By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/21/2016
Deep in the grubby sump of one of those so-called ‘Social Media’ sites, there is a clump of aging comics fanboys called The Really Very Serious Alan Moore Scholars’ Group, known to its sad and lonely adherents as TRVSAMSG. When they’re not annotating everything in sight, or calling down ancient evils on the heads of […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/10/2016
Details coming at C2E2. The first Deathmate is a famous – or perhaps infamous – 90s crossover event that was the Zenith of the Chromium era, a crossover between Valiant and Image that gave birth to a rockstar creator tour even as the book itself was plagued by blown deadlines. Creators included Bob Layton, Barry Windsor-Smith, […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/22/2016
Coming in April from @JoeBooksCo. @Aaron_Sparrow @SilvaniArt & whatsizface. pic.twitter.com/ugBXIK3Xmm — Amy Mebberson (@amymebberson) January 18, 2016 Earlier this week Joe Books announced a new ongoing Darkwing Duck comic book, by Aaron Sparrow and James Silvani, thus righting one of the great comics kerfuffles of all times. But as this news was disseminated in a […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 7/30/2015
Just in case you missed my explanation of how manga helped pave the way for a more diverse comics industry, here's a video of me and then-Marvel editor Bobbie Chase in 1996 trying to explain why women might want to read comics. It's from a TV show called The Anti Gravity Room, which was shown on the SfiCi Channel as it was then known, which was a US version of Canada's Prisoners of Gravity. Both shows covered the whole "comics, nerd world" with taped interviews and comics-friendly segments that seem commonplace now, but were unique at the time. I think I co-hosted an episode or two, and I can't wait until those tapes surface.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/26/2015
It’s the 26th of February, and the time is 7.00pm, the usual time for all my telephone interviews with Alan Moore, since the first one we did, back in March 2008. This is something like the eighth time I’ve interviewed him 1, but I still get nervous. There’s the usual fumbling around with a voice recorder, and making sure I know how to put the phone on speaker – I’m totally technically incompetent, so Deirdre, my wife, has to come and oversee all this, to make sure I don’t do something stupid.
Pádraig Ó Méalóid: I’m going to get stuck into this thing because I’ve a long list of questions, at least some of which we’ll get to. OK, I was going to ask you about Steve. Obviously Steve Moore’s death must have been an enormous blow to you. 2
Alan Moore: Well, yeah, obviously, and it – it was a period of massive shock, and of course a few marvels in there. There was an ethereal period. We managed to follow Steve’s instructions, and scattered his ashes on the burial mound in Shrewsbury Lane by the light of, not only a full moon, but of a Supermoon, which is when the Moon is full at its perigee, which is apparently its closest approach to Earth, and it was just at the tail end of Hurricane Bertha so we didn’t think that we were going to be able to really do it successfully, but as it happened, the hurricane had blown all the clouds out of the sky by the time we got down to Shooters Hill, and it was a – a rather magical night in its way, even though I managed to end up wearing at least a small portion of Steve, when we had a difficulty transferring him to the scattering tube. Funnily enough, I’d said on the way down there that I hope this doesn’t end up like The Big Lebowski, with me kind of going on inappropriately about Steve’s service in Vietnam, while getting ashes all over me, but apart from me going on inappropriately about Steve’s service in Vietnam, that was pretty much what happened. But otherwise it was a great night and, yeah, I suppose that after Steve’s death I kind of hurled myself into a great deal of creative work – it’s just my way of dealing with things, you know? Or perhaps my way of not dealing with things, I don’t know. But, yeah, it still goes on, like at the moment I’m, I just went down last weekend to Steve’s place to talk with Bob Rickard3.
I went to the burial mound – it’s been padlocked since we did the scattering there, which – I don’t think it was in response to our scattering, probably more in response to some of the empty cider bottles that I’d noticed around the site, but I suppose in its way it’s fortuitous – if Steve had died a year later it probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as – convenient? – to honour his final wishes, but – no, he’s still an immense presence in my life. I’m still, I’m wrapping up dealing with his estate – and I shall be dealing with that for a number of years, I’m sure. But, yeah, we’ve still got the Book of Magic to come out, which is very very much a joint venture, even if – even if one of the members of The Moon and Serpent is now only active upon the Inner Plane, it’s still going to be both of us on the cover, there. It’s going OK, Pádraig.
PÓM: Good, I’m glad. As you mentioned the book, The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, is there any kind of a timescale for that?
AM: Well, at the moment I have just finished the final article, the big concluding essay that me and Steve had been working on for about six months before last March and that leaves me one episode of The Soul4 to do, and then I’ve got to go back and tinker with the Tarot Card, and the Kabala Boardgame, and some of the other, more art-centred things, and less text-centred – most of the text-centred stuff is completed. As to when that will come out – we would like to get it out in 2016, but that is not a promise, that is an aspiration5.
PÓM: [laughter]
AM: I’m sure that – yeah, you know what that means – we’ve been living under a coalition for some several years now, so we will know what we mean by promises and aspirations.
PÓM: Somebody was suggesting – are you likely to do a performance related to that when it’s finally finished?
AM: Don’t know. Don’t know – I hadn’t been thinking of a performance related to it. Eh, don’t know, is the answer to that, it is nothing that I’d actually considered. These things tend to come in seasons. There was a period when I was closer to Tim Perkins – Tim moved to Oxford – me and Tim still communicate, and we still talk about possible projects together, but it doesn’t feel like the time at the moment when performance stuff is probably at the forefront. I had a very very nice offer from Paul Smith of Blast First records, talking about the possibility of getting some satellite time for something live, but, quite honestly, it would be filling three hours of live – no. It’s not like I – my urges at the moment are not really towards live performance. That said, tomorrow night I shall be going down to the local café, and me and Robin Ince and Grace Petrie will be doing another one of our, just impromptu little events6 which Robin is – we’re recording them all, Joe Brown is doing all of the mixing and everything, and they will eventually be released as podcasts. But that’s pretty much the extent of my public appearances at the moment.
PÓM: I met Tim Perkins for the first time in August. Worldcon – that’s the World Science Fiction Convention – was on in London, and myself and himself and Gary Lloyd ended up doing a panel about your musical output.7
AM: Aw, brilliant! And how is Tim? I haven’t spoken to him for ages.
PÓM: Tim was good! I was delighted to meet him, because I have a lot of his work, but I’ve one question I was asking him that I had always been interested in, which was, in all the musical work that you did, did you play a musical instrument at all?
AM: Oh, no. No, I never played a musical instrument. I am – yeah, I know I’m a fairly multi-competent kind of individual, but no, no. Playing a musical instrument has always been beyond me, and I have nothing but the greatest of respect for those that can, and I tend to – even if I could play a musical instrument, I’ve known such brilliant musicians that it would have been foolish not to leave that side of things to them, and to play to my strengths.
PÓM: Yeah, I know. He did say something about your playing – was it with one hand, was it Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, something like that, on a piano?
AM: Oh, I can actually – because when I was a child, I had a Sooty Xylophone, with numbered keys, and the actual score to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with numbered keys on xylophone, is 1155665 – it’s been a long time since I played it, but I could remember it all the way through, on my Sooty Xylophone. So, yes, I suppose technically, if there is ever any need for a kind of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star refrain on xylophone, then you’ve got my number.8
PÓM: Fair enough. I always wanted to clear that one up.
AM: Well, it’s an important point, Pádraig. No, I’m surprised that Tim remembered that.
PÓM: Yes. Well, it obviously made an impression.
AM: Yeah, obviously, obviously.
PÓM: Tell me about The Show. What’s happening?
AM: The Show. Well, The Show is the name of the project that follows on from the Jimmy’s End films – which, surely to Christ, should be out soon. It should be very very soon – I’ve been kicking up a fuss, Mitch [Jenkins] has been kicking up a fuss…9
PÓM: This is the stuff from Lex Records?
AM: Apparently there’s been unavoidable delays on the packaging side. I don’t know!
PÓM: Yeah, I know, I know. It’s bad enough having to always wait for your comics to come out, but really…!
AM: It’s this film business, it’s – and I am kind of limited in what I can actually do. And it’s the same with the comics business, I suppose. Anyway, that should be out soon, and I have written a screenplay for a feature film, called The Show, which is designed to follow on from that. We have been talking with various parties about maybe making that screenplay into the first two episodes of a serial, which – we could probably have done it, but that doesn’t seem to be – that’s not technically gonna happen. At the moment we’re talking about maybe doing what we had originally intended to do, which is to bring out The Show as a feature film, and then to launch The Show as a television series, so at the moment, that’s all up in the air, and in my experience of these things, some things just remain up in the air forever, in defiance of gravity. So, who knows? But there are talks going on, it’s looking quite promising, and I’m sure that one way or another there’ll be – we’re asking for so little, to do this film, at least in terms of money. We’re asking for complete control, and complete ownership. But financially we’re asking for very little. It would be a very good film – it’d need me writing a few more songs, and it would be very differently paced to the five short films, because short films, they can be as long as you want them to be, and you can linger, whereas a feature film, that’s got to have – I’m not saying that it’s gonna be kind of action/thriller paced, but certainly a lot more conventionally paced for a feature film, put it like that.
PÓM: Yeah, of course.
AM: Yeah, that’s all going on as we speak – there might be more news – I’m sure if there is any more news, that’ll be in a couple of – in a couple of months we might know more.
PÓM: OK, fair enough. Emmm, what was I gonna ask? The League. The next – the third part of the Janni Nemo trilogy is coming out soon…?10
AM: River of Ghosts. I’ve just looked in the box that I got from Knockabout the other day, and I’ve got – yes, very soon, I’ve got my copies already. We are very pleased with it. It’s funny – when me and Kevin O’Neill first got our complimentary copies, we both looked through it, skimmed through it, independently, and when we were talking on the phone later I was – he was saying that he’d been – he’d felt that his art really, it was a bit tired-looking, and I was saying, ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I thought your art was great,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know with my script – I’m not sure that the ending’s not rushed, or something.’ Like, all these little things. And then, after that, I was still a bit despondent, but I sat down, and picked up the copy again, and started reading it. And I got to the end, and I went and phoned Kevin and left an answer phone message saying, ‘Actually, Kevin, I should go back and having another look at River of Ghosts, I think that it might be about the best run of the League since the first couple of volumes.’ And I got a phone call back from Kevin about ten minutes later, saying ‘Actually, I was going to call you and say the same thing! ’ It’s just that, when your expectations are up, and you first see the thing in print – I should know by now that very often my first reaction is disappointment. But then, you read it again and, yes, this is – it’s a bit of a corker. I think, beautifully rounds off the Nemo trilogy, and I hope will put the other two books into perspective, ‘cause I did hear a couple of comments saying, ‘Oh well, we’ve read Heart of Ice, good story and all that, but it does seem a bit – a bit slender, a bit thin, a bit inconsequential, compared to other graphic novels.’ It’s forty-eight pages, it’s like two issues of a comic and, really, it’s not until the River of Ghosts that we get to the end of the story – yes, they are all self-contained episodes, but there is an over-all story that’s going on, which I think we tie up quite nicely in River of Ghosts.
The story opens upon Lincoln Island in 1975, so this is six years after we saw Janni in League volume three in 1969. She’s now – what? – around eighty, and it’s been very interesting – I’ve always wanted, since I started writing Halo Jones, I always intended to have that conclude with Halo Jones as a very old woman, and I – I don’t know, I think that there is something magnificent about old women, and I’ve always wanted to do one with a very old woman in the main role. So, with River of Ghosts I think I’ve accomplished that.
There’s – we see a couple of old characters. There’s a couple of interesting new characters, one of whom might be of interest to you. Kevin found an American newspaper strip from, I think, 1902, that was entitled Hugo Hercules, and this is a very very big, very very strong man. I think it lasted for six or seven episodes – it wasn’t very long-lived. But, yeah, the first American superhero, I think, pretty much. I can’t imagine any earlier than that. Certainly earlier than Hugo Danner in Gladiator, a long while earlier than Superman.
So, yeah, I had a look at some of these early strips, which generally don’t have much in the way of dialogue balloons, but put most of the dialogue into captions under the panels, and from that, in the transcriptions of whatever the accent was supposed to be that Hugo Hercules was speaking in, I finally figured out that it was probably a racist and ill-informed transliteration of an Irish accent. It could just as easily have been Polish, or possibly Trinidadian, but I think probably it was meant to be Irish. So, we’ve kind of worked out, yeah, all right, if this Hugo Hercules, so-called, was Irish, what might be his backstory. Me and Kevin are very pleased with him as a character, and he plays quite a major part in River of Ghosts – which deals with, as you might expect from the first two volumes, it deals with a conclusion to the Ayesha question. Just kind of tying it all up in a neat and somewhat blood-stained bow.
The River of Ghosts in question is the Amazon, which means that we get to – as we did with Heart of Ice, less so, perhaps, with Roses of Berlin – but with Heart of Ice we were very much depending upon the New Travellers’ Almanac, and its gazetteer of fictional sights, and we’ve fallen back upon that quite a bit for this exploration of the Amazon. So, if that gives you any hints as to what sort of things we might be running into…
PÓM: It does! I actually find, I go back and I reread the New Travellers’ Almanac and the Black Dossier quite a bit, because I think that there’s a huge amount more information, a huge amount more stuff, about various adventures that’s coded into those than you’re probably ever going to put down on the comics page.
AM: Well, that’s true. And also, because we were very specific – I think back in the New Travellers’ Almanac there’s already bits talking about Jenny Diver…?
PÓM: Yes, yes.
AM: And we did have this fairly fully planned out, right from the start. One of the things that I’ve thought about is the possibility at some point in the future, of an actual integrated volume of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in chronological order, to see how that reads? I don’t know. This is nothing I’ve discussed with anybody else, so I’m going off the menu here, a little bit. But…
PÓM: I know – from all the stuff, there’s all sorts of bits and pieces, and there’s dates, and it is possible to build up quite a detailed chronology of – particularly from the beginning of the Victorian League, and Mina Murray and all of that, upwards. It’s remarkable how much little bits and pieces fit in. Like the current volumes, the Janni Diver stuff, is filling in more little odds – and you go back and look at something and say, ‘Ah, that was there all along.’
AM: This is it, this is what we’re trying to do. And, actually, having said that it would be nice to put it all in chronological order, there is a lot to be said for the way that we’re doing it, where we’re jumping back and forth a little bit. Jack Nemo, whom we glimpse at the end of volume three, and in River of Ghosts, it’s almost like an origin story. Jack Nemo features in it – he’s a very small boy, a couple of years older than when we saw him as a five- or six-year-old running around on the Nautilus in 1969. We’re stitching all of this together, and we’re doing it all for a reason. One thing that might be of note is that this will be the last piece of work that me and Kevin will be doing on the League for a little while. We – this is largely because – me and Kevin have both been doing the League for fifteen years now. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it actually is.
PÓM: I know. It’s 1999, wasn’t it?
AM: Something like that. Fifteen or sixteen years? And during that time I’ve been doing quite a bit of other work, but Kevin, the League has been pretty much the only thing that he’s been doing, so it’s more like – it’s a long-term sentence. And although me and Kevin are both in love with what we’re doing on the League, I could see that, it was a bit of an unfair strain upon Kevin, because the League might not be the only thing he wanted to do with the rest of his life. So, anyway, I can’t tell you very much about what we’re doing – in fact, I can barely tell you anything at all, except that me and Kevin are going to be doing something new for about eighteen months, summat like that.
PÓM: OK. In a comic form, I presume, is it?
AM: In a comic form. It’ll be an episodic thing. It will be a million miles away from the League. And we’re both very excited about it, we think we’re actually breaking new ground in term of the effects that comics can achieve. Which is, again, ‘cause I know that Kevin’s always had a hankering to experiment, and we’ve done as much as we can of that in the League – the League is limitless in some ways, but in other ways there are certain stories that perhaps wouldn’t fit quite so easily into it, and with this, yeah, we’re a long way away from the League. What we’re thinking is, we’re going to do this, as a break for Kevin, for the next eighteen months, or something, and then we will probably be going back to do book four of the League, but this is a long way in the future, but we have got a lot of good ideas that would – in some ways I’d like to do a book four that wouldn’t be the last book of the League, but could be. And if it was the last book of the League, then everything would be tied up. All of the strands and insinuations and implications in the Black Dossier, all of the tiny little threads, going right the way back to issue one of the first volume, I can see a way that all of this could be tied up splendidly into a fantastic story – but that will have to wait until me and Kevin have had our little vacation. We’re about four months into this eighteen months sabbatical anyway, so hopefully it won’t seem as long as that in the outside world.
PÓM: Before we leave it, can you tell us anything about what’s going to be in volume four?
AM: Other than, like I say, a tying up of ends, it would probably be set not long after 2009 and it would be tying up threads from all three volumes of the League, from the Black Dossier, and from the Nemo trilogy. It would be a – it’s a kind of story that I’ve been thinking of for a few years, but, yeah, after we’ve taken this sabbatical, both me and Kevin thing that, when we do go back to the League, we’ll go back refreshed, and capable of giving – not that we aren’t incredibly pleased with River of Ghosts. Like I say, that seems to have some of the energy – I wouldn’t want to deny the energy of any of the volumes of the League, but it’s undeniable that, say, the first two volumes are paced and structured very very differently to Century. And there were some people who thought that Century was a bit slow, or a bit over-complex, but that was just what we wanted to do with the characters. We wanted to show that it didn’t always have to be a fast-paced Victorian romp, that there was plenty of interesting stuff in this world that could do with lingering over. But, when we finished Century we thought, all right, let’s take a break from that stuff, and do the Nemo trilogy, something very fast paced, where we’re paying a lot of attention to spectacle, where that is a big part of the story development, and that gives Kevin an opportunity to really show what he can do on some nice spreads, and things like that, of which there are a couple of – some of the best pages of art by Kevin I’ve ever seen, in this upcoming issue. Some very memorable little images there.
To Be Continued…
1Previous interviews I’ve done with Alan Moore in various places, including the Forbidden Planet blog, 3:AM Magazine, here on The Beat, and on my own Slovobooks blog:- June 2008 FP I, FP II, May 2009 FP I, FP II, FP III, March 2011 3:AM, July 2011 FP, April 2013 CB I, CB II, October 2013 MM I, MM II, MM III, and January 2014’s Last Interview? Which, of course, it wasn’t. That question mark wasn’t there for nothin’!
2In case you all think I was being hideously impolite by launching directly into talking about Steve Moore, I should point out that there was a certain amount of small-talk in there beforehand, which none of you need to know anything more about. However, if you wish to read my interview with Steve, called The Hermit of Shooters Hill, you’ll find them all (six parts so far) here on The Beat, under the tag HERMIT.
3Bob Rickard is the founder of the Fortean Times: The Journal of Strange Phenomena (Originally called The News, which both Alan Moore and Steve Moore contributed to over the years. He is also one of the two people Steve described to me as being his best friends. The identity of the other one should not be hard to grasp…
4The Soul is a strip, written by AM and drawn by John Coulthart, that was to appear in America’s Best Comics’ Tomorrow Stories, but is now going to be in The Moon & Serpent Bumper Book of Magic.
5A favourite saying of British politicians.
6 Another of these events, Alan, Grace and Robin’s Blooming Confusion is in the NN Café in Northampton on the 31st of March 2015, and there are still tickets available, here. Robin Ince is a comedian, and Grace Petrie is a singer.
7Tim Perkins is AM’s main musical collaborator, with five CD releases thus far between them. He has a hopelessly out-of-date website, here. Gary Lloyd is another of AM’s musical collaborators, having worked with him on the audio version of Brought to Light. The interview with Tim and Gary is slowly being transcribed, and will doubtless turn up on the ‘net eventully.
8Before anyone writes into to point out that the Sooty Xylophone isn’t actually a xylophone, not being made of wood, we’ve already got that covered. All I can do is report what is said!
9This is in reference to Lex Projects’ Kickstarter for Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins’s His Heavy Heart short film, which those of us who backed it are still waiting to see make its way into our hands. It’s by no means the only Kickstarter project I’ve backed that I’m still waiting for, mind you.
10There was some confusion about the actual publication date of this book. It first made landfall on the shelves of GOSH! Comics in London on Tuesday the 3rd of March, and should have been available elsewhere – not just in the UK, but also in the US – that same week. However a labour dispute at American west coast ports meant that containers remained in the docks, rather than being shipped onward, with the result that copies weren’t available until about a week and a half later on the 12th of March.
11Why all the footnotes? I’ve been reading through the works of Flann O’Brien, and bits of it have rubbed off on me. It’s even slightly relevant to the subject of this interview, as it was largely his fault that I went back to them in the first place. Further enlightenment, at least of a sort, here.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/20/2015
Titan announced today they are serializing the Kickstarter-funded 21st Century Tank Girl, which saw artist and Co-creators Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin returning to the character which made them famous in the 80s and 90s.
Last April, the Tank Girl Kickstarter campaign smashed it’s intended goal of $94, 839, raising nearly $300k to fund Hewlett and Martin’s return to the franchise. The project also brings on board celebrated indie artists Philip Bond and Jim Mahfood. From Titan:
TITAN PUBLISHES THE KICKSTARTER SENSATION 21ST CENTURY TANK GIRL!
This June, Titan Comics are excited to announce they are serializing Kickstarter Smash Hit 21st Century Tank Girl!
After a break of more than 20 years, artist extraordinaire Jamie Hewlett has returned to the
iconic character which made his name. Co-created in the late 80s by Hewlett and writer Alan Martin, Tank Girl quickly became a household name and revolutionized British comics industry. This landmark publication reunites the two collaborators for all-new original material!Titan will publish 21st Century Tank Girl as a 3 issue mini-series written by Martin and illustrated by a stellar line-up of stalwarts and newcomers including Philip Bond (Kill Your Boyfriend), Jim Mahfood (Miami Vice), Brett Parson, Jonathan Edwards, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Craig Knowles and more!
21st Century Tank Girl #1 will be issued with two Jamie Hewlett covers, and will be ready for pre-orders in the April edition of PREVIEWS.
Are you excited for Tank Girl’s return? Let us know in the comments!
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/21/2015
While diversity in comics has made strides in the Big Two in the past couple of years, Denys Cowan still wants to see a greater shift in comics:
“We’ve never just done black characters just to do black characters,” Cowan said. “It’s always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work. What we also didn’t do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they’re the black versions of the already established white characters — as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way — [that] these characters are legitimate because now there’s a black Captain America.”
That’s why Cowan is one of the men instrumental in bringing back a new incarnation of Milestone Media. Milestone Media 2.0 co-founders Reginald Hudlin, Denys Cowan, and Derek Dingle are at the helm once again for a new version of the Milestone publishing imprint. The Washington Post broke the news, and made mention of the late Dwayne McDuffie’s influence on the Milestone line.
The original Milestone company debuted in 1997 under McDuffie and the rest of the co-founders. Returning to the imprint are characters new and old. Milestone also created Static Shock, a hero that has a live-action deal with Warner Bros.. If all goes as planned, it was noted that we can expect more news at the upcoming 2015 San Diego Comic-Con as Milestone spreads towards multiple publishers and media companies. Deals making the new imprint possible have been in development for two years.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 12/17/2014
I suspect that I’m not alone in thinking any day that brings new work from Dr Bryan Talbot is a very good day indeed. The fourth of his Grandville books, featuring the adventures of Detective Inspector LeBrock (who is, as the name might suggest to the scholarly, a badger) in an anthropomorphic steampunk Paris, is at least as good as the three previous volumes, if not considerably better. Wherever LeBrock goes, mayhem and a high body-count ensues, and this book is no different. We also have a messianic unicorn, evil criminals, and a Lucky Luke look-a-like, called Lucas Chance. Briefly, if you’re not reading Grandville, you’re missing some of the best fun there is to be had between two covers. I’d interviewed Bryan pretty comprehensively before (here & here), so I got in touch to ask him just a few more questions about Grandville, and his future plans for the character.
Pádraig Ó Méalóid: I had been meaning to ask you, before I started reading this one, if there were going to be any further Grandville books after this, but by the end of it you’ve several trailing story threads that I imagine might take a few more books to sort out. What can you tell me?
Bryan Talbot: Although the books are stand-alone stories and can be read individually, you will have noticed that each takes place a month after he previous one, and there has been a story arc gradually building that comes to fruition in volume five. I scripted it over two years ago now, though have been polishing it since. It’s much longer that the other stories, about 160 pages, and will probably be the final one. If I write any more stories set in the world of Grandville, they’ll be drawn in a different style. The fifth, although still containing some of the humour of the other books, is definitely the darkest story and features one of the vilest villains in the history of crime fiction. Characters from earlier volumes have cameo roles and we finally meet the execrable Chief Inspector Stoatson, mentioned in all the books since the second one but never seen. We also discover, for the first time, [Detective Inspector] LeBrock‘s backstory and are introduced to his mentor, the great detective who trained him up. I’m currently drawing Mary*’s 3rd graphic novel, but will start work on the 5th Grandville when I finish that, in summer.
[*That’s Dr Mary M Talbot, Bryan Talbot’s wife, with whom he collaborated on Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes, and co-collaborated with on Sally Heathcote: Suffragette, along with Kate Charlesworth, both of which are recommended.]
PÓM: I notice that the human characters – the ‘doughfaces’ in the story – seem to be getting restless, and coming more to the fore, in the 3rd and 4th volumes. Will we be seeing more of them in the last volume, too?
BT: They’ll be reverting to background characters, as in the 1st book. It’s in Grandville Noël where they come centre stage and, by the end, there is some kind of resolution.
PÓM: As I was rereading my way through the Grandville books, I was wondering how many different animals you had included in them. Have you any idea what sort of number you’ve done?
A Stuffed Badger in Dublin’s Natural History Museum
PÓM: How do the Grandville books do on the European market, particularly in France, where they’re up against work which they’re sometimes drawn from?
BT: I’m very disappointed with the French Publisher of Grandville, Bragelonne. They are primarily a publisher of horror, SF and fantasy prose and I don’t think they really pushed the books. They don’t even have a booth at Angouleme. The books went into profit (I know as I regularly receive royalty payments from them) but obviously they didn’t make as big a profit as they’d like, as they only published the first two volumes. This, despite Grandville Mon Amour winning the prize given by French railway industry, the Prix SNCF, for best graphic novel, voted for by the rail-traveling public and all the many French reviews of both books, which were universally positive. In Spain and Germany, though, they seem to be quite popular, Noël coming out both places next year. I think a Finnish edition of the first book is forthcoming too. It’s also been published in Serbia, Greece, the Czech Republic and Italy.
PÓM: You mention a third book by your wife, Dr Mary Talbot. Can you tell me anything about this, or is it still under wraps?
BT: As it’s only going to be published in 2016, we’re keeping quiet about it at the moment. Primarily because we think someone else might pinch the idea, research the subject, and produce a graphic novel of their own before then! Suffice to say that it’s another historical story about a strong female protagonist, one that most UK readers will never have heard of.
PÓM: There’s a very brief mention of a cataclysmic event that helped shaped how things are in the Grandville world, in the fourth book. This seems to me to throw you into the same general Wold-Newton Universe concept that Philip José Farmer initiated, and which also informs Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books. That, plus the fact that the aircraft that we’re constantly seeing in the air over Paris look very like the ones we see in your Luther Arkwright stories, makes we wonder if there’s a larger ‘Bryan Talbot Universe’ setting behind all your work. Or is this just something I’m over-thinking?
BT: I never actually got around to reading the Farmer books but, yes, the cataclysmic event is basically a reference to Firefrost. In the Arkwright story, where it’s made clear that its arrival on earth sent ripples affecting reality through all the alternative time streams. I did have the intention on doing a story based on it sometime but, as I said earlier, the 5th is now probably going to be the last of the series. The iron flying machines are common to Arkwight and Grandville, though in the former, there is only one type, a military vessel, and only made by one of the countries involved. In Grandville, they are public and private skyships of various designs. Vaguely inspired by Jules Verne and Albert Robida, I use them because every other steampunk story uses airships.
PÓM: Do you have any idea when we can expect to see that fifth and final Grandville volume?
BT: I’m hoping 2017.
PÓM: That’s a long wait! You already mentioned the book with Mary, but is there anything else we need to know about, to fill up the lonely days while we wait – more Luther Arkwright, maybe?
BT: ‘Fraid not. Not many people realise what a long slog it is, producing a graphic novel. These books take a long time, especially in the sort of style I use for Grandville, which takes up to 4 days per page. The fifth volume is going to be 160 pages. That’s nearly two years’ work, more if I’m away a lot. Plus, big publishers like Cape ideally want the finished books up to a year before they publish them, so they sit around for months before being released. One reason for this is so that they meet the scheduled publication dates. Another is so their reps can show the books around to retailers several months in advance to create interest. So it may be an even longer wait than that! I do actually have a folder full of notes for a possible Arkwright story, and have done for several years, but it’s simply not gelled. Perhaps after I finish Grandville.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/12/2014
What a great idea for a comic programming focus: this year’s Small PressE Expo, to be held September 13-14 in Bethesda, MD, will spotlight the history of alt-weekly comics, a powerful if now vanished, platform that saw creators such as Jules Feiffer, Matt Groening and Lynda Barry emerge along with dozens of other.
And to kick things off, two of those Feiffer and Barry—and Onion/Stranger co founder James Sturm are the first three announced guests.
For decades, alt.weekly newspapers such as the Village Voice and the LA Weekly showcased alternative cartoonists, many of them political, such as Ruben Bolling and Tom Tomorrow. But other strips that flourished in this venue include Maakies by Tony Millionaire, Kaz’s Underworld, and more more. But as the internet destroyed the advertising base that supported these papers, these cartoonists adapted to the web or other mediums. BUt the importance of the work and careers developed in this venue is well worthy of festival examination.
Guest bios:
Nearly seventy years ago, a teenage Jules Feiffer entered the comics world as an assistant to the famous Will Eisner. He soon made a name for himself via his ground-breaking comic strip Feiffer, which ran weekly in the Village Voice for over forty years. Mr. Feiffer and his eponymous strip is considered the Godfather of the alt-weekly newspaper comic.
Active as a cartoonist, playwright, novelist, children’s book author, screenwriter and professor, Mr. Feiffer’s incredible career has included an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters & the Comic Book Hall of Fame, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the National Cartoonists Society. He will be at SPX 2014 to sign his latest graphic novel, Kill My Mother, which will be released this summer from the Liveright Division of W.W. Norton.
In 1979, Lynda Barry’s seminal Ernie Pook’s Comeek began appearing in the alt-weekly The Chicago Reader. For nearly two decades, her comics — which appeared in over seventy newspapers nationwide — inspired several generations of independent cartoonists who saw themselves in her characters, and recognized their struggles in her stories.
Since retiring the strip in 2008, Ms. Barry has been active as a teacher running workshops for hundreds of students a year and doing her best to show people that everybody can be creative. She is now an assistant professor at the Department of Art at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Advance copies of her book, due out in October of this year from Drawn & Quarterly, Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor about teaching art to all skill levels, will be available at SPX 2014.
Co-founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies James Sturm has an amazing resume. In addition to the ground-breaking school he started, Sturm co-founded The Onion as well as The Stranger, Seattle’s legendary alt-weekly newspaper, where he served as the comics editor. Mr. Sturm worked with Art Spiegleman on ‘Raw’ in the 90’s, and was a professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Mr. Sturm also found time to put out graphic novels such as Market Day from Drawn & Quarterly, and The Golem’s Mighty Swing on his own imprint, Bear Bones Press. A true champion of comics, Mr. Sturm has won both an Eisner Award, and a Xeric grant. In addition, his writings and works have been published in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/14/2014
Billy Tucci’s Shi was one of the leading ladies of the Chromium Era of Comics. According to a press release, the character has over 3 million copies in print as she celebrates her 20th anniversary this year. Tucci is kicking off a 20th Anniversary Tour this weekend at the London Super Con, and is releasing some convention variants including two LSCC exclusive books, seen below. While Tucci has been known in recent times mostly for his stunningly researched war books, he’s bringing Shi back later this year with a new mini-series: Hatachi.
And here’s those exclusives:
“Shi – Way of the Warrior #1” LSCC 20th Anniversary edition
and the “LSCC Shi – Sketch A Story” Sketchbook.
Both books are limited to only 25 editions with each signed and numbered by Tucci. LSCC will also see the debut of the “The Shi – Way of the Warrior #1 20th Anniversary Sketch Cover Edition” and all-new exclusive Shi lithographs based on the above art.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/13/2013
Straight from the offices of Publishers Weekly, it’s More to Come! Your podcast source of comics news and discussion starring The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald.
In a More To Come interview special episode, Heidi talks with acclaimed indie comics creator Jeff Smith about his Eisner-winning kids’ fantasy epic Bone, his adult sci-fi tale RASL, the advantages and difficulties of being your own publisher, his new Paleolithic webcomic Tuki Save The Humans and much, much more on this episode of Publishers Weekly’s graphic novel podcast. in this podcast from PW Comics World.
Now tune in Fridays at our new, new time for our regularly scheduled podcast!
Stream this episode and catch up with our previous podcasts through the Publishers Weekly website or subscribe to More To Come on iTunes
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/26/2013
As predicted, Valiant’s teaser from earlier in the week was for a relaunch of their massively popular duo Quantum and Woody, who will be returning in July flanked by James Asmus, Tom Fowler, and Jordie Bellaire. And a goat.
The first issue of the series, which was originally launched all the way back in 1997 when I was still in primary school, will be out on July 10th, with a variety of variant covers from the likes of Fowler, Marcos Martin, Ryan Sook and Andrew Robinson. The Tom Fowler cover will have an interactive ‘talking cover’, with a goat that growls at you. Here’s Martin’s cover:
Talking about the series, Asmus says:
In all of comics, there’s no other book that mixed style and substance quite like Quantum and Woody. I was willing to literally kill someone for the chance to write the relaunch for the new Valiant Universe. I might have. Those first days after I got the call are a blur. But Quantum and Woody isn’t (just) a superhero book – it’s action-comedy, it’s family drama, it’s a boys-meet-goat tale that tugs at the heartstrings.
Valiant also released some preview pages from the first issue, c’est la vie:
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/12/2013
This May Fantagraphics is releasing OTHER STUFF, a compilation of various strips by Peter Bagge and his friends like Dan Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez, and R. Crumb. The stories in the book are mostly outside the famed Buddy Bradley saga, but no less hilarious.
Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff includes a few lesser-known Bagge characters, including the wacky modern party girl “Lovey” and the aging bobo “Shut-Ins” — not to mention the self-explanatory “Rock ‘N’ Roll Dad” starring Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys. But many of the strips are one-off gags or short stories, often with a contemporary satirical slant, including on-site reportage like “So Much Comedy, So Little Time” (from a comedy festival) and more. Also: Dick Cheney, The Matrix, and Alien!
Other Stuff also includes a series of Bagge-written stories drawn by other cartoonists, including “Life in These United States” with Daniel Clowes, “Shamrock Squid” with Adrian Tomine, and the one-two parody punch of “Caffy” (with art by R. Crumb) and “Dildobert” (with art by Prison Pit’s Johnny Ryan)… plus a highlight of the book, the hilarious, literate and intricate exposé of “Kool-Aid Man” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bagge. (Other collaborators include the Hernandez Brothers and Danny Hellman.)
Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff
by Peter Bagge et al.
144-page color/black & white 7.25″ x 10.25″ softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-622-5
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/12/2013
If you’ve ever wanted to own the definitive version of Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise saga, it’s available once again in Omnibus form. Originally released as a hardcover, the 2400 page two-volume collection included what Moore considered the final version of the story, with censorship removed, and storytelling smoothed out. However, that edition is long out of print, as Moore explains on his website:
Five years ago 1,250 hardcover edition box sets were offered and sold out immediately. It was grossly underprinted due to low pre-orders. (Pre-orders paid for the printing and that was all we could print.)
Now, finally, we are making an affordable, softcover version. The Strangers In Paradise Softcover Omnibus box set includes the same two 1200 page books containing every page, every story ever printed relating to SiP! The price for this 2400 page collection in a boxed slipcase? $100.
I can’t make it any more affordable than that, folks. That’s 4 cents a page for a labor of love I spent 14 years making.
The cost of printing the softcover Omnibus is shockingly high. But after 5 years Robyn and I have decided it will never happen if we don’t go out on a limb and take the risk. So we are printing the book at great personal risk, because we believe the fans and retailers will support us and buy the book once it is available. I’ve always believed in SiP. Now I’m putting my money where my mouth is. But I need your support.
A different print will be available with books ordered through Diamond.
Could Moore have raised more money to fund the reprint via crowdfunding?
Probably.
But this way, he just has to print and ship his books, and not worry about all the reward fulfillments that have bogged down many a post-Kickstarter creator.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 3/1/2013
If we didn’t have a previous gig, we’d be all over this. $20 for a hand-bound limited edition of essential 90s artifacts? Hell YEAH. Find out where it all began!
Deep Girl Release Party at Desert Island The mid-Nineties were a golden age for zines and minicomics. During those years thousands of handmade publications were printed and traded across the country. One of those pioneering titles was Deep Girl by Ariel Bordeaux. Bordeaux’s unflinchingly autobiographical stories were drawn in her distinctive style: raw, inky, and expressive. With biting humor Bordeaux addressed subjects like body image, self-esteem, and sex. And Deep Girl was deep–Ariel wrote about her life, but she also wrote about her thoughts.
Long out of print, all five issues of Deep Girl are being republished in limited edition collection by Paper Rocket Minicomics. The proprietor of Paper Rocket, Robyn Chapman, will produce a 128-page hand-bound book with a screen printed cover and jacket. The interior pages are black and white with a small color section. The book will also include a foreword by Adrian Tomine, an interview by Rob Clough, and an essay by Robyn Chapman. The cover price is $20.
The Complete Deep Girl will debut on March 1st at Desert Island in Brooklyn, New York. Both Bordeaux and Chapman will host a release party, where Bordeaux will sign books and perform a short reading.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/20/2013
TweetNowadays we think of it as the pre-mullet era of Superman, but at the time The Death of Superman was an incredibly big idea for DC. A story which killed off their main signature hero was not only an eventual inevitability, but also an idea which would actually have some resonance for the company. Superman [...]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/28/2013
The 90s are out there, and Scully and Mulder are determined to find them. IDW will be relaunching the X-files franchise in comics form. The plan includes reprints of the original series that ran from 1995-2009, and a new series launching in June.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/23/2013
Tweet For reasons unknown—but probably just for the good of society—Kyle Baker (Deadpool, Plasic Man) has put most of his creator-owned body of work online for FREE including early classics, THE COWBOY WALLY SHOW and WHY I HATE SATURN, and later works I Die at Midnight, King David, The Bakers, Special Forces, Nat Turner and [...]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 12/17/2012
’90s nostalgia fans get in line! Van Sciver travels back to the ’90s comics scene in Seattle, when “comics were cool” and hijinks ensue.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/11/2012
Via Popcrunch.
There are several artists on here who show in spades that design is not their strong suit. Or their biker suit.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 5/22/2012
We’ve been following the curious saga of Platinum Studios for some time now, and now, just as MEN IN BLACK 3 is about to open, it seems the company has suffered a blow by being delisted from the SEC:
Platinum Studios, Inc’s common stock will be deleted from OTC Bulletin Board effective May 21, 2012 on account of failure to comply with rule NASD 6530. The company will be added to NBB.
As for Rule 6530, this has to do with filing:
Pursuant to NASD Rule 6530(e), any OTCBB issuer that is delinquent in its reporting obligations three times in a 24-month period and/or is actually removed from the OTCBB for failure to file two times in a 24-month period is ineligible for quotation on the OTCBB for a period of one year.
Platinum’s stock had been struggling early in the year, although a single press release was enough to boost it:
Thus after the long depreciation in which PDOS lost the largest part of its value within a year, now it looks like the trend may reverse. RSI is now pointing up and the MACD lines have crossed. Platinum Studious is most probably by far not in a good financial condition as the company has not provided any current data on its financial results and operations. The last report is more than two years old and according to its PDOS had in June 2009 current liabilities for more than $9.8 million, and another $11.4 million in long-term debt against total tangible assets of around $1 million.
Meanwhile, those who want to dig into the Platinum message boards (only for the truly dogged) will find all kinds of red flags as to why they might not want to issue a filing for two years, and the possibility that founder Scott MItchell Rosenberg is creating a new shell company:
“I believe I said in my last message that my last post would be my last, but I decided to mail in some questions to give Mr. Ruteledge and Mr. Roseberg a last
15 Comments on Platinum Studios delisted from the SEC for failure to file as investors complain, last added: 5/23/2012Display Comments Add a Comment
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/30/2012

When do you let go of that childhood dream? Jim Mroczkowski at iFanboy looks at the fannish habit of holding on to something you hate in hopes of something improving vis a vis the new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon on Disney XD, of which he writes:
UltimateSo far, I have recorded every episode of DisneyXD’s latest iteration of the Parker mythos, and I have risked spinal damage bending over backwards to give it the benefit of the doubt each weekend. I’ve loved the comic for twelve years; I love Paul Dini; I love Brian Bendis. Their show makes me want to burn Disneyland to the ground and pee on the embers. But I keep sticking by it and sticking up for it, like it is going to get better.
No, of course Ultimate Spider-Man doesn’t float your boat. You aren’t eleven years old.
In other words: no, I’m not enjoying this program about my favorite character by my favorite creative team, but what if this particular children’s show about a colorful superhero was a cartoon on the Disney Channel intended for little kids, as opposed to an epic meant for 37-year-old homeowners?
This is the real question, isn’t it? Isn’t it okay to let children have their superheroes once in a while?
We managed to catch an episode of USM the other day. Interestingly, it was on at like 9 pm which, to be fair, is not a time when tots are regularly watching toons. The guiding hands of Ben 10 pilots Man of Action would indicated some attempt at kid friendliness though.
The thing that struck us the most about the show was its incredible devotion to looking like a cheap 90s cartoon. 90s nostalgia!
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/22/2012
Unauthorized: The Story of Rock ‘N’ Roll Comics is a 2005 documentary by director Ilko Davidov about one of the oddest characters in recent comics history, Todd Loren, the publisher of Revolutionary Comics which published unauthorized comics bios of rockers like The Grateful Dead and Gun ‘n’ Roses. Loren was eventually sued by some of his subjects, but the California Supreme Court upheld his right to publish the comics. Although legal, the comcis were mostly a crime against esthetics, with crude underground-style art that didn’t have to worry about likenesses.
Victory was short lived for Loren, however, as in 1992 he was stabbed to death by a killer still unknown, but possibly Versace’s killer, Andrew Cunanan.
The documentary, which features commentary from figures as disparate as Alice Cooper and Gary Groth, comes out in April on DVD, so clear out a spot on your very short “Movies About Really Weird Comics People” shelf.
There’s a lot more about Revolutionary and the making of the doc in this MTV Geek interview with Davidov and some old time Revolutionaries.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/1/2012
Wow, February 1 is a banner day in comics history. It is also the day that Image Comics was created—20 years ago. Via Facebook, co-founder Jim Valentino shared a photo of the founders and one pal on that fateful day, from left to right Erik Larsen, Hank Kanalz, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. They’e all still in the game, all better off than they were 20 years ago. Collectively, they’ve changed the industry a time or two. It was also a day when people wore denim shirts. Ah, what a time…
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/1/2012
It was 13 years ago that an “amateur” comics journalist named Gail Simone ran a survey about the phenomenon of “Women in Refrigerators” in comics. That site — currently housed here — used the moment of Kyle Rayner came home and found his girlfriend stuffed in the refrigerator as a lens for the entire phenomenon of female comics characters getting beaten, crippled, stabbed, mutilated, assaulted and devalued.
Luckily, since then, everything has been fixed!
Or not.
Anyway, the women write about comics site hosted a blog carousel asking writers to update their feelings on WiR. There are quite a few essays linked to and they will take a long time to read. Rather than my summarizing anything there, I will merely say a prayer to Stephanie Brown and Sue Dibny and move on.
Unrelated, but relevant, Sue at DC Women Kicking Ass interviews Janelle Asselin former DC, now Disney editor about her college thesis on marketing to women in comics, and the conclusions she reached from a survey she ran. The whole thing is worth reading, but here’s perhaps the nut graph:
The primary conclusions I made from my research are that there are four different ways the comics industry can adjust to increase sales to an often excluded demographic that just happens – oh yeah – to make up over 50% of America. Those four ways are better marketing towards women, more inclusive content, more effective distribution, and changing the cultural preconceptions of comics. Not every company would need to do every thing on that list, obviously. There are great indie companies that produce content that is already woman-friendly – but people just don’t know about them yet. They would need to market to women better or find new ways to distribute. And better marketing to women would, over time, change the cultural preconceptions of comics.
The thing that surprised me the most was that the answers, as I saw them anyway, were not insane, drastic measures that companies would need to take. These are all within the grasp of comics publishers and retailers. Obviously the cultural preconceptions are difficult to change, but with the other three being adjusted, that would come eventually. It just takes actually considering women of any age a viable market for comics.
We wanted to end this on an upbeat note however. Although we linked to it before, the new This! Moments for women in comics has arisen specifically out of this discussion as a place for triumphant and heroic moments — definitely something worth tumblring about.
I can’t remember him ever mentioning a non-anglophone writer among his favorites – and rarely refers to them on his own work.
[…] from another recent interview, here are some excerpts from Alan Moore’s praise for fellow Purgatorio stablemate Kieron […]