The Sunday Spotlight: This Week’s Comic News And Nonsense You May Have Missed

by Richard Bruton

Welcome to another edition of Sunday Spotlight, where I throw all the things I wanted to talk to you about but didn’t get the chance to in front of you in one giant expelling of the comics news…

(Already did an obituary for him earlier in the week, but here’s another thing from the very talented Joe Matt, who died this week. Way too young)

So, what have I looked at this week, thought I should really do something with that and then got to the end of the week and realised that no, unless I invent another few hours in the day, that’s not going to happen?

Well, shall we take a little look…

The Comics Cultural Impact Collective launches…

The Comics Cultural Impact Collective (CCIC – pronounced seasick) launched recently, an independent group of professionals within the UK comics community who have the goal of raising the awareness of the cultural impact of comics, which is a fine, fine thing and something that always needs doing.

They currently consist of Nyla Ahmad, Hannah Berry, Karrie Fransman, Rhiannon Griffiths, Sara Kenney, Myfanwy Tristram, and Zara Slattery – a group full of incredible talent in comics, writing, and art.

The raising awareness of comics goal is always a good and noble idea. But this is a group that seems to have more of an idea of how to actually go about it. Looking at their aims and objectives, they’re seeking to gather the data and act on it to redress any imbalance in cultural funding, as well as creating a non-profit to assist in getting funding, opportunities, and support to comics makers, and working with groups to raise the profile of comics across the UK.

The Bookseller publishes a special comics and graphic novel issue

The current issue of The Bookseller, the business magazine of the book trade, has a comics and graphic novels issue. Inside, there’s a publishers highlight on the ever-excellent Avery Hill and the CCIC group’s Karrie Fransman presents the first results of their investigations into funding, diversity, audiences, and accessibility in comics in ‘The Power of Comics.‘

And while we’re talking creators’ right… more on Bill Willingham and Fables…

Well, as we reported last week, Bill Willingham made the rather surprising step of putting Fables, or at least his 50% ownership of Fables, his very successful DC Comics series, into public ownership after reporting his repeated disappointment in and objections to DC’s treatment of him and his work.

Of course, this being copyright law, nothing is ever as simple as it looked. Initially, there was a thought, put out by Willingham, that the public domain aspect meant that you, me, anyone, could take the ideas and scenarios of the series and put out something new.

DC, not at all surprisingly, said something very, very different. I’m paraphrasing, but effectively it was ‘Oh no you f***ing can’t.’

Anyway, there have been many, many different takes on all this going on around and about, very few of whom have all of the answers or even know where to start.

However, this piece by Cory Doctorow, at Pluralistic.net, puts forward a fascinating argument about things. Doctorow has far more understanding of all this, he was one of those involved in creating the Creative Commons licence back in 2002. And even he sums it all up at one point with this… ‘But it’s also muddy.’

And then goes on to discuss IP rights and what a muddy, murky, nightmarish world they are. Anyway. Go read.

Colin MacNeil sells an iconic piece of Judge Dredd history…

Colin MacNeil posted up on Facebook this week that he’s putting the cover painting for Judge Dredd Megazine #7, the iconic America cover, up for sale. It’s the last piece of classic Dredd art MacNeil owns and it’s THE piece that should see quite a pretty sum. He’s reporting that he’s had an offer of £3,000 so far, but I imagine that it should go for a hell of a lot more than that.

America Jara was named after the land of the free and the brave. Thing is, that America doesn’t exist any more.

Published in 1991, Megazine #7 included the final part of America, by John Wagner and MacNeil. It’s a series considered by so many to be one of the absolute essential Judge Dredd tales, a stunning look at the effect of a fascist police state on the people of MC-1.

Lizz Lunney’s art hanging off a building…

Lizz Lunney‘s a great comic artist, her quirky and funny comics always a delight. But I never expected to be seeing her art hanging off the side of a building in London. But here you go… life is strange. It’s her character Fischbits for part of London Art Collective’s On Purple exhibition.

New Juanjo Guarnido sketchbook available…

The Art of Juanjo Guarnido, the artist behind Blacksad, is available right now from Essential Sequential – right here.

Neil & Logan Cameron introduce Villinoos to the Phoenix Comic…

So, Neill Cameron needed a new strip for The Phoenix Comic, something short and silly and it just so happened that his son, Logan, had just the thing… The Villinoos.

Set in the far future, The Villinoos are in an eternal space war with humanity. Leading this race of spiky purple evil aliens is Lord Villinos, ‘an insane four-armed Space Psychopath with no regard for morality or life in general.’ There’s also sweet Neville, failed Villinoo Clone Soldier ‘who sees Villinos as a (somewhat abusive) parental figure.’

Each week, Lord Villinos will be out to conquer the galaxy and/or beat humanity. And each week, Neville will end up accidentally ruining the plans in wonderfully silly ways. Frankly, it sounds perfectly daft.

For more on The Villinos, go read Cameron’s substack newsletter (subscribe here) and remember to pick up The Phoenix Comic weekly.

Kevin Smith’s having a bit of an art sale…

Kevin Smith is relocating and has decided to have something of a sale of his stuff. And, as this is Kevin Smith we’re talking about, that’s a LOT of stuff. Amongst all this stuff is a load of comic art – and it’s going up for auction with Bodnar’s. Preacher, Hitman, The Demon, Green Arrow, Daredevil, The Sandman… just a few that are mentioned.

The auction will also be donating a portion of the proceeds from the auction towards a scholarship at The Joe Kubert School, a damn good cause.

The auction takes place on 27th September – more info here. Smith will be on the live broadcast to talk about the pieces as they go under the hammer.

Four pieces from the auction – top left, Mage – Matt Wagner, top right, Hitman – John McCrea, bottom left, Preacher – Steve Dillon, bottom right, Green Arrow, Matt Wagner

And Happy Birthday Joe Kubert…

Speaking of Joe Kubert, the comics great would have been celebrating his birthday this week – born on September 18, 1926.

Kubert was the creator of so many absolutely iconic pages of comic book art, with Sgt. Rock perhaps his most iconic work for DC. He was also responsible for the incredible artwork on Hawkman, GI Combat, The Haunted Tank, Enemy Ace, Our Army At War, The Unknown Soldier, Tarzan, Tor, Korak, and so many more during a long and glorious career.

But Kubert was also a teacher, with the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art still active in instructing the future comic superstars. Sadly, Kubert died in 2012 but is survived in comics by both his sons, Andy and Adam, and his grand-daughters Emma and Katie. The Kubert School’s former students include Stephen Bissette, Amanda Conner, Rick Veitch, Eric Shanower, Steve Lieber, Dave Dorman, Matt Hollingsworth, Alex Maleev, Tom Mandrake, Eric Shanower, Dan Parent, Jenny Frison, Ed Piskor, and Scott Kolins.

Kubert was inducted into the Harvey Awards’ Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1997, and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998.

And finally… Spielberg was no fan of Bissette & Veitch’s 1941 adaptation…

Steve Bissette puts up the letter from Steven Spielberg to the editor at Heavy Metal about the adaptation of his movie 1941. Rick Veitch and Bissette made a great book… but Spielberg? Well, safe to say he wasn’t too much of a fan…