The Sunday Spotlight: This Week’s News From Comicsland

Welcome once more to The Sunday Spotlight, Comicon’s collection of what you might have missed in comics news this week…

Molesworth animation finally happening?

This one’s been around for a long, long time – Uli Meyer‘s debut animation feature adapting the glorious work of Geoffrey Williams and Ronald Searle (creator of St Trinian’s and a personal favourite artist) with Molesworth.

The news is now that GFM Animation have picked up the global sales rights to Meyer’s upcoming Molesworth – and a teaser trailer is below.

If you didn’t know, Molesworth was a series of best-selling books by Willans and illustrated by Searle, featuring the life and adventures of one young Nigel Molesworth, pupil at English boy’s prep school St Custards. The animation will bring the characters of Molesworth back in an original tale with Matt Lucas voicing young Nigel.

Meyer’s work includes Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Mary Poppins Returns, and the 2019 version of Aladdin. But the Molesworth movie has a sense of a labour of love – indeed, it was an animation test (that you can see below as well) that has the blessing of Searle – Meyer visited Searle before he died and he’s the only creator with Searle’s permission to work with Searle’s iconic and magnificent characters.

 

90 years old and going strong… Dan Schkade brings back Flash Gordon:

Created by Alex Raymond in 1934, you should all know the name Flash Gordon, one of the most successful newspaper strips of all time. The newspaper strip ended in 2003… but it’s now back and looking fabulous in the hands of Dan Schkade, whose great work’s been featured here on Webcomic Weekly several times.

It comes as part of King Features’ new partnership with Mad Cave Studios to bring out new Flash Gordon comics, including plans for a younger readers version through Mad Cave’s middle-grade imprint, Papercutz. But first out the traps in a new newspaper strip, picking up from the end of the original run, written and drawn by Dan Schkade and running in newspapers and online at Comics Kingdom.

 

Thought Bubble’s Art Trail:

As we keep telling you, Thought Bubble Comics Festival is THE big one for the UK, bringing together hundreds of comic folks and thousands of fans across the weekend of 11-12 November in Harrogate.

And they’ve just announced that they’re having a “city-wide exhibition of all of our incredible festival images, by artists such as Becky Cloonan, Tula Lotay, Choo, Natalie Andrewson, and many more.”

It’s a good bit of promotion for the Festival, filling the shops of nearby Leeds with art and comic images in 16 independent stores, including the great OK Comics – a fine, fine comic shop you should really add to that list of places to visit.

The images will be hosted in 16 independent Leeds venues: Miles and Co, OK Comics, The Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen, Kapow Coffee, Crash Records, Northern Guitars, Water Lane Boathouse, The Bookish Type, Nation of Shopkeepers, Jumbo Records, Travelling Man, Fred Aldous, North Taproom, Eat Your Greens, The Social Bar, and Outlaws Yacht Club.

 

Hunt Emerson’s got a fabulous Christmas gift for you:

I know it’s a bit early yet – although I’m sure some of you will be already getting things done for the festive season. But I’ll make an exception here because it’s coming from one of Britain’s finest cartoonists, Hunt Emerson. He’s got a brand new book coming out, a perfect Christmas pressie for you… Hunt Emerson’s Christmas Cards. It’s 40 pages of A5 Christmas brilliance in full colour that collects Hunt’s Christmas cards that he’s sent out every year since the early ’70s, plus other seasonally suitable bits.

Get them from Hunt’s website, signed for you as well!

 

And speaking of great new books for you – Jonathan Edwards’ Black & White Portraits:

Always loved Jonathan Edwards’ work – and I know I’m not alone. Beautiful imagery, fabulous comics, and someone whose landscapes and urban sketches are just so good.

Anyway, his latest sketchbook goes in a different direction, a 64-page book of black and white portraits…

 

Sara Varon’s Robot Dreams adapted to animation:

Sara Varon’s 2007 graphic novel, the charming and delightful Robot Dreams is getting the animated treatment and it’s already winning awards – this year’s Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film d’Animation d’Annecy.

The book and the film show us the simple tale of friendship between a New York dog and his mail-ordered robot. But like all of Varon’s work, including Bake Sale, Odd Duck, and Detective Sweet Pea, it’s a simple yet beautiful story, with meaning a-plenty to be drawn from it, no matter what the age of the reader.

Animation Magazine talks to Pablo Berger about the film and adapting Varon’s graphic novel here.

 

Comic Swipes:

A shout-out now to the great Comics Swipes group over on Facebook, a collection of homages and swipes, from which this… Rich Burchett brilliantly homaging Harvey Kurtzman’s classic Mad cover for a 1999 Batman: Gotham Adventures:

 

And speaking of homages, The Doctor Who 2023 Specials air dates have been announced:

We have air dates for the three new Doctor Who specials – ‘The Star Beast‘ premieres on November 25, followed by ‘Wild Blue Yonder‘ on December 2, and ‘The Giggle‘ on December 9. Starring David Tennant as the 14th Doctor, reuniting with Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble, the specials are masterminded by returning showrunner Russell T. Davies. These three lead into the (presumed) Christmas special where we’ll see Ncuti Gatwa take over as Doctor number 15.

We’ve also had new promo posters for the specials…

The Star Beast, as we’ve previously mentioned in Sunday Spotlight, is pulled direct from the story of the same name with Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor from Doctor Who Magazine (Doctor Who Weekly back then) from 1980, written by Pat Mills (it’s jointly credited to Mills and John Wagner but they actually took it in turns to write the tales) and drawn by Dave Gibbons.

And, as pointed out by Time Bomb Comics’ Steve Tanner, there’s a little homage going on with the Star Beast poster…

 

And finally – David Squires on Sir Bobby Charlton…

The world of football lost one of England’s finest footballers on 21 October. One of the Busby Babes and a survivor of the Munich air crash of 1958 that killed many of his teammates, Bobby Charlton was a legend of the game.

And amid all the tributes that have poured in, none were so eloquent and moving as this by David Squires in the Guardian…