A. Heathen

What's that?

It is due next year.

There's the two Vertigo books and the Vampirella reworking (he's doing three of the nine, I think).

And the film.

I don't think there's anything else in the public domain yet, but I shall go all Rich Johnston and give you a cryptic clue:

"The quick Ade Brown jumps over the lazy frog."

I hope that 'Jack Cross' wasn't cancelled due to poor sales when issue #3 sold more than a thousand issues than 'Hellblazer' #213.  Honestly I hardly heard anything about 'Jack Cross'.  I am enjoying 'Desolation Jones' though, despite the fact that it feels like it's moving at a snail's pace.

First issues by "hot" creators would do that, but it'll soon be in Swamp Thing territory while HB is a proven consistent seller at Vertigo levels. Which are too low for DC mainstream.

There's a Thursday meet that I occasionally go to but they started turning up later and later.

 

Join The V here

http://thevhive.com.temp.omnis.com/

shortly to change to here

http://www.thevhive.com/

 

and then I'll introduce you to the Thursdays if you like.

 

Thanks Adrian, have joined up, is the velvet a geek thing or comics, seems a bit non specific, which could be a good thing, mind.

 

J

Started with comics (at the WEF in fact) but covers everything that Delphi forums cannot handle

Only the ones in trades.

I confessed to Charlie that I buy it that way and he understood.

Still no news on Savage being collected though, the bastards.

There's a Thursday meet that I occasionally go to but they started turning up later and later.

Join The V here

http://thevhive.com.temp.omnis.com/

shortly to change to here

http://www.thevhive.com/

and then I'll introduce you to the Thursdays if you like.

Oh wait !

Check out www.duckandbirdie.com or www.foksuk.nl

Tell them Ade sent you.

Was a decent show although a few of the small press folks are unhappy with the cost/sales ratio.

You cannot fault the venue at all.

Best ever.

The Swankiest Hotel in Brighton.

A convention floor the width of the Bristol one, perhaps not as long but with an upstairs gallery and adjacent talks room and bar with bands playing.

Another talks room away from the main hall by the entrance "BOOTHS!"

The hall was nice with convention booths for the biggies and the usual tables for the rest. Just 1 Page on the gallery level next to the artists alley - commandeered for the 24 Minute comic - artists you would not believe ! Henry Flint almost did 24 panels in 24 minutes, Dave Kendall did a Swamp Thing, Kev Hopgood and Rufus Dayglo did the most excellent pair of zombies ... and the star of the strip is "Ron Atkenstein" which led to an excellent topical Roy Keane punchline from Roger Mason. (Sorry to John McCrea for deafening him with the starting whistle.)

Scans of that by next week.

Glenn Fabry turns out to be an absolute gent - but I couldn't find him today for a sketch of my own :-(

Jock has taken over from Duncan Fegredo on the new Vertigo Mike Carey book which is ace news even when you love Duncan's work like what I do.

The reason that the Atheist has been delayed is John McCrea's enjoyment of his family and that he wants to do a decent job on the book but they've had good interest for the story. It will be finished but not soon enough.

I only went to one panel.

Rich Johnston's poorly scheduled Live in the Gutters panel gave us the True Greatness of Liam Sharp (out of place for most of the panel because he "has no feuds with anyone in comics" which was later proven untrue because Peter David disliked his Hulk). As Rich eventually shut up and let his panel join in, he suggested that "MAM TOR!" was an epic warcry and got everyone to yell "MAM TOR!" in unison which caused much hilarity. (Their panel was a response to previous criticism by all accounts, their table certainly gave the same vibe of friendly folk with great art. And Event Horizon 2 looks event better than 1.

To say the least Mam Tor is helping break the stranglehold of same old superheroics ... which led me to ask a question ...

Oh wait, earlier Rich told a story of Gilbert Shelton and friends haring around Paris in a car soon after Princess Diana's death, reenacting the scene with everyone cheering as they survived the tunnel at over 100 kmh and only Mark Millar looking green in the back. Shelton went on to tell Rich he'd had a fan come up and say he had got into the Furry Freak Brothers after seeing "a cool cartoon on a tab of acid". This led into a discussion of unusual comics promotion.

And together with Bob Wayne at the back of the room, led to me asking "Wait a minute, did you just say that Marvel and DC sell so many comics because their pages are impregnated with acid ???"

Bob Wayne did not deny this.

I am now tired.

More tomorrow.

Any questions ?

And in related news, I added to my collection of Charlie Adlard sketches with "a zombie of your choosing" - which turned out to be one that looks like that chap from The Hills Have Eyes (currently in Chris's icon thingy).

Will scan later.

Talking to Jock about his issue and I'll definitely be buying it.

Fingers crossed for the other chap's work on the issue!

Method-wise, it looks like he takes photos and manipulates them into highly contrasty graphic illustrations either by hand or digitally or both - I could be wrong.

 

Nope - that's pretty much exactly it. It's an effective style, and it's made for some incredible covers, but I still haven't seen enough of his sequential work to be able to judge how well it lends itself to actual panel-to-panel storytelling. I find that a lot of artists who rely heavily on lightboxed photographs (or any number of similar techniques) are slightly better at pin-up/cover images than actual story-telling, to my eyes - too often, the individual panels look a little too stiff and 'posed', depending on the type of action being depicted. Given the right kind of story, though, I'd still love to see Tim have a shot at another issue of Hellblazer - as, I think, would most people around here.

I've got some of Tim's books from yonks ago and believe me he can tell a story too.

I can do better than that !

Some folks should expect one of these promo cover thingees in their Xmas mail.

Link to that image if you want John.

By the way, not one person accepted my offer to sign their copy of Hellblazer #214 as I was sort of cover artist.

Well, you already mentioned it. It was a mildly amusing one-panel visual gag, not an integral part of the issue. What more do you want us to say about it?

 

Ooh, get her. I didn't expect in-depth conversations, but I'd have thought it would be the first thing everyone would mention since it's such an odd thing to appear in a comic that's usually played pretty straight.

Harry Potter is a shite rip-off of Books of Magic.

There you are.

But that sign is probably actually there in Kings Cross.

because British Rail are more interested in that sort of bollocks than actually sorting out trains, he said, three hours on the "train" from Brighton.

More of Brighton in a moment, but ... I own some of #181 so it was worth my while :-)

The three ghosts have my hairline.

Mostly The V, which is shortly moving to warmer climes than delphi.

The Engine to read though posting has been sparse - may improve if Warren sorts a music section - and if I ask for "creator" access for no good reason.

That's my three daily forumses.

Other faves are:

Larry Young's delphi forum which is mostly replaced by his blogging,

and the isotope lounge which has varnished,

and Andy Diggle's delphi forum which are quiet.

And some others very occasionally.

Comicon, Millarworld, The Earlies.

much of the stuff I used to get from forums is now on LJ, Myspace and blog

Oh, Tes, a couple of the shots of the lockup were taken on the day of that talk in Streatham library.

Is the character not based on Adrian? :D

No, that's me in the Angel which is where Mike and me meet up for pints in town,

and where the famous "John's 50th birthday photo" was taken (when only me and Andy Diggle were present. John's nearly two fucking years late, I mean how busy could he have been?

I realised - having received some cheap Hellblazer tpbs (and all the Hitman ones) that Glenn Fabry did some nice covers exactly like the one everyone seems to think I hate.

I think I may have to get my copies signed by Mr Fabry at Brighton, where he is one of the contributors to the 24 Minute Comic that I am coordinating.

>swank<

can someone please explain to me the radically-different approach our beloved Mr. Bradstreet used to distinguish the style of his Hellblazer covers from the (pretty similar-looking, much of the time) covers he's been doing for Garth Ennis' Punisher series? You know, the superhero book?

That really has nothing at all to do with this cover, but here's Tim's version

http://www.insanerantings.com/hell/gallery/hb209.html

You will note that no-one has answered my question by illustrating with a Hellblazer cover that looks more superheroically posed than the one under discussion. Merely by the very undifficult task of finding superhero images that don't. I am sure there have been, but don't have time to find one.

There are plenty of exceptions, but

superhero (or if you prefer "mainstream" covers mostly use didactic (false) representations of what lies within. Unless directly referencing superhero comics "Vertigo" covers would be much more at home on a book or a record sleeve. This veers toward the latter for me, although as I've said I am in favour of the arc having a series of similar images.

James has correctly understood that I was referring to the composition.

Since I've already said that I like the style in the short term.

Specifically the whole JLA/JLE/Justice League "everyone pose around central character format that" every comic since the fifties has tried at some point.

Actually it looks look one of those variant "uncoloured" covers that the collectors like. Which is not a bad thing.

Also it is remeniscent of other "heroic pose" covers than the ones based on that statue. Especially recent ones with "Crisis" in their title. And when it comes down to it, that's a copy of the statue not "inspired by" it, the sort of thing art students do for practice and that's cheating.

looks like it could be on a JLA or Avengers or X Men cover

Good call about the cover.

Isn't it the first ever Standard Comicbook Cover Hellblazer's had ?

(I shall wrack my brain.)

It is traced. As I said to Jim Wilko when I first saw it, the blanket from the statue it's copied from looks silly. However, on reflection I expect the third cover to be John standing in defiant pose, his fist clenched to the Heavens in "YOU SHALL NOT >choke< DEFEAT ME !" stylee.

In the third one he'll have no arms.

Yes, it's almost like he's been dressed up and lit to look like the hero of a family TV show or something, isn't it? And young Constantine was supposed to be a bit of a pretty boy anyway.

I'm pretty sure you're being ironic here, but you misunderstand me. My gripe is with his look being too innocent, it's something about the eyes, not the way he dresses. He's got puppy dog eyes. Very pretty, but wrong for JC. He basically reminds me too much of Hugh Grant.

You'd seen him in Casanova, you'd know he can do the cheeky chap required for JC.

"recommended daily allowance"