The Sunday Spotlight: The ‘No Longer Will I Resist Their Earthly Madness’ Edition

Another week rolls by, another Sunday to relax and enjoy the comics news – it’s The Sunday Spotlight…

Joe Sacco’s War On Gaza concludes…

Covered it for Webcomics Weekly just a few weeks ago here, but well worth flagging it up for you again given that Joe Sacco’s hard-hitting and emotive series, The War On Gaza concludes over at The Comics Journal, with the whole thing available to read here.

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UK Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph releases ‘The Laureate Library List’…

Bobby Joseph, UK Comics Laureate (2023-2025) has selected a really impressively diverse and exceptionally good list of graphic novels for distribution to libraries across the UK.

It’s all part of the outreach programme of the Comics Laureate, selecting a list for both children and adults that will help to spotlight excellent books from both UK comic creators and creators around the world that will function to give hard-working librarians and library buyers a simple way to build an excellent graphic novel collection.

The Laureate list is promoted by Arts Council England, the chief funder of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, and will enable the list to be distributed to all UK libraries. You can read the whole Comic Laureate Library List here at Comics Can Change the World.

Here’s a little of what Bobby had to say…

‘The main reason why I created the Laureate list is to give UK Comic creators a spotlight in libraries throughout the whole of the country. Not only does it give them more profile, but it also gives them another revenue stream to gain royalties. This also creates stronger links with comic creatives and libraries. It opens the channels up for more talks or events with UK comic talent. This means voices such as Bex Ollerton, Lucy Sullivan, Shanti Rai, David Shenton, Mark Stafford, Danny Noble, Shazleen Khan and others, are given more opportunities to promote their work.

‘I wanted books that illustrated great stories and great narratives that are representative of what we as the UK can offer. And hopefully, new readers can be achieved, and new bridges built between the UK comic community and libraries because of it.’

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Lew Stringer, Shelly Bond, and Simon Bisley inducted into London Film & Comic Con Hall Of Fame…

Last weeks’ London Film & Comic Con announced it’s second set of Hall of Famers following 2023 recipients Brian Bolland, Hunt Emerson, Dan Slott, and Claudia Christian. This year’s recipients were Simon Bisley, Shelly Bond, Lew Stringer, and Peter Purves for the TV/film-related category.

Shelly Bond, of course, came up through DC Vertigo in’90s and 2000s, where she’d eventually become executive editor from 2013 to 2016. Since DC ditched Vertigo (still a foolish move in my humble opinion), Bond has gone on to bring us Black Crown at IDW, and then as publisher Off Register with husband Philip Bond.

Simon Bisley probably needs little introduction – rock star artist, iconic style, art in 2000 AD, Sláine The Horned God, Hellblazer, Doom Patrol, Judgement on Gotham, and plenty more.

Similarly Peter Purves is well-known in the UK particularly as William Hartnell’s Dr Who companion Steven and for 11 years of presenting classic BBC kids’ TV show Blue Peter in the 70s and 80s.

But one name that was perhaps not as well known, although no less deserving or talented, was Lew Stringer. Active in fanzines from the late ’70s and a professional since 1983, Stringer’s a fine cartoonist responsible for characters such as Tom Thug, Pete and his Pimple, Combat Colin and whose work has appeared in Action Force, Transformers, Sonic The Comic, Beano, The Dandy, Doctor Who Magazine, Elephantman, and plenty more, but he’s also a really lovely bloke as well. Congratulations to him.

He had this to say…

‘My thanks to Tony Lee, Amy McGarry-Thickitt , Antony McGarry-Thickitt for the invite to the very enjoyable London Comic Festival at the weekend, part of the London Film and Comic Con. As well as their hard work running the event, they always made sure guests were looked after and their thoughtfulness was much appreciated.

‘The major highlight for me this year was being inducted into the London Comic Festival Hall of Fame. An award I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.

‘I’ve been going to comic cons for 45 years (40 as a guest) and the positivity, laughs, genuine friendship and mutual respect at the shows are always uplifting. The best of times.’

 

Bruce Timm back on a Batman animated series… yes, please!…

Batman: Caped Crusader – executive producers J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Bruce Timm, arriving on Amazon Prime Video on 1 August 2024.

Well that’s sold me. And then I saw the trailer and was doubly sold. I loved the original Batman: The Animated Series that Bruce Timm had a big, big hand in – and it’s a long-held belief, indeed one of those hills upon which I will die, that the Batman: The Animated Series comic series is the finest Batman series there has ever been.

So anyway, Batman: Caped Crusader – it’s a must watch.

It stars Hamish Linklater as Batman/Bruce Wayne, and has an ensemble cast that includes: Christina Ricci, Jamie Chung, Diedrich Bader, Minnie Driver, Mckenna Grace, Eric Morgan Stuart, Michelle C. Bonilla, Krystal Joy Brown, John DiMaggio, Paul Scheer, Reid Scott, Tom Kenny, Jason Watkins, Gary Anthony Williams, Dan Donohue, David Krumholtz, Haley Joel Osment, and Toby Stephens.

 

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Random House acquires BOOM! Studios…

More publisher news now as Boom! Studios finds itself a Penguin Random House company after an agreement between Random House Publishing Group and BOOM! founder and chairman Ross Richie that will see the company become part of Random House Worlds later in the year.

Random House has said that BOOM! will remain in LA and retain editorial independence and that Ritchie will leave the company, with BOOM! director of strategy Jen Harned leading the LA office and reporting to Random House Worlds president Scott Shannon. It also confirmed that the acquisition included the stake in Boom! owned first by 20th Century Fox and now by Disney. You can find Ritchie’s comments on the acquisition here on Instagram.

Founded in 2005 by Ritchie and made up of several publishing imprints (mostly utilising that all-important exclamation point), including BOOM!  Studios, Boom! Box, KaBoom!, and Archaia, the company published a number of excellent and award-winning comic titles, including Something Is Killing The Children, Lumber Janes, Snarked, and Once and Future. But it’s perhaps best known for publishing Keanu Reeves’ BRZRKR title. And of course, known for really pushing the whole variant covers thing and hoovering up licenced titles, including The Dark Crystal, Dune, The Expanse, Firefly, Garfield, Labyrinth, and The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

As for it’s future… well, Random House is huge and comics are huge and… nope, not a clue, could go many different ways.

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Richard Mcguire’s Here… the movie???…

Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks’ next film project is called Here. You may have heard about it? Should be releasing in November 2024.

It is perhaps the strangest comic adaptation to date, based as it is on the classic six-page black and white comic of the same name by Richard McGuire that was published in the iconic, seminal, important, whatever adjective you want to throw at it really, Raw Volume 2, issue 1 in 1989. The whole thing was later expanded, in 2014, to a 300-page full-colour graphic novel published by Pantheon Books.

If you don’t know the comic, you’re not going to know why it’s the strangest comic adaptation of all time. But I can help you with that… the first page is below – that shows you all you need to know really.

Effectively, in the original six-pages, you got 36-panels of a single perspective, the same location in time, one corner of one room. But each panel, in non-linear fashion, showed us that same location at many different points in time, the earliest being 500,957,406,073 BCE, all the way to 22,175 CE.

The complexity builds and builds as you flit through time, panels are frequently sub-divided, again showing different times, and we start seeing patterns and repetition in the images and words. It’s something you should absolutely have a look at, in both forms. Comics experimentation at its finest. If you’re wanting to find the original online, there are plenty of places – go search – but here’s a small version that gives you some idea.

Anyway – there’s a film coming out. Zemeckis is directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eric Roth and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, and Michelle Dockery. It may well be wonderful – the trailer looks good – but I can guarantee you it’s going to be absolutely nowhere near as good as the book – either the six-page original or the expanded graphic novel.