the Terror Tale, “The Hockey Sticks of Hell”, from writer Olivia Hicks with art by Abigail Bulmer. Phillip Vaughan, Senior Lecturer at the University… Read More ›
More than anything else, comics sell on their covers, but which ones stick most in your mind in your years of collecting? For me, there are plenty, but here are just a few that caught my attention at an early… Read More ›
Rare original reference material from Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare studio, including Astronomical Photographs, are currently for sale on eBay. These boards of “Astronomical Photographs”, which come from Frank Hampson’s estate, were reference files from his Dan Dare studio. As with… Read More ›
I’ve known ace VIZ cartoonist Davey Jones since the 1980s, back when he contributed some of his amazing early strips to a fanzine I published (a chaotic assemblage with inconsistent numbering and format sizes, including one edition that literally, physically… Read More ›
George Herriman was an American cartoonist, best known for the influential comic strip “Krazy Kat” – but did you know its much appreciated characters sprang from an entirely different strip? Harriman established a name for himself as a much in… Read More ›
downthetubes contributor and comics archivist Richard Sheaf has shared plenty of strange British comic one shots and short-lived titles over on his brilliant Boys Adventure Blog, and while his recent coverage of Gilbert’s Fridge intrigued, I think it’s more than… Read More ›
In a trio of interviews recorded at academic events for the comics radio show Panel Borders, Alex Fitch talks to three writers of academic books about comics. At the IGNCC conference at the University of Dundee, Alex talks to David… Read More ›
Beano cartoonist and Lakes International Comic Art Festival patron Zoom Rockman is the guest of the organisation’s podcast this week. Zoom is a young creator who started producing comics from a young age, He appeared in the Beano at age… Read More ›
The Borders Book Festival in the Scottish town of Melrose, perhaps best known for its Abbey and the Melrose Sevens rugby tournament, is not a literature festival that normally covers comics in any great depth but that has changed this… Read More ›