The Sunday Spotlight – You Want Comics News? We Got Comics News…
by Richard Bruton
It’s Sunday, which means it’s time to take a spin around various bits of comics news and general stuff that I noticed this week… welcome to Sunday Spotlight…
ShortBox Comics Fair – coming in October…
ShortBox Comics Fair is an online-only fair, organised by the great Zainab Akhtar, where 100+ artists from around the world debut new, original comics online.
It aims to serve as a way to give artists the impetus to create something new and to make a big noise about it, maximising the sales of the comics for all concerned. Exhibiting artists retain full ownership/rights of their comics and receive 100% of sales (minus payment processing fees).
It takes place every October… which basically means right now! 100+ artists, incredible quality. Go look.
Posy Simmonds exhibition at BPI Pompidou Paris
Via Paul Gravett, who’s co-curating a new Posy Simmonds exhibition that runs from 22 November 2023 to April 2024.
Thought Bubble Maps & Mid-Con Party…
Thought Bubble, one of the biggest and best comics conventions/festivals in the UK, takes place on 6-12 November, culminating in a rather huge comic con on 11-12 November.
Floor plans have been announced now, meaning you get the chance to get really organised and plot your journey through the various halls to optimise your time. Or, you could do what I always ended up doing and arrive there having really meant to study the plans and end up meandering up and down the endless lines of incredible comic makers. But hey, you might be way more organised – floor plans are here.
And for those of you up for a bit of a boogie, there’s details of the Mid-Con…
Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming… Petrolheads #2 solicits with a seasonal cover…
It’s always scary how the year seems to accelerate once you hit September and there’s suddenly the encroachment of all that Christmas crap in the stores. But… it also means it’s the time that we get the December solicits for comics, including plenty with a festive twist, such as this from Rob Williams, Pye Parr, and Image Comics, Petrol Heads issue 2, in comic shops on 6 December.
Here’s the PR for issues 1 & 2 of this one – it’s a damn fine comic…
“In a climate crisis-ravaged future metropolis, an old, grumpy, obsolete, smoke-belching, cigar-chomping, Hotrod-racing robot is one 12-year-old girl’s only hope. Together, can they outrace the chasing Robo-Cops with an invention that might just save humanity?
Start your robo-engines! The Chase is on! Petrol Head and Lupa gun it for the SmogZone border with half the O-Zone’s security drones and robo cops on their trail. Can one old racing robot outdrive the best new tech the city can build? And will Lupa’s father survive the experience?”
Battle Action meets 2000 AD went well – but what’s next?
This from 2000 AD writer Ken Niemand on Twitter…
https://twitter.com/KennethNiemand/status/1706991137624318165
So, really good to know that the latest 2000 AD/Megazine crossover thing in Prog 2350 and Meg 460, with those classic Battle Action characters getting first a sci-fi spin and then a full integration into the Dreddverse, has done well. That means we had the alternative Judgement Day in 2022 and the Battle Action crossover in 2023. So, what’s coming in 2024???
Well, the 2000 AD forums and FB groups were all ablaze with guesses. Mostly going for Scream! as the next crossover. But Niemand was quick to burst that particular bubble, saying this…
“Whatever it is, it won’t be another alt timeline/pretend crossover-merger thing. We’ve done that. The creative point is always to try and keep doing something different.
People on 2000A D FB groups: IT’S NOT GOING TO BE SCREAM. Or any other what if…. merger thing. We’ve done that. This’ll be something different.”
Beano? Dennis The Menace & Gnasher? – created in London? Nope, I don’t think so…
Seen down in that there London…
Yep, that’s Dennis The Menace and Gnasher, very much a product of Scotland – published in the Beano by DC Thomson, based in Dundee, Scotland, and created by David Law, born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. So, not ‘Created in London’ then. Sure, in the small print, it changes that to ‘Made in the UK’, but I don’t think that’s going to placate a fair number of Scots comic fans out there!
Happy 35th Anniversary Deadline Mag…
Well, doesn’t that make me feel old, old, old. Launched in 1988, 28 September if that ad was right,
Created by Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon, both of whom have sadly left us, Deadline was such a great mag, absolutely essential to me and many like me in their formative years.
From 1988 to 1995, it published some of the very best comics by some of the very best creators of the time – Tank Girl, Wired World, Hugo Tate, Timulo, Johnny Nemo, Planet Swerve, Alan Martin & Jamie Hewlett, Philip Bond, Brett Ewins, Peter Milligan, Steve Dillon, Glyn Dillon, Nick Abadzis, D’Israeli, Shaky Kane. The list goes on and on. Sure, at times it may have been too much of the times, but damn, it was a fabulous thing to be into.
(Thanks to Reuben Willmott for the reminder.)
