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Tuesday 28 July 2009

Tube Surfing: Billy the Cat, Cradlegrave and Cla$$ War for iPhone

Billy the Cat by Sean Phillips• Over on his brilliant site Bronze Age of Blogs, Pete Doree has posted a short article on DC Thomson's much-loved teen hero Billy the Cat, prompting artist Sean Phillips to respond with this fab drawing of William Grange in action...

Cradlegrave, from John Smith and Edmund Bagwell, has proven to be one of the most popular stories in 2000AD for years. Over on the 2000AD Review Siet, thanks to John Smith, you can now read the script for episode 9 - so you can see how it made the transfer to the page. Warning: there are spoilers and there is bad language...

• Geek Syndicate is running a competition to win a signed copy of ComX's upcoming superhero-styled Forty-Five comic, due for release in December.
Forty-Five is a series of Superhero interviews documented by James Stanley. As a soon-to-be father, James wants to find out what lies in store for his family if his unborn child turns out to have a Superpower.
Forty-Five features Forty-Five different industry artists, all having just one page to capture the essence of each interview. More info on the Com.X web site: www.comxcomics.com

• Talking of Com.X, a company never averse to innovation, they've just announced, in collaboration with Iconology, Inc., that Com.x comics are now available for download from the iTunes store. The first wave of releases features Cla$$war #1, #2 and Path. These will be followed by the rest of the Cla$$war series and other, soon to be announced, titles.
The application is available for £0.59 or ¢99, dependent upon your location. Once you have purchased the app, which enables you to read the comics, you will be able to download Cla$$war #1 and the first chapter of Path free of charge. If you like what you see, you can then download the rest of the books for 59p/99¢ and £1.79/$2.99 for Cla$$war and Path, respectively.

2000AD #1646 features a new Future Shock with art by the legendary John Cooper, from a script by Mike Carroll.

David Hine and Shaky Kane are working on a new Image comic called Bulletproof Coffin.

• Over on the BBC web site writer Mark Gatiss and radio producer Simon Hollis offer a revealing insight into their love of Doctor Who Target books, the focus of their recently-aired Radio 4 documentary, recent Radio 4 documentary, 'On The Outside It Looked Like An Old Fashioned Police Box'. They rightfully sing the praises of those with painted art covers...

• Over on the Coventry Telegraph's web site, David Bentley has an interview with Coventry-based artist and author Al Davison, who is taking Tennant's popular Time Lord to a whole new dimension. Al's new Doctor Who comic for IDW Publishing will consist of alternating two-part and four-part stories, all written by Tony Lee.
Al is drawing the two-parters while the artist on the four-part arcs ironically has the same name as the new Doctor Who, Matt Smith.

The ongoing series is launched with Al's first story arc, called Silver Scream and sees the Time Lord investigating an unearthly mystery in 1920s Hollywood.

"The first arc has already had a very good response, it's a very strong Doctor Who story," Al says. "Tony has really captured David Tennant's voice and personality: you read it and it really does sound like Tennant. Read the full interview, which covers much of Al's prestigious comics career Coventry Telegraph - The Geek Files.)



• Swindon will play host to the Swin City Comics Retro Fair on 26 September, to be held at Wharf Green. More details here on Facebook.

• After a few months concentrating on his The Spine Chillers webcomic, artist Ben Clark has moved hisMagic Beans! to a new location on Blogger. Expect the usual Clark madness to ensue in the coming days!

• Talking of web comics, Forbidden Planet International honcho Kenny Penman has been talking to Richard Cowdry and Daniel Locke recently, with the result that they’re going to be doing the new resident strip for the FPI blog. First Somersault went live recently and should be every Tuesday, just like they did with Darryl Cunningham’s Super-Sam.

• Complied with thanks to Matthew Badham

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