The Sunday Spotlight: The ‘Don’t Let Your Tootsies Stick Out From Under The Covers’ Edition
by Richard Bruton
Time to settle down again to give you a slice of the comics news this week – it’s The Sunday Spotlight…
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Join Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard at FP London for the launch of The Power Fantasy – 7 August 2024…
Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard‘s new series at Image Comics, The Power Fantasy, promises to be one of those you REALLY shouldn’t miss out on – a superhero tale with a twist.
The first issue comes out on 7 August 2024 and both Kieron and Caspar will be at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore, alongside the book’s designer, Rian Hughes, on the day, from 18.00-19.00 for a signing.
Here’s the Image PR for the book…
‘Superpowered.’ You have certain preconceptions. They’re incorrect. Here, that word has a specific technical definition. Namely, ‘any individual with the destructive capacity of the nuclear arsenal of the USA.’
There are six such people on Earth. The planet’s survival relies on them never coming into conflict.
Come dance to the ticking of the doomsday clock – The eternal fight against fighting starts now.
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Maurice Vellekoop talks to The Virtual Memories Show…
“I realized that maybe a 20-page essay on Wagner’s Tannhauser was not the best way to end a memoir.”
The always magnificently wonderful artist Maurice Vellekoop joins the Virtual Memories Show podcast to talk about his (quite incredible) graphic memoir, I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together (Pantheon).
‘We talk about the midlife crisis that led to the memoir (and the subsequent crisis that almost made him give up), the joy and pain of putting his life on the page, his process of self-discovery as a gay man and an artist, and why his mother hoped she wouldn’t live to see the book come out. We get into his (editor) partner’s sigh that told him the first draft needed a drastic rewrite, the role sublimation has played in his art & sex life, his accidental technique for drawing himself crying, how the AIDS crisis did & didn’t affect his life, his decision on how to depict sex in the book, the incredible color palettes he uses throughout the work, and the realization that he had a 500-page book on his hands.’
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Charles Burns interview at Publisher’s Weekly about writer’s block and Final Cut (out in September)…
Chris Barsanti at Publisher’s Weekly talks to Charles Burns on the occasion of his new graphic novel, Final Cut, out in September from Pantheon…
‘Back in 2014, Charles Burns found himself at an unlikely career crossroads. The author, cartoonist, and illustrator had finished his graphic novel trilogy Last Look and had reason to be satisfied. Critics and readers hailed Burns as one of the world’s greatest comics artists, right alongside Art Spiegelman, who published his work in Raw. Burns has won awards, including an Ignatz, multiple Harveys, and an Eisner. His résumé includes everything from series like Big Baby and El Borbah, which defined the 1980s and ’90s alt-weekly comics aesthetic, to album covers for Iggy Pop, to commercial work for Altoids and OK Soda.
‘But whenever he tried to start a new project, it fizzled out. “I went for months and years,” Burns, 68, says via phone from Philadelphia. “This is shit,” he remembers saying to himself. “I should know how to do this.” Facing what he calls the worst creative frustration of his career, he found himself thinking, “Maybe this is it. Maybe I don’t have anything at all.”
‘So, to prove he still had something in the tank, Burns set himself a small goal: finishing a seven-page story. If he couldn’t do that, he told himself, he’d have to start doing something else.’
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Gail Simone talks Misty at the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast…
Superstar writer Gail Simone is the latest guest on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast, talking about putting together three of the four tales in the new Misty Special 2024…
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Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum at Comix Experience, San Fran, for Minor Threats signing, 3 August 2024…
Another week, another major Comix Experience signing… as Grammy and Emmy award-winning writer, actor and comedian Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum (writer and producer on multiple shows including American Dad for Fox & TBS and Community for NBC) join the store from 3.00-5.00 pm on 3 August to promote their creator-owned Minor Threats comic.
Minor Threats is the funny, strange, enthralling superheroes with a twist tale of what happens when an idyllic, Silver Age-style superhero universe is dragged kicking and screaming into the twisted modern age.
Here’s the Dark Horse PR for Minor Threats #1 back in 2022…
‘It’s hard out there for a supervillain. Not the world conquerors, chaos engines, or arch-nemeses . . . but the little guys. The ones who put on uniforms, knock over jewelry stores, and get tied to poles. And things are about to get worse. The psychotic Stickman has murdered Kid Dusk, sidekick to Twilight Citys premier crime-fighter, the Insomniac. The Insomniac’s teammates are tearing Twilight apart, turning it into a police state–desperate to capture Stickman and stop the Insomniac from crossing that final line which he may never come back from. Caught in the middle are the small-time c-list villains, finding it impossible to walk down the street without being harassed by these heroes. With a bounty on the Stickman’s head, former villain Playtime decides to assemble a ragtag team of villains to take down the Stickman and kill him themselves.’
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Join the Sad Ghost Club at Gosh Comics in August – 10 August 2024…
The creator of the great YA graphic novel series, The Sad Ghost Club, Lize Meddings has the fourth volume of the series published in August and to celebrate, Lize will be at Gosh Comics, London, for a signing on Saturday 10th August 2024, from 1-2pm.
If you weren’t already aware, The Sad Ghost Club is all about the trouble of fitting in, finding a place, reaching out, making connections, and what happens if you start to feel invisible in the world. It’s a great series and volume 4, The Vacation Episode, promises more of the same, with the Sad Ghost Club getting an anonymous not from another lonely ghost – but how can you help if you don’t have a clue who you’re helping?
Here’s how the The Sad Ghost Club talks about it…
‘We wanted to create a space where anyone who is feeling sad or alone could come and feel … well, not so alone. Welcome … to the Sad Ghost Club!’
‘When one sad ghost, alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, what happens next changes everything. Because that night, they leave the party and start the The Sad Ghost Club – a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don’t belong.’
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Lakes International Comic Arts Festival announces publishers and creators for their first British International Comic Rights Market…
Announced last week, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, LICAF, has firmed up details for its first British International Comic Rights Market.
The LICAF Rights Market is a chance for comic publishers and individual comic makers to meet with international buyers of comics, the acquisition editors from foreign publishers, hopefully leading to sales to foreign markets with the buyer translating, publishing, and distributing these comics in their own language/country or countries. It’s a first for the UK – indeed, the only other International Comics Rights Market dedicated to comics is at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême.
VIP Brands has gathered all the publishers and titles they will be presenting at the first British International Comic Rights Market at this year’s LICAF this September in in Bowness-on-Windermere into an online resource, available for anyone to access – licaf-rights-market.com. That portal features lists of publishers and the titles being presented.
British publishers attending this first Rights Market include mainstream publishers Curtis Brown, David Fickling Books and the Phoenix Comic, Koguchi Press, Knockabout Comics, Korero Press, Penguin Random House, Rebellion/2000AD, Scholastic, SelfMadeHero, Tim Bomb Comics, Titan Comics, VIP Brands Ltd, and Watson, Little; plus plenty of smaller publishers, including The 77 Publishing Ltd, Avery Hill Publishing, B7 Comics, Blue Fox Comics, Clicky Sprout Wife, Engine Comics, First Graphic Novel, Full Bleed Rights, Pigeon, Sloth Comics, ThirdBear Press, Time Bomb Comics, and Tripwire Comics Presents.
Additionally, individual creators will also be presenting projects, including Yomi Ayeni, Corey Brotherson, Bambos Georgiou, Ed Firth, David Gaffney & Dan Berry, Stuart Lloyd Gould, ILYA, Becco Giallo, Sam Hart, Joe Latham, Tinglin Liu, John McCrea, Monty Nero, Emma Reynolds, Smith vs Smith, Kev F. Sutherland, Connor Tierney, Myfanwy Tristram, Lyndon White, Stevie White, and Andrew Wildman.
All of these will be talking to the international publishers attending for the Rights market – Argo, Avant-Verlag, La Cafetière Editions, Carlsen Verlag, Dupuis, Helvetiq, Nathan, Scratch, Scream Comics, Steinkis Groupe / Jungle, Sylvain Coissard Agency/Scout, Timof, VigeVage Knjige, and WSOY.
