Yikes! Look who's back!

Oh no! It's that bloomin' Hitler! On the Moon in the year 2627 and disrupting the wedding of Copper Scarlet and The Error! It's all happening in the latest episode of Sgt. Shouty of the Moon Force, in The77 No.12, available to order now from their website at this link...

https://the77comic.bigcartel.com/product/the77-comic-no12 

This latest issue includes all new content by various creators plus a choice of covers by Clint Langley or Hal Laren! (Both artists have strips inside the comic too.) 

 

Covers by Clint Langley and Hal Laren.

While Sgt.Shouty is aimed at a teen audience, some of the other strips in The77 are definitely for adults only. 

Cover by Mike Perkins.

 

Also from The77 Publications is Lawless No.1, featuring the strips produced for Lawless Comic Cons. Written by Steve Bull with contributions from a wide variety of artists including Mick McMahon, Steven Austin, Hunt Emerson, Mike Collins, Mike Perkins, Liam Sharp, myself and many more! All profits from this comic will go to Prostate Cancer UK. Order it from this link:

https://the77comic.bigcartel.com/product/lawless-a-48-page-comic-by-steve-bull

Art by me with colours by Darren Stephens.

 

 

Comics! Grab 'em while you can!

Quantities of my comics are running low and I won't be able to reprint them for a while. Some have already sold out but the ones shown here are currently available in print. (Plus three digital only comics not shown.) Take a look at my shop for more info on each one and if you order any comics I'll post them within a week. https://ko-fi.com/lewstringer/shop

Catching up...

 

I haven't blogged for over a week so here's a quick catch up. The image above is a preview of part of a page I've done for the indie comic Goof No.3. An anthology of new strips that will be launched at the Macc-Pow Comic Art Festival on June 27th at Macclesfield Town Hall. Presumably it'll be available by mail order afterwards from Marc Jackson the editor. (I'll post a link here in a new post when that happens.)

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I'll be posting a preview of the next Sgt Shouty strip when The77 No.12 is available to order in few days. Kickstarter backers will be receiving their issues soon. 

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At the moment I'm working on ideas for the next Daft Dimension strip for Doctor Who Magazine. I'm also writing an introduction for a book that someone is publishing that will collect a classic humour strip not seen in decades! I'm sworn to secrecy for now but all will be revealed soon. 

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Speaking of another classic humour strip, the publisher of The Collected Cloak (by Mike Higgs) informs me that Diamond UK will be handling its distribution to UK comic shops. However, bearing in mind that many UK comic shops have little or no interest in humour strips (especially vintage British humour strips) it's essential that you place an order with your local comic shop to ensure you get a copy. There's no point in assuming it'll be in stock otherwise. The Collected Cloak will be solicited in the August listings, for publication later this year, so August is when you need to ask your comic shop to order you a copy. (I'll post more info when I receive it regarding price etc.) 

The Cloak by Mike Higgs

 

There's a new issue of DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE out today!

Doctor Who Magazine No.630 is in the shops now so here's a glimpse of part of my Daft Dimension comic strip that you'll find inside.

Something for your Doctor Who fix until the show returns, the current mag has 84 packed pages of news, interviews and features. Find out more at the mag's official website at this link:

https://doctorwhomagazine.com/ 

 

 

Tom Thug celebrates Buster's 35th Anniversary (1995)

I was looking through some old copies of Buster the other day and even by 1995 the long running publication was still a very good comic. Full of wild comedy action from the likes of Jimmy Henson, Bert Hill, Jack Oliver, Mark Bennington and many more. OK, it had become a fortnightly comic by then, and some reprints were appearing inside, but it was still a lively fun comic that easily held its own against rivals like the Beano.  

I was a regular contributor on Buster from 1988 to 1996 (with reprints of my Tom Thug strips following until the final issue in 1999). The issue we're looking at today is the 35th Anniversary issue, dated 26th May 1995. Sadly, this would be Buster's last significant birthday as the comic would end before it reached its 40th. 

Editor Allen Cummings was always open to ideas and we had a good working relationship. He really was a great editor. (He's retired now but still enjoying his football.) I suggested that my Tom Thug strip that week could include a bunch of guest stars from the comic's past, and he was happy to oblige. Characters such as Faceache, Big Chief Pow-Wow, Elmer, Thundercap, Tin Teacher, and even mighty Galaxus made a cameo appearance. 

This page was a pleasure to write and draw. Admittedly, you could probably see the "Birthday BASH" punchline coming a mile off, but hopefully the sense of occasion made up for it. 

Further on in the comic I also designed an advert for the next issue, which would begin a multi-part pull-out booklet reprinting classic strips from over the 35 years. I designed that too, and I'll post more about that another time.

 

A Book of Nonsense

As you know, I've been interested in the history of comics since I was a child, so whenever there's a new book published on the subject I'll grab it. Therefore I had no hesitation in buying The Great British Comic Riot, a softback allegedly full of info about UK comics of the 1980s. I knew it was Print On Demand, and only available through Amazon, so I wasn't expecting a definitive work. Sadly, it even fell far short of that!

I won't sugar coat this. It's the most inaccurate book about comics I've ever read. 

There are mistakes on almost every page, attributing the wrong strips to the wrong comics, gushing about characters that never existed, and basically fabricating things that never happened. How could an author make such errors? Quite easy, when the "author" is so obviously A.I.

Amongst the chaos that claims Whoopee merged with Nutty (two different companies), that Buster comic ended up being called Buster and Friends, and inventing a "popular" 1985 humour comic called The Joker, it even finds a way to print misinformation about me. 

Claims I wrote two books about the life and work of Tom Paterson. Nope. Total fabrication.

 

Claims I was influenced by Viz to create Tom Thug and that Tom moved from Oink! to The Beano "rubbing shoulders with Dennis and Walter". Nope. I wasn't even aware of Viz when I created Tom, and he moved to Buster, not The Beano. 

The misinformation about me is only mild but I wanted to nip it in the bud before others use it as research. Taking it into context of the entire book being wrong, it's a publication to avoid. Sadly, the A.I. "writes" with such assertive confidence that some will think this volume is an accurate account of British comics history. Nothing could be further from the truth!

If you want to read more about how bad this book is, hop over to John Freeman's Down the Tubes blog where he's posted about it at this link:

https://downthetubes.net/caveat-emptor-the-great-british-comic-riot/ 

In short, give the book a big swerve and save your money! 

(To be fair to Amazon, they did refund me when I complained about the book. However, they still have it listed for sale. I hope no one else is fooled into buying it. Support REAL writers and REAL well researched books on comics history! Kick A.I. into the bin!)

 

Team Toxic in Holiday Horror

As the sun's blazing on this Bank Holiday weekend I thought I'd post an appropriate Team Toxic story that I did back in 2005 for Toxic magazine No.46.

As long time followers will know, Toxic magazine (no relation to the '90s Toxic comic) has been running since 2002 and I produced Team Toxic strips for about 16 years of that run. (These days they occasionally use reprints of my old strips, but of course Egmont don't pay a reprint fee.)

The story is set in Skegpool, which I created as a fictional coastal resort in many of my strips, dating back to Combat Colin. Team Toxic face the Sand Witch, one of the recurring villains I created for the series. (The Team Toxic characters were designed by John Rushby who drew the first 13 or so episodes.) The colours on the strip are by the talented Lorna Miller who was the fantastic colourist on these early episodes. 

Anyway, it's a scorcher out there so I hope you can find some shade to read this blog!