downthetubes.net News Archive: July 2007




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Nemi METRO'S NEMI COLLECTED
26/7/07: Titan Books is continuing its push into the female market with a new collection of Norwegian comic strip Nemi, published in the UK in the free Metro newspaper.
Nemi Montoya -- vegetarian, cynical/romantic, hilariously honest twenty-something Goth -- will appear in Nemi on 26 October 2007, a brand new collection from Norwegian writer and artist Lise Myhre, who will also be in the UK to promote the launch.
Named after Italy's ancient (and supposedly enchanted) Lake Nemi and fictional hero Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride (one of Myhre's favourite films), Lise Myhre's Nemi is a goth-tinged heroine for the modern twenty-something. Already a superstar in Europe, Nemi also has a daily circulation of over one million in the UK, where her strips appear in the morning Metro paper across 16 major cities. The strip is also being translated into Spanish.
Created when Myhre "set out to find an imaginary friend", Nemi's trademark dry wit and independent take on the world has struck a chord across borders both geographical and linguistic, and both Nemi and her lookalike creator, who also designs CD covers and illustrates books, are now growing in popularity in the English-speaking world.

DANDY GOES FORTNIGHTLY
14/7/07 (with thanks to Richard Sheaf): The official DC Thomson website has published confirmation via its online subscription page that The Dandy is going from being a weekly to a fortnightly comic. There have been rumours about the move for some time.
Revamped in 2004 (as downtthetubes reported at the time), while The Dandy has been fortnightly before (during World War Two) fans of the comic are worried it suggests the title is on a slippery slope, in peacetime, towards merger with The Beano, or outright cancellation. While comics very occasionally go from fortnightly to weekly (The Mask comic in the 1980s, for example), they rarely go back the other way.

PORTENT COMICS CREATOR PASSES ON
10/7/07: downthetubes is very sorry to report the death of Portent Comics creator and UK small press activist James Reddington, who died last Thursday from heart failure aged, we understand, just 28.
James, also a ran The Panel for the Silver Bullets web site, started Portent in 2005, intending it as a place for new artists and writers to hone their craft and get published. The company's best selling title is The Adventures of Rob & Ducky, but other titles include Elite, The Dead Forest and Halo.
James studied Film and Media at University, graduating with honours, and worked as a runner, a technician, an editor and cameraman in the UK before taking on a full time position at East 15 Acting School, one of the UK's top drama schools.
Fellow small press activist Shane Chebsey, who runs the independent comics distribution service Smallzone, describes James as a hardworking self publisher and a huge Superman fan.
"I'm sure he's up there now with Chris Reeve discussing the finer details of the character," he commented.
Silver Bullets Craig Craig Johnson concurs. "He'll be greatly missed by me personally" he told Quality Yahoo Group, "not least for our constant arguments over the merits or otherwise of Superman: I guess we'll never reach a consensus of opinion now."
"He also published some great work through his Portent Comics line," says Shane, "often helping to promote the work of new and undiscovered creators, and was supportive of anyone trying to promote the small press or comics in general often giving folks a plug on Silver Bullet where he wrote various articles and reviews.
"He was always a friendly presence at UK conventions, a true gentleman and will be sadly missed by all of his collegues and friends on the self publishing scene."
"James's enthusiasm and eagerness to help never ceased to amaze me," commented Quality Communications' Dez Skinn. "There was absolutely nothing he wouldn't do to join in and promote worthwhile projects with no thought to self whatsoever. He never whinged, never complained, never gave anything less than his all.
"His untimely death is a great loss to us all and a shocking reminder of our own mortality."
Links
• Portent Comics web site and MySpace site
• Smallzone

JONATHAN CAPE LAUNCHES GRAPHIC NOVEL COMPETITION
9/7/07 with thanks to Matthew Badham: Jonathan Cape, publishers of Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, have just launched a graphic novel competition in association with one of Britain's Sunday newspapers, The Observer. The overall winner will receive a prize of £1000 and their graphic short story will be printed across a whole page of the Observer. (The runner up will receive £250).
Challenging aspriing creators to come up with an imaginative and original story, judges of the competition are author Nick Hornby, cartoonist Posy Simmonds, The Observer's Rachel Cooke, Dan Franklin (Publisher, Jonathan Cape), Comica Festival Director Paul Gravett and Random House Creative Director Suzanne Dean.
The deadline for entries is Monday 3rd September 2007 and the winner will be printed in The Observer on 14th October and the prize will be awarded at Comica Festival at the ICA in London on 20th October.
• For full details visit www.randomhouse.co.uk/graphicnovels/competition.htm

LAST ADMIN HERO
1/7/07: Issue #8 of UK indie title Sgt. Mike Battle: The Greatest American Hero sees the start of Last Admin Hero, a brand new three-part story arc. When a terrorist group called A.C.R.O.N.Y.M hijack a top-secret weapons lab, there is nothing that Sgt Mike Battle can do about it. With the fate of the world at stake, the only person who can stop the terrorists is an office worker called John Trojan.
"I wanted to do an action story with an unlikely hero" says writer/artist Graham Pearce "and they don’t get more unlikely than John!
Satirical action hero Mike Battle had has earned Graham acclaim from comics press such as Silver Bullets and Comics International and it's clear he hopes John Trojan will add to the kudos.
"Trojan works for a top-secret weapons lab but he’s in the offices doing overtime claims," Graham explains, "filing paperwork and ordering stationery. The last thing he wants is to deal with a terrorist group hell-bent on giving military secrets to rogue states and the Axis of Evil!
"The situation is bleak" Graham continues. "John is outnumbered and whilst A.C.R.O.N.Y.M have next-generation energy weapons, John is armed only with the contents of a stationery cupboard".
Pearce insists Last Admin Hero is not a parody, but a tribute to Hollywood action films. "I really wanted to do my own action movie. Yes, there are references to Die Hard, Rambo and other "classics" but I’m not doing a spoof just yet... maybe in a few years time".
The Hollywood theme extends past the story as Pearce still promotes the book with a free trailer comic Sgt. Mike Battle: The Greatest American Hero #7½ , which is still available.
Last Admin Hero is spread over three consecutive issues of Sgt. Mike Battle (#8-10 to be precise).
"The story just kept growing," Graham explains. "In its first incarnation, it was only about 12 pages but it soon doubled to 24. I drew half of it before realising that it was lacking something. I went back and rewrote everything but even at 48 pages I needed more space, so it became an epic 72 pages.
"Whereas in the past I’ve always tried to contain a story to a single issue, even if it meant going up to 48 pages, I decided that to get the book out on a regular basis it had to be broken up into three parts."
Fans of Sgt Mike Battle can be relieved that whilst the story focuses on John Trojan, Sgt. Mike Battle is not completely ignored. "The Sarge spends much of #8-9 in the Pentagon War Room but he is itching to get involved with the action. By #10 he’s fighting side by side with John Trojan!"
• For more information, visit www.sgtmikebattle.co.uk

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