WANT TO BE IMMORTALISED IN SITCOM HISTORY?

29/3/04: BBC Comedy is teaming up with BBC Children In Need to offer a very special prize to one lucky winner. You’ll get the chance to have your name featured in My Hero, starring Ardal O’Hanlon, and become a part of comedy television history!

You’ll also be invited to the recording of the show, and receive a special copy of the episode featuring your name! And with each call to the competition you’ll be donating to BBC Children In Need.

2026 Addendum: The Winner was: Caroline Wilby. The five runners up were: Andrew Scott, Shirley Parsloe, Steve Jukes, Nicola Barry and David Jenkins.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD TIE-IN FOR 2000AD

20/3/04: Rich Johnston reports over on Silver Bullets that British SF weekly comic 2000AD will be publishing an exclusive, five-page Shaun of the Dead story, written by star and co-writer Simon Pegg and director and co-writer Edgar Wright, with art from friend-of-this-column Frazer Irving.

The first issue will hit newsstands on 7th April with prog 1384, two days before the film, produced by Working Title, goes national in the UK.

LANCASHIRE SPAWNS NEW DOCTOR WHO

20/3/04: Lancashire-born actor Christopher Eccleston has been announced as the BBC’s new “Doctor Who”.

The Scotsman and other news sources confirmed rumours circuating for days on the Internet that actor Christopher Eccleston is to be the new Doctor Who when the cult sci-fi show returns to our screens next year.

Eccleston, star of Flesh and Blood and The Second Coming, will appear as the TV Time Lord in the 13-part BBC1 series to be shown in 2005.

The BBC said the Salford-born 40-year-old would take the famous doctor into the 21st century in a “fresh and modern approach” involving travelling through time and space and fighting monsters on all fronts.

Doctor Who appears as a comic strip in Panini’s Doctor Who Magazine.

• Read more about the new series on Outpost Gallifrey and the BBC’s Doctor Who pages

DON LAWRENCE’S STORM ARRIVES IN MAY

20/3/04: The Storm books featuring painted artwork by the late, great Don Lawrence, should start appearing in May in English.

The Storm series, which has a massive following in Europe but has seen few short-lived printings in the UK, originally appeared in the Dutch comic Eppo (no longer published), shortly after Don left UK strip “The Trigan Empire”. Don went on to produce 22 books featuring the adventures of Storm and his companion Ember plus one volume of Commander Grek (the strip was abandoned after 31 pages and later completed as a kind of Storm prequel).

For the past 15 years, Dutch fan Rob van Bavel has been collecting all of Don’s comic strips, illustrations and drawings into hardback volumes — high quality publications produced as limited editions in Dutch. After completing Don Lawrence: The Collection, he began working on Storm: The Collection, each volume of which contains two of the original books. The series is complete in 12 volumes and Rob is now working on a series of volumes which will reprint all the “Trigan Empire” stories Don produced, which will launch later this year (See earlier story and appeal for artwork).

Both Storm and “The Trigan Empire” will also be published in English language editions. Each volume of Storm is being newly translated and the Trigan volumes, although relettered, are 99.9% the original text as written by Mike Butterworth.

British comics expert Steve Holland been working on these for the past couple of months. “I’m pleased to say that the first two Storm volumes should be heading to the printers shortly,” Steve told downthetubes.net. “I’m now working on the first Trigan volume which we’ll hopefully have finished by the end of the month.”

• Ordering information can be found at the official Don Lawrence Fanclub website

CLASSIC CAPTAIN SCARLET

16/3/04: An online petition has been set up to encourage Carlton Books to produce a Captain Scarlet version of the Thunderbirds Classic Comic Strips.

You can sign this petition at ipetitions.com/campaigns/scarlet_strips (2026 Wayback Machine Link – no longer running!)

Thunderbirds Classic Comic Strips collects the best Thunderbirds comic strip stories from the 1960s has been created using rare surviving copies of the original comics, all in mint condition from the authors’ archive, ensuring the highest possible quality of reproduction. This has never been achieved before – previous collections have had to make do with copying from copies, with poor results.

The book includes many additional features, including eight pages from the original issues of TV 21 advertising Thunderbirds merchandise of the day, plus an introduction giving info about the artists and their inspiration, this collectors’ edition is a must-have for Thunderbirds fans young and old.

• More details of the Thunderbirds Classic Comic Strips can be found on writer and artist Graham Bleathman’s web site (Wayback Link)

WEBCOMIX EVENT THIS WEEK

12/3/04: Several UK webcomics producers will be part of a one day event in London this week (20th March), to promote their work. The webcomixthing event, at the Octagon in Stepney promises to be a fun packed day of web and mini comix action where over 30 of the UK’s current leading web and mini comix creators will be exhibiting and selling their work. 

You’ll be able to buy comix, talk to the creators, find out how you can do it, or have industry veterans review your portfolio.

Web link: www.ukwebcomixthing.co.uk (Wayback Link)

SKINN LAUNCHES COMIX 

12/3/04: Former Warrior and Marvel UK editor Dez Skinn’s launches his new book, Comix: The Underground Revolution, happening at the ICA on Friday April 16th at 7pm. Guests include Hunt Emerson, Bryan Talbot and Gilbert Shelton. Tickets are £8, £7 concessions and £6 for members of the ICA. 

DIAMOND REFUSES TO DISTRIBUTE STRIKER

9/3/04, updated 12/3/04: Diamond Comics (UK) has refused to distribute the British weekly football comic Striker to specialist comic shops. Publisher Pete Nash told downthetubes.net Diamond claimed football comics don’t sell (Striker sells 25,000 plus weekly on the UK news stand) and computer generated art isn’t popular.

Diamond Comics US will be distributing the sports-inspired NBA Comics later this year, however, which will also be distributed through Wal-Mart, which owns UK supermarket chain ASDA.

Striker launched last year after 18 years in The Sun newspaper and has a loyal following in the UK and Ireland. 

Whatever Diamond thinks of the comic, why should that affect distributing it? 

Surely 25,000 readers a week can’t be wrong. Is this some kind of comic fan snobbery at work? 

• You can subscribe to Striker direct from the publisher at www.striker3d.net

• Follow the discussion about Diamond’s decision, including comments by publisher Pete Nash, on the Comicon discussion board: Go

MY HERO MARATHON

5/3/04: According to the UKTV web site, Saturday 6th March is My Hero Day. 

On UK Gold, they’re running all of Series 3 of the BBC superhero comedy series back to back, starting at 09:00 and then the first eight episodes again starting at 15:40 (all repeated 1 hour later on UK Gold +1). 

Then on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 March, they’re showing the last two episodes of Series 2 “Pregnant” and “Wedding” (again repeated an hour later on UK Gold +1 

We wonder when they’ll get to Series 4? (Thanks to Paul Wood for this).

• Read more about My Hero

DON’T GO DOWN TO THE WOODS… 

4/3/04: British company Boychild Productions has released its first graphic novel, Angel of the Woods. 

Written by comic book writer and film maker Sean Michael Wilson, who has had several short comic stories published in independent comics in the UK and USA, the story centres on a mysterious creature who subtly terrorises two young couples on holiday in the woods. Though the others are terrified, one of the young men begins to develop an affinity with the creature, which causes a fundamental psychological change to occur in him. What is the nature of its interest in him? 

Drawn by Jorge Heufemann from Argentina, who has been working professionally for several years in Italian comic books, Angel of the Woods has been highly praised by professionals who have seen it, and has already received an arts council England grant! 

The book is a US format graphic novel, 84 b/w pages, colour card cover, illustrated in a rather classical European art style. It is available direct from the boychild website for £5.99 in UK/ $8.99 in US (posting and packing £1 or $2 extra) via Paypal or by cheque.

Web Links: 

• Boychild Productions: www.boychildproductions.co.uk (Wayback Link)

• An interview with Sean Michael Wilson on Silver Bullets (Wayback Link)

• Jorge Heufemann’s web site (Wayback Link)

MISTY SITE PLANS HALLOWE’EN SPECIAL 

2/3/04: The Misty web site (www.mistycomic.co.uk) dedicated to the much-praised 1970s girls comic of the same name is planning a Hallowe’en Special that will capture the feel of the original publication. 

The aim for the Special, which will feature stories, features and posters submitted by Misty fans, is to reproduce the feel of the issues, annuals and specials of old, but with a heavy influence from Misty web site readers. Further information about contributing to the Halloween Special via: submissions@mistycomic.co.uk

Full artwork must be submitted on A4+ paper/card, or digitally generated and received by 30 June 2004. Written stories or features submitted as text only entries, to be received by 30 June 2004. Written stories submitted with a view to being illustrated, to be received by 30 April 2004. 

All entries to be sent to: Misty Comic, PO Box 7266, Nottingham NG6 0WB. (Please include your full name and address if you wish your artwork to be returned.) Or send digitally generated art to: misty@mistycomic.co.uk

BATMAN RENAMED

1/3/04: Variety reports that the fifth Batman movie, due to start shooting this month in the UK and Iceland is now called Batman Begins, not Batman: Intimidation as had previously been reported. 

According to Variety Warner Brothers has been using the Intimidation title as a code name to thwart fans from following the projects development.

Batman Begins is an origins story — Dreamwatch magazine reported this month on the film’s plot — with the action in the film predating the Cape Crusader’s capers in his previous four feature length films. 

Casting is nearly complete with the addition of Japanese actor Ken Watanabe as Batman’s arch nemesis, Ra’s Al-Ghul. Christopher Nolan directs.

COMICS 2004 FESTIVAL

1/3/04: The Bristol-based Comics Festival has just released a new list of guests which includes Ultimate X-men artist Bob Finch.

BRIAN LEWIS INFO SOUGHT

1/3/04: Webmaster Jim Croasdale is looking for information about the artist Brian Lewis for a bio on his excellent UK comic art web site, britishcomicart

Eagle readers may remember him illustrating “Mann of Battle” in the mid 1960s. He also drew “Captain Condor” in Lion and various Gerry Anderson strips (“UFO”, “Stingray” and “Thunderbirds”) for Polystyle.

He worked for House of Hammer magazine in the mid 1970s, producing covers and comic strip adaptations of Hammer films. He drew a few covers for 2000AD and Starlord as well as a “Dan Dare” story in 2000AD issues 61-63.