We’re trying something a little bit different today and concentrating on three exclusively paper-free entertainment experiences in recognition of the fact that we all live in the future now and – no matter how much I whinge about it – comics that you can’t trace with carbon paper are here to stay.
Maybe if it meets with general approval, doesn’t cause hair regrowth, a resumption of sexual of potency, or a falling of the skies we’ll do another digital Power Surge Sunday…
Let’s kick off with the latest batch of digitally archived British e-strips from Egmont UK’s Classic Comics line, comprising decades of superb material from Fleetway Comics, whose decades of existence under a variety of names produced a wealth of action-adventure, sports, romance, schools, science fiction, war, western, horror, spy and super hero stories, as well as some of the greatest and most innovative humour and gag-strips of all time.
In June the comic strip warehouse opened with four volumes from the legendary Roy of the Rovers football serial (originally published in the anthology Tiger from 1954 before gaining his own title in 1976). This has now been supplemented those with a fifth, all available from the iTunes store.
In addition this offering also added four new titles to the cartoon catalogue.
Seminal girl’s weekly Misty blended supernatural chills with relationship dramas and the title feature is now available to nostalgic adults and a whole new generation of fans.
Sinister suspense saga The Thirteenth Floor was a standout strip in short-lived 1980s horror title Scream and critically acclaimed cult combat classics Charley’s War and Major Eazy both contributed to the astounding success of weekly war comic Battle.
It’s a small and non-chronological start but, with the original periodicals in astonishingly short supply and print costs for graphic novels so high, this is a supremely cost-effective way to preserve and promote these fantastic fragments of our history.
With many more titles – such as the astounding Johnny Red – slated for inclusion, we can only hope that one day all of Fleetway’s prodigious storehouse of magnificent all-ages comics wonderment will be available for public perusal… and on more platforms.
Egmont’s Classic Comics are available from the iBooks Store on iPad for £1.99 each by following the links listed below.
MISTY:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/misty-comic-tales-from-mist/id573167123?mt=11
MAJOR EAZY:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/major-eazy-comic/id575022887?mt=11
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/major-eazy-comic-part-2/id575022909?mt=11
CHARLEY’S WAR:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/charleys-war/id575535490?mt=11
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/charleys-war-comic-part-two/id575567566?mt=11
ROY OF THE ROVERS:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/roy-rovers-comic-volume-5/id568395894?mt=11
THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/thirteenth-floor-comic-part/id573170121?mt=11
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/thirteenth-floor-comic-part/id573174728?mt=11
Aces Weekly
By David Lloyd and many and various
This isn’t a review at all; merely the strongest possible recommendation.
David Lloyd is one of the most dedicated and creative comics makers in the business. Whilst wowing the world with a superb body of work ranging from a host of licensed strips including Dr. Who, Hulk Comic, Night Raven, Wasteland, Espers, Hellblazer, Aliens, James Bond, as well as his groundbreaking collaborations with Garth Ennis on War Story and the landmark tour de force with Alan Moore on V for Vendetta, Lloyd spent huge amounts of time and energy training a generation of new creators at the London Cartoon Centre, Cartoon County and elsewhere.
Now he’s finally turned publisher, gathering together comic artists from Britain, the USA, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, China, New Zealand and the Philippines for a boldly new and enticing venture.
Aces Weekly is a new subscribers-only, exclusively digital comics experience starring some of the planet’s greatest sequential storytellers doing the kind of stories they’ve always wanted to.
The first anthologised issue contains:
Valley of Shadows by David Lloyd & Dave Jackson, Return of the Human by JC Vaughn & Mark Wheatley, Progenitor by Phil Hester & John McCrea, Paradise Mechanism by David Hitchcock, Shoot for the Moon by Alexandre Tefenkgi & Alain Mauricet, as well as shorter pieces from Lew Stringer, Carl Critchlow, Mychailo Kazybrid, David Leach, Phil Elliott, Esteban Hernandez & Rory Walker.
True Brit fanboys will be delighted to see the return of farcical-fave Combat Colin…
Stuffed with loads of added extras such as character sketches, working designs, line drawings and unlettered artwork, each volume of Aces Weekly comprises over 126 pages of top quality international strip material, and after the first 7-issue volume has been published on-line there will be a two week hiatus before the next volume begins.
Available to anybody with a computer/laptop/tablet device, internet access and a working credit/debit card, volume 1 of Aces Weekly only costs £6.99/$9.99/€7.99, accessible once you subscribe on the site cited below and get your personal password.
ACES WEEKLY is not available for download from any other on-line site, and is available exclusively digitally.
www.acesweekly.co.uk www.facebook.com/acesweekly http://youtu.be/n1G9iwsTqsc
@acesweekly
What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?
 The Last Days – Truth, Justice and the Way (Kindle Edition)
By Andy Dickenson, illustrated by Sarah Evans (eBookPartnership.com)
No ISBN/ASIN B00A1AIBC8
Once again I’m compelled to admit a potential conflict of interest. I first met the author when he began attending my evening classes on comics scripting. I didn’t need to teach him much – just that the spell-checker is no substitute for proof-reading in our line of endeavour – and he showed me the proposal for a story he’d been working on. He found an artist and was planning to get that sucker done and published. That was in the last century and he’s since become a television journalist…
Some few years down the line here it is, transformed into an impressive debut novel and available as an e-book on Kindle…
In these enlightened days, the signature genre of comics – the super-hero – has finally gained a degree of literary legitimacy. Even if you ignore the pulp exploits of Doc Savage and the Shadow, the novelisations and prose experiments of the bigger comic publishers with their key brands and the success of such series as the ‘Wild Cards’, hyper-powered paladins and crazed masterminds have finally broken into mainstream publishing, but seldom with a much verve and all-out gusto as with this eerie, multi-disciplinary amalgam of supernatural chiller, conspiracy thriller, murder-mystery doomsday drama.
So, just to be clear: THIS IS A NOVEL. IT HAS VERY FEW PICTURES.
Thirty years ago civilisation came to an end. Now in the frozen foothills of Ben Nevis, perhaps the last stable community on Earth ekes out a precarious existence thanks to sullen cooperation and the incredible talents of a few impossibly gifted individuals.
Staggering out of the icy wastes one day towards the patchwork enclave of Albion comes German Klaus Gravenstein: a born survivor with a ghastly secret and a hidden master. The most telling factor in a concatenation of circumstances which resulted in mankind’s fall was a deadly hemorrhagic plague, and when the wanderer fails an impromptu medical at the city gates his quest seemingly comes to an abrupt and merciless end…
Albion was originally constructed as a vast reality TV set and after Armageddon set in the place became a haven for many different kinds of refugee, drawn in by the hope of safety and the wiles and comfortable charisma of a once-ubiquitous TV celebrity.
Here fallible mortal folk rub unwashed shoulders with faded stars, paramilitary warriors, a wizard, mad professors and a band of terrifying telepathic children. Ruled by an aged, self-appointed King and his dubious dynasty of schemers and paranormal prodigies, the far-from-contented populace soldiers on in the face of Armageddon’s dreary aftermath but is soon gripped in fresh terror and turmoil…
The community has its own team of heroes: noble Knights shepherded by an incredible mutant Messiah with astounding powers. Lord Truth had the ability to make wishes real and consequently supplied Albion with much of what it needed, from clothes to booze to guns and weapons – all conjured out of thin air. Yet he too was content to serve King and council, preferring to go on adventures and scavenging missions with his devoted, merely mortal squad of young warriors.
Now the world has been turned upside down. On the last away mission to the remains of London in search of the origins of the deadly Blood Plague and the true cause of the fall of mankind, Lord Truth was murdered…
Teenaged warriors and sole mission survivors Knight Six and Apprentice Tucker are far from forthcoming about what really happened, prompting pre-eminent Psionic court advisor Jon Way and Town Sheriff Sir Walter Justice to conduct their own uniquely distinctive private enquiries.
Neither is aware of the monstrous true threat to the entire town that begins when 12-year old super-telepath Neon Way – one of a core group of child psychics crucial to Albion’s infrastructure and survival – is targeted by a malign seductive force and slowly drawn from our reality into another universe from where she helplessly observes the ancient horror’s vile plot unfold.
In the imperilled enclave the innocent Six and Tucker independently conduct their own investigations into the death of their commander and comrades, gradually uncovering a Machiavellian web of deceit and double dealing, but the love-struck squire is only dimly aware that his beguiling comrade is harbouring a dreadful secret and appalling suspicions regarding the true perpetrator of the plot against Lord Truth…
Events surge into cataclysmic top gear when a ravening, unstoppable supernal monster invades the village hostelry and proceeds to inexorably decimate the screaming patrons before kidnapping Six and dragging her off into the dank service tunnels under the city, leaving only Tucker and Sir Justice to unravel the myriad interlinked mysteries poisoning the city before they can even begin the impossible task of saving the last dregs of feeble Humanity…
Captivatingly visual, cunningly intoxicating and perfectly picking through and living off the pop cultural scraps of our dying society, The Last Days seamlessly blends the exotic fantasy of the X-Men or Avengers with TV’s Alphas and Heroes, taps into the moody best of British Doomsday scenarists like John Wyndam, Christopher Priest and J.G. Ballard whilst referencing the urban horror of Stephen King and James Herbert.
This spellbinding yarn exuberantly mixes mysticism and science fiction elements with the catch-all bestiary of a comicbook universe: Mutants, demons, savvy sidekicks, gods, superheroes, warriors, monsters, mad scientists, obscure assassins and devious detectives all happily consort and interact in a cunning murder mystery that will entice and enthral comic readers booklovers.
Andy’s already hard at work on the sequel and I still think this one would make a stunning and outrageously eye-catching graphic novel…
© 2012 Andy Dickenson. All rights reserved.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Last-Days-Justice-ebook/dp/B00A1AIBC8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352133575&sr=1-1
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http://www.undergroundbookreviews.com/3/post/2012/11/the-self-published-author-awards-voting-is-open.html