Comics by two of the UK’s most outspoken TV personalities and burgeoning writing talents – Jonathan Ross and stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle – will feature in CLiNT Magazine, a new joint venture between Kick Ass creator Mark Millar and Titan Magazines.
Millar’s sequel to his cult comic and smash hit movie will also feature in the monthly title to form a stunning line-up of stories, which debuts 2nd September in the UK and will be on sale in British newsagents as well as specialist comic stores.
The Jonathan Ross strip will first serialise his Image comic Turf, drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards, before moving on to new material. Comics news site Bleeding Cool reported back in May that the Frankie Boyle strip is likely to be the Hereditary/Project Bloodline concept about the descendant of FBI’s Top Ten Wanted supervillains on the run.
“This is The Eagle for the 21st Century,” declares Millar, whose genre-busting Kick-Ass scooped the number one movie spot in the US and whose previous work includes Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.
“I’ve worked on everything from Spider-Man comics to the Iron Man movie for Marvel in New York, but what really excites me is the gap I see in the UK market at the moment. There are absolutely no comic-books aimed at 16-30 year old guys and I think CLiNT has potential to make an enormous impact, bringing a new type of magazine to a new generation.
“I want this to be edgy and irreverent, the kind of thing guys will be passing around lunch-halls and common rooms, and there’s nobody I’d rather have creating new characters for CLiNT than Jonathan and Frankie,” he continues. “They’re both brilliant writers and will surprise a lot of people with this stuff.
The last thing you’d expect from Jonathan, for example, is a vampire strip, but he pulls it off amazingly. People are going to love this.”
Millar is also launching his sequel to the hit Kick-Ass movie in the first issue of the comic. Kick-Ass 2: Balls To The Wall has been scheduled for production in 2011 for a 2012 cinema release, but fans of the first movie can find out what happens two years in advance by picking up CLiNT.
The 100-page magazine will be packed with interviews and features from movies, games and television as well as four serialized comic-strips. The biggest names in entertainment will be featured every month and some will even be sticking around to write sci-fi, humour or horror stories after they’ve been interviewed and quizzed.
“We can’t say who else is involved at this stage,” says Millar. “Jonathan, Frankie and I will have our stories serialized over the first six months, but we have the most insane line-up of creators ready to come in and join us. You’d be amazed how many people who work in film and television want to be comic-book writers. It’s very exciting and we think we’re creating something potentially enormous here.”
Further information on who is involved can be found at twitter.com/clintmag and Facebook, where future developments will be revealed on a regular basis.
• CLiNT #1 is on sale 2nd September in the UK from all good retailers and specialist comic stores. Available in the US by subscription. For future exclusive information on CLiNT, follow twitter.com/clintmag
• A CLiNT wallpaper to brighten up your desktops
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.
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I think people need to give Clint a chance. For all that Mark tends towards the Irn Bru fuelled hyperbolic i do think his heart is in the right place on this one. Of course there is a commercial element to it but do any of us doubt that no matter how successful it is people like Mark, Jonathan, Frankie et al (whether you like their work or not) couldn’t earn more opening a box of cornflakes than writing for comics. i genuinely think this is something they just want to do. The trick will be converting that big name pulling power into decent comics and ones that don’t end in the graveyard of poor celebrity projects like, say, the vast part of the Virgin comics line.
As to content give it a chance – Titan are smart publishers and Mark’s about as wired in as you get – i’m sure they will adapt it as it goes. I bet there is a t least one major non genre work appears quickly here. Personally I hope it’s a huge success – can’t harm comics and to see people with star power and high earnings potential wanting to invest their time in a project like this makes me remember the comic fan inside me.
“I’ve worked on everything from Spider-Man comics to the Iron Man movie for Marvel in New York, but what really excites me is the gap I see in the UK market at the moment. There are absolutely no comic-books aimed at 16-30 year old guys”
2000AD, the Megazine, Panini’s reprints of Marvel/DC are even more this age range. I would have thought the gap in the market was the 9-14 year olds. Too young for Tharg, too old for Ben 10.
And the 1,200+ others.
I’ll give Mark a slagging effortlessly but on this, I think CLiNT is going to be a lot better than people expect it to be. It’ll also be successful. Combined with Strip, and the 1,200+ titles, I think we’re in for some very interesting comics in 2011.
Apart from advertorial for TV properties there is virtually nothing for boys or girls aged 7-14 in the UK market, but I don’t think a mag written, drawn and edited by 30/40-something comics fans is necessarily going to address that. And a monthly schedule is too long to wait between issues for kids – weekly works much better.
John, there are quite a few ‘crossover’ manga that could work in UK boys’ mags and appeal to girls – but there are also many unexplored areas, like short-form strips (yonkoma,) that could be used to break the stereotypes that Western publishers are still forcing manga into.
Then there are all the comics for kids created in France, Belgium. Spain, Italy… if we cast our nets a bit wider we could create a terrific weekly mag that would appeal to a wide range of boys and girls, using translations alone. As Bex points out, there’s so much more to comics than US-inspired superheroes and hardboiled fighters.
I wish CLINT the best of luck, but it would be nice to see some other new titles aimed at different readers.