… The Two Doctors in question being Doctor Who and Marvel’s Doctor Strange. It was TV Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel who proposed a Doctor Who/ Doctor Strange crossover and submitted a plot to me around 1991/92, about the… Read More ›
downthetubes News
British comic and creator news, book news, media news. If it’s news, it’s here.
Happy Birthday Beano: The Dandy’s Better!
One last word from the Happy Birthday Beano exhibition in the Lamb Gallery in Dundee. One of the first things you see on entering the exhibition gallery from the stairway is a comments book for the exhibition and it has… Read More ›
Ron Smith in Book and Magazine Collector
The long running series of articles on Great British Comics Artists by David Ashford and Norman Wright in Book and Magazine Collector has reached part 28. This time the subject is Ron Smith and it is the first time that… Read More ›
In Review: Happy Birthday Beano Event At Dundee University
GASP! Would you believe it? The Beano is 70! Taking place on 30 July 2008, which was The Beano’s 70th birthday date, this event had been billed as the official opening of the Happy Birthday Beano exhibition in the University’s… Read More ›
Digital Publisher Relaunches
US publisher Platinum Studios has announced the global relaunch of the ad-funded e-book distribution service WOWIO (www.WOWIO.com), which was recently acquired by the company that also runs the web comics portal DrunkDuck.com. WOWIO was founded with the vision of giving… Read More ›
New Online Kids Comic Launches
A Birmingham-based company has launched Taymai Comic+, a new online comic which its makers hope will enable which enable the owners of new and existing characters to build fan bases by using the internet. Described as the first ever internet… Read More ›
Online Comic Creator Tools
I posted this list of Online Comic Creator Tools on the ROK Comics Creator Forum some time ago, but I think it may well be of interest to folks here… I’ve been having a dig around on the Internet and… Read More ›
Mama, We’re All Connected Now…
Good news for online comic creators comes via research from KenRadio.com (registration required) that nearly a quarter of the world’s population – roughly 1.4 billion people – will use the Internet on a regular basis in 2008. This number is… Read More ›
Happy 70th Birthday, Beano!
As Britain’s top weekly humour comic The Beano celebrates its 70th birthday, downthetubes asked comic creators to offer their birthday wishes, and the first received have now been published in a special tribute section on the main downthetubes site, including… Read More ›
Sun, Sangria and San Diego…
• It’s the San Diego Comic Con this weekend and many British comic creators, including Grant Morrison, have headed to the sunshine state for the monstrous event, surrounded by thousands of sweating people and lovely ladies in very few clothes… Read More ›
Tube Surfing: 25 July 2008
• Steve Winders has reviewed Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future Voyage to Venus Part 1 , Orion’s new audio version of the first half of Dan Dare’s first ever adventure from Eagle for Bear Alley, noting it sticks rigidly… Read More ›
Turn your iphone into a light saber
Warning: video above includes swearing… If there was ever a reason to buy an iphone, surely the PhoneSaber app is it, now available free from the Apple “App Store”. This fun little app fires up a virtual lightsaber that uses… Read More ›
Tube Surfing: 23 July 2008
Two DVD releases coming soon from the worlds of Gerry Anderson are worth a mention. The last of the major Anderson productions to reach UK DVD, the 1969 live action feature film Doppelganger, will be released under its American title… Read More ›
More Halloween Comics on the way
Following the success of Halloween: Nightdance, the four issue mini-series based on the popular film franchise, more Halloween-inspired comics are on their way, after issues one and two of the mini series proved so popular publishers Devil’s Due have had… Read More ›
Comic Book Adventures in Time and Space!
A group of Manchester comic and Doctor Who fans have organised a special event on 18 October at the Lass O’Gowrie, Manchester featuring several top creator names including Paul Cornell (left) and Steve Dillon. Vworp Vworp! Comic Book Adventures in… Read More ›
The Graphic Art of Comment
With the flurry of outrage over New Yorker‘s recent Barrack Obama cover, a new exhibition of cartoons commenting on politics and more published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper may well gain more attention than usual.The Graphic Art of Comment runs from… Read More ›
Tube Surfing: 20 July 2008
• Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett has been interviewed by The Guardian. “His is the pen behind Eighties comic-strip heroine Tank Girl, virtual band Gorillaz and the opera Monkey,” the article opens, “and soon you’ll be seeing his animated title… Read More ›
How to Draw a Cartoon Cat
Esbjorn Jorsater, who runs the Comic Art School forum on Ning, has come up with a novel use for ROK Comics — as a way to deliver tutorials! Esbjorn has created this simple guide to creating a cartoon cat, which… Read More ›
New British ebook service launches
Just launched in the past few weeks is Myebook.com (www.myebook.com), a new web-based ebook community from a British company, which aims to give people the tools to create book content and ‘get it out there’ for free. Every aspect of… Read More ›
Comic Book Movies
Brian Bolland has provided the artwork for the “Comic Book Movies – Graphic novels on the big screen” festival at the BFI on London’s Southbank. Showing a non-identified spandex-wearing hero (is it Directorman? FirstGripman? Gafferman?) the season of movies is… Read More ›